10 Earsham Street including 1A Broad Street

A house dating to the late 18th or early 19th century with a billiard room extension built in 1892 to the designs of Bernard Smith.

The building occupies a corner plot between Earsham Street and Broad Street. The earliest part, at 10 Earsham Street, has a roughly square plan with rear 19th-century extensions which adjoin the billiard room extension. The recessed area between them contains a 1970s infill.

The Main House

The early part of the building comprises three storeys with a shallow-pitched hipped roof, a dentilled brick eaves cornice, and a brick plinth. The materials are red brick laid in Flemish bond with brick dressings and a slate roof covering.

The principal elevation faces onto Earsham Road and contains two bays with a front door in the first bay. The neo-classical canopied doorcase is of the reeded and roundel type. The glazing in the rectangular fanlight has been replaced in the 20th century, as has the six-panel door. Above the door, the first floor is lit by a six-over-six-pane sash window, flush with the wall, under a gauged brick arch. The second bay is lit on each floor by modern sash windows. That on the ground floor occupies the position of a door that has been bricked up, whilst those on the upper floors are in new openings.

The right return, which faces north-east onto Broad Street, is lit on all floors by modern sash windows, those on the first floor having gauged brick arches. Adjoining this to the right is a later 19th-century two-storey, single-bay extension under a hipped roof, lit by 20th-century sash windows. Attached to the rear right-hand corner of this extension is a short range under a pitched roof clad in plain clay tiles. The façade of this range is obscured by the 1970s infill, which consists of a narrow two-storey extension and a covered open-sided entrance to the museum.

The front door opens into the staircase hall, which retains the original dogleg staircase with carved tread ends and stick balusters supporting a moulded handrail that terminates in a scroll. The window on the first-floor landing is set within a moulded surround with a panelled soffit and shutters. The building has been converted into three flats. In the two flats inspected, no original or historic fixtures or fittings remained. In the rear extensions, the two first-floor rooms are in use as Bungay Museum. They retain picture rails and plain skirting boards, and one has a blocked-up fireplace.

The Billiard Room Extension (1892)

The billiard room extension, designed by Bernard Smith, is a tall building of two storeys under a hipped roof with wide eaves and a moulded timber eaves cornice. It is constructed of red brick laid in English bond with oak dressings and has a roof covering of plain tiles with bonnet tiles along the verges.

The wide plaster cornice below the eaves is decorated with neo-Jacobean strapwork incorporating the owner's initials 'FS' and the date '1892'. Underneath this is a band of moulded brick enriched with guilloche and egg-and-dart. The principal north-east elevation is dominated by a large first-floor oriel window positioned directly underneath the eaves. The seven-light window has moulded wooden glazing bars and a transom and is filled with leaded lights in a swirling foliate pattern. The cornice is delicately dentilled and the wide plaster band below is decorated with elaborate strapwork incorporating figures and masks, and a narrow band of egg-and-dart. The ground floor is lit by three tall three-light windows with wooden frames, all 20th-century replacements.

The right return (north-west elevation) has a central double-height projection with brick corbels. The left corner of this projection has been rebuilt at ground-floor level in 20th-century brick and concrete. The ground floor is lit by a continuous row of three square-paned casement windows with wooden glazing bars. This is flanked by doorways under gauged brick arches, the right containing a six-panel door whilst the left has been bricked up. The five-light mullion window with a transom at first-floor level has the same design of leaded lights and dentilled cornice as the oriel.

The rear elevation is dominated by a projecting staircase bay with a tall decorative stack embellished with brick ribs and an oversailing, dentilled cornice. The staircase bay is lit by narrow sash windows with moulded wooden sills, except those on the upper floor which light the inglenook: these have leaded lights in the same foliate pattern as the façade. To the right, the projecting upper floor has a gable to the left supported by curved wooden brackets with drop finials, and applied timber framing in the form of close studding with decorative panels along the bottom. Below, the wall has been plastered over where previous extensions have been removed. The single-storey, flat-roofed garden corridor projects into the garden below the timber-framed gable. It has a delicate dentilled cornice and a canted projection in the middle along the north side. At the left end there are panelled double-leaf doors in which the upper panels are filled with elaborate geometric glazing bar patterns. A continuous band of fenestration along the north side consists of four-light windows with a moulded mullion and transom, filled with the geometric glazing already described, each flanked by turned pilasters. The other sides of the corridor have been plastered.

Interior of the 1892 Extension

The billiard room is located on the first floor and survives in a highly decorative neo-Jacobean style with a high level of intactness, including the unpainted joinery, parquet floor, brass curtain poles, window ironmongery and wall-mounted gas light fittings. Small square panelling, raised and fielded with moulded edges, lines the lower half of the walls and has a dentilled cornice with scrolls at the corners. The area between the panelling and picture rail is covered in the original green flock wallpaper. Above the picture rail is a plaster frieze with a swirling foliate design incorporating Tudor roses, and a modillion cornice enriched with a dentilled course. The plasterwork ceiling has a delicate strapwork design edged with egg-and-dart and strapwork.

The inglenook is framed by a wide opening with panelled jambs and an entablature consisting of a bolection moulded frieze with strapwork decoration and acanthus leaves at each end, and a modillion cornice enriched with egg-and-dart. It has a panelled ceiling edged with egg-and-dart, the panels bearing an intricate foliate pattern. The fireplace has a moulded stone surround and fender, and a wooden frieze decorated with strapwork and a dentilled cornice. It is complete with grate and fireback, and tiles on the hearth and sides which have a deep yellow flower pattern with a turquoise trim. The elaborate overmantel has a square-within-a-square design with moulded strapwork panels flanked by fluted pilasters with strapwork plinths and scrolled capitals. The oriel window, on the opposite wall to the inglenook, contains a window seat in a panelled alcove.

The ground floor, formerly devoted to additional offices according to The Builder, retains very little of the original joinery, fixtures and fittings. The staircase leading up to the billiard room has been replaced in the 20th century. The garden corridor, accessed through a wide arch opening with roll mouldings, has a geometric tiled floor.