Wingfield House

Wingfield House, Saxmundham

A house, now divided into three cottages, comprising a late 16th-century range aligned east-west with a mid-17th-century wing added to the north, extended in the late 19th century, and altered in the 20th century. The building is constructed of rendered timber-frame and brick, with pantile and plain-tile pitched roofs and an enlarged axial stack.

The plan is T-shaped with two storeys and attics. The earliest range appears to date to the late 16th century and originally extended further east towards the Market Place, but part was demolished around 1830 when Old Bank House was built. The surviving 4.5 bays are of box-frame construction.

From the exterior, only the west gable end and part of the north wall are visible, truncated by the later Old Bank House. The rendering and brick-facing on the west gable has been removed to expose the original timber-framing. The ground floor has an off-centre 19th-century plank door and a late 18th-century casement window; the floors above contain similar casements, one on each level.

The mid-17th-century extension comprises a north wing of two bays in two storeys with attic, its roof slightly higher than the original range. The walls were faced with stock brick in the 19th century, but removal has revealed a timber-frame with brick infill. The north gable end has a late 18th-century casement window on each floor. A two-storey brick extension on the west wall of this range contains 19th-century casements.

Internally, the late 16th-century south range comprises two rooms divided by a large brick stack with a 19th-century winder staircase built against it in the east room. Fireplaces on each side of the stack serve ground and first-floor levels. The fireplace openings have flat heads formed by chamfered bricks, later concealed but recently re-exposed. The timber-frame of the original building, showing close studding and mullioned windows, is exposed in several places. A five-light window with ovolo mullions survives on the ground floor. Various chamfered and stopped bridging beams are present, including one with jewel stops. The first floor displays exposed close studding with curving angle braces between the corner posts and wall-plates, halved over the inside faces of the intervening studs. The main wall posts are slightly jowled. The 19th-century stair winds to the attic storey, also divided into two rooms. The roof is of collar purlin construction with two tiers of purlins and windbraces to the upper tier.

The mid-17th-century wing is constructed over a brick-built cellar, divided into two by a brick wall, presumably when the house was subdivided into cottages. Built into three walls of the cellar are a series of identical, regularly spaced triangular-headed niches. Their original function is unclear; they are not deep enough for storage and may have held some form of lighting, though they seem rather large for this purpose. Two large round-headed recessed openings are present in the east wall. The wooden ground floor of the north wing forms the roof of the cellar, accessed by ladder. The ground floor is heated by a fireplace on the south wall, formed by the addition of a flue to the side of the original stack; the chimneypiece has been removed. A panelled cupboard of 18th-century date is set into the west wall. A narrow winder staircase set against the five-light mullion window of the original building, now exposed, gives access to the first floor, which retains some 18th-century panelling. The roof is of collar purlin construction with two tiers of staggered butt purlins.

The building's location on the edge of the Market Place in Saxmundham is of historical interest. Saxmundham was an important market town throughout the medieval period, and the original house was likely owned by people of some status in the town, with parts possibly having had commercial use.

Although altered and extended, Wingfield House retains a significant part of a late 16th-century timber-frame and has largely escaped modernisation, preserving features of sufficient rarity and interest to merit its retention on the heritage list.