Worlingworth Hall

Worlingworth Hall is a manor house with a core dating to the late 13th century, and subsequent alterations from the 15th, 16th, early 17th, and 18th centuries. A main range has 19th and 20th-century additions. The house comprises a three-cell main range and a two-cell service wing to the rear, forming an L-shaped plan. It is timber framed and plastered, with a roof covered in glazed black pantiles. The main range is two storeys high, with a small attic. There are four windows, with 18th-century casement windows without glazing bars, set low beneath the eaves. A full-width conservatory was added in 1987, containing three glazed patio doors (1987) and a 19th-century half-glazed door. Inside, a substantial internal stack features a good, original sawtooth shaft. Gable stacks are present; one to the left, set across the ridge, and a smaller square stack to the right gable end, projecting forward of the ridge.

A first-floor room in the main range contains remnants of the upper bay of an aisled hall, a rare survival from the 13th century. The arcade posts have shallow-moulded capitals, rounded square in section, a feature found only in Suffolk at the aisled hall at The Woodlands, Brundish (approximately 1.5 kilometres to the east), suggesting they were likely made by the same carpenter. Straight braces run from each arcade post to the arcade plates, with remains of clasping passing braces, one extra tie beam close to the open truss. A further on-edge tie-beam is probably later. At the gable wall is a closed truss originally at the upper end of the hall, with passing braces rising into the gable. Tie beam braces are crossed by a further brace with a notch-lap joint at the head, forming saltires. The arcade posts here originally featured half-capitals, but their braces to the arcade plates are now lost. In the 15th century, the open truss was created by cutting the arcade posts just below the capitals and supporting them on a cambered bridging beam with massive, solid arched braces. The beam has a triple cavetto moulding, and the braces a single cavetto, continued down the buttress-shafted wallposts. The side walls were rebuilt internally at this time, maintaining the original 13th-century alignment. A 16th-century stack was inserted into the lower bay of the hall, against the open truss. Two good open fireplaces are visible on the ground floor. A 17th-century inserted floor in the left-hand room has an axial bridging beam and chamfered joists. The remainder of the main range is considerably modernized, with much of the structure concealed. Roof timbers in the attic are concealed, while the remainder of the roof has not been examined. The service range was built in two 16th-century phases, the later cell at the rear being partly rebuilt around 1980. Both phases have plain, flat joists on the ground floor, and exposed first-floor studding. The earlier phase has a plain crown-post roof, with only the main trusses surviving intact. The later cell has an intact butt-purlin roof with cambered collars.