The Sun Inn

The Sun Inn is part of a former mansion, dating to the early 16th century, and has undergone alterations in the late 16th and 20th centuries. It is timber framed with plaster infill and has a roof of handmade red plain tiles. The building comprises a three-bay range facing southeast, with a roof in three parallel ranges aligned northwest-southeast, featuring gable ends to the street. There’s an internal stack serving the middle bay and the right bay, and an external stack originally to the left of the left bay, now partially enclosed by a 20th-century addition. A single-storey extension was added to the rear around 1980.

The front elevation includes a 19th-century three-light casement window with horizontal glazing bars, a section of 20th-century casements, and three early 19th-century sash windows of 16 lights, each fitted with 20th-century external louvred shutters. Two plain boarded doors, one with a single light and overlight, complete the facade. A full-length jetty features an early 16th-century fascia carved with a folded leaf design, along with one moulded bracket and one carved and moulded bracket at the left end. Late 16th-century projecting gables display hanging brackets and carved pendants, and 19th-century carved bargeboards. The front elevation is plastered and painted to imitate exposed timber framing, a less ornate representation of the original design. The main stack features two octagonal shafts, reconstructed in the 19th century.

The original entrance was located on the line of the present left door, and is now largely occupied by the bar. The left ground-floor room contains a binding beam with double-ogee moulding, joists plastered to their soffits, and a wood-burning hearth with a depressed brick arch. The right ground-floor room features a binding beam with similar moulding, incorporating a carved folded leaf design, horizontally moulded joists with carved leaf stops, exposed close studding, and a wood-burning hearth with a mantel beam carved with three pomegranates, foliage and cable design. The left first-floor room showcases exposed close studding with paired curved braces trenched to the inside, a wood-burning hearth retaining original plaster, jowled posts, and a chamfered tie beam with lamb's tongue stops. The right first-floor room includes a wood-burning hearth, a mantel beam carved with three pomegranates and foliage, a large sill for a former oriel window.

A rare original gallery extends across the rear elevation, with exposed studding internally below the rail, but plaster above; a doorway with roll moulding opens from the gallery into the middle first-floor room. The jowls of the inner posts are aligned northwest-southeast; those of the corner posts are aligned northeast-southwest. The roof was rebuilt in the late 16th century in three parallel ranges, using a clasped purlin construction with arched wind braces, and projects slightly to the front with contemporary decorative details.