Aldringham Court

Aldringham Court is a large house, now a care home, built between 1912 and 1914 by Cecil H. Lay for his own residence. It is constructed of rendered and colourwashed brick with brick dressings, and has a low parapet with striped brick stacks and plain tile roofs. The architectural style is Edwardian eclectic or Art Nouveau, featuring curving brick-coped gables with fine cornices to the curved apex, curved iron spikes at the lower corners, pargetted fruit and leaf drops and roundels, and curving balconies. The building is arranged as a double 'H' plan, with an additional gabled wing to the rear right.

The east-facing entrance front has seven windows at first floor level, which are late 20th-century uPVC windows in the original openings. Lintels and sills in alternating tones create a striped effect. A central, projecting two-storey entrance porch has a downward curving hood over the part-glazed panelled front door, which is approached by a flight of steps. Gable ends on either side of the entrance front have first-floor curved balconies in front of windows, with chequer tile panels below. These gable ends feature brick quoins with cornice tops, creating the impression of corner pilasters, a design repeated at the principal corners and projecting gables of the house. A simpler decorative scheme is applied to the central porch and the smaller projecting gables. The rear gable of the right wing displays a large plaster cartouche with the date AD 1914, and the rear of this wing features a triple-arched decorative panel. Later 20th-century single-storey rear extensions are of little architectural interest.

The interior was altered in 1989 when the house was converted into four flats and the original galleried staircase hall was divided. Further alterations have occurred, but some rooms retain their original shape, and a fireplace survives in the reception room to the far left of the front door.

Cecil Howard Lay (1885-1956), born in Aldringham, trained with the Suffolk architect JS Corder and studied at the Architectural Association, including time spent in France and Belgium. He established his own practice in 1912 and became a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1924. An antiquarian, poet, and painter, Lay designed buildings in Aldringham and elsewhere, contributed to the town planning of Leiston, and restored Aldeburgh Parish Church. Aldringham Court, originally known as Raidsend, is considered his finest work and is notable for the survival, with little alteration, of its exterior, which is a well-executed example of Art Nouveau architecture with high-quality decorative details.