Snape Bridge House including entrance walls and gate piers, glass house and garden store

Snape Bridge House is a mid-19th century cottage orné dwelling begun in 1854 for Newson Garrett, who used it during busy winter months at Snape Maltings. The house is constructed of brick, variously painted, rendered or hung with tiles. The roofs combine thatch at the front with fish-scale and squared Welsh slates towards the rear.

The building comprises a single storey of family accommodation above a service basement, with an upper storey of additional bedrooms added in 1909. This later addition has not altered the principal elements of the original plan.

The principal elevation faces west and extends five bays beneath a pitched thatched roof with an ornamental ridge and gabled cross-wings at each end. Moulded brick chimney stacks flank the central three bays. The ground floor is covered in hung tiles with a fish-scaled central band, while the basement is rendered in roughcast with thick window surrounds. The entrance is approached via a flight of steps and a glazed porch with a thatched mono-pitch roof. On each side of the porch are windows with chamfered-brick reveals. The cross-wings feature canted bay windows with large-paned sashes and tiled swept roofs.

To the south, the rising ground conceals the basement from view. Two gabled bays on the left-hand side, part of the 1850s construction phase, are covered in hung tiles with multi-light rectangular windows at ground floor and lattice-paned lancet windows in the attics. The 1909 extension on the right is connected by a set-back link corridor with a pitched slate roof and plain render. This link contains a 20th century door with side light and allows light to reach two four-paned windows on the return elevation of the original house. The 1909 range has a single six-paned casement at ground floor, three six-paned windows at first floor, and a diamond-shaped attic window. Its south elevation features two multi-pane timber casement windows at ground floor and two at first floor within a broad central gable clad in tarred pine weatherboarding.

A 2008 conservatory occupies the south-east corner, abutting the east gable wall of the two-storey range. Above it at first floor is a multi-pane casement, and at attic level a diamond-shaped window. Adjoining the conservatory to the north is the billiard room, its gabled east elevation featuring a canted bay window with margin lights and swept slate roof. Above the bay window is a panel of relocated architectural salvage and a crudely cut-away cruciform window. The roof has plain barge boards with console brackets at each end and the base of a central finial.

The long north elevation comprises two main sections. The left-hand side features later 19th century construction with a long range at the east end containing a single stack and small rectangular window. Adjacent are two gabled roofs with finials and decorative ridge tiles, each with a canted bay window and swept roof covered in Welsh slate; the right-hand gable uses fish-scale slates. The basement is revealed by the sloping ground, with a window and doorway at the base of the canted bays. The forward part of the linking structures has a canted oriel window and at basement level a pointed arch containing a wooden door with cat flap. The right-hand side of the north elevation stands proud and is rough-cast rendered at basement level with hung tiles above, continuing the central fish-scale tile band from the front elevation. It has two thatched gables and two canted bay windows with swept tile roofs.

The interior retains the original sense of a single high-status storey above a service basement, evident in the surviving Victorian and Edwardian fabric including ground floor joinery, skirting boards, cornices, dado and picture rails, door and window furniture, fire surrounds and chimney breasts. The front door has four raised and fielded panels with triangular sections and opens into a reception hall with a bolection moulded fire surround covered in moulded foliage.

A large north-west room has been formed from two originally separate spaces. One fireplace has been removed; the remaining fireplace has a classically detailed surround and mirrored overmantle. Some rooms retain original fire grates, most retain original doors and windows, and many feature bell-pushes for servants.

The link corridor and dining room contain joinery variously dated 1889, 1899 and 1900. The dining room also features a moulded plaster ceiling.

The billiard room has a common purlin roof with false hammerbeam trusses and decorative corbels featuring sculptural heads. An elaborate stone fire surround in Renaissance revival style dominates the room. The pine floor is interrupted by a brick-lined recess accommodating the billiard table heating system. The east end contains a bay window with French doors and stained-glass margin lights, above which is a plaster quatre-foil in loose Decorated style with stained and leaded glass. At the west end is a carved monogram, possibly HCC.

The 1909 two-storey range features three-panelled doors and high degree of Edwardian fabric survival. Its most notable feature is the staircase, with a pine balustrade having a grid of balusters and rails and an oak grip handrail.

The original roof structures survive in pine construction with common rafters.

The basement retains high degree of original fabric relating to its service function, including chimney breasts, doors, windows, brick and pamment floors, a copper, a bread oven (marked W Wells, Saxmundham), a boiler (marked Musgraves, Belfast), coal stores, and a wine cellar with wine bins.

Associated with the house are entrance walls of serpentine brick with inset panels terminating in octagonal gate piers with domed concrete finials. The gates are early 21st century replacements. A glass house stands on the north side of the rear garden, built of red brick in stretcher bond and glazed in timber frames, with a floor mostly covered in Suffolk white bricks marked 'B&H'. A free-standing garden store, likely dating to around 1859, stands on the north side of the house. It is constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond with a pitched roof of Welsh fish-scale slates. Single-celled in plan with east and west gables, it has a doorway on the west wall and a small window facing south, with a roof of pine common rafters.