The Almshouses

TL 96 SE ELMSWELL CHURCH ROAD

5/28 Nos. 1 to 3 (consec) The 15.11.54 Almshouses (formerly listed as Elmswell Hill Almshouses) GV II

Terrace of 3 cottages. Built as 6 almshouses, c.1614 for Sir Robert Gardener. Narrow red/buff bricks, with parapet gables. Slated roof: two internal chimneys of red/buff bricks with sawtooth shafts and a similar chimney rising from apex of each gable. One storey. 6 windows. Two-light mullioned windows with plastered surrounds in simulation of ashlar work. An ovolo-moulded label at the head: C20 steel casements with leaded lights. A central entrance doorway: plastered outer frame with cambered head and heavy wooden inner frame, and C18/C19 boarded door. A pair of doorways to each of the end cottages: plaster-work and label to match windows. Flat chamfered head supported by heavy wooden frame. The right-hand pair of doors are of battened plank form and may be original. The left-hand pair of boarded doors are unoriginal: one blocked, the other C18/C19. Over the central doorway is a gable, within which is a square sundial. Beneath the sundial is a square limestone panel inscribed: "SIR ROBERT GARDENER KT. SOMETIME LORD OF THESE MANORS OF ELMSWELL AND WOLPIT FOUNDED THIS ALMSHOUSE IN YE TIME OF HIS LIFE AN° 1614 AND GAVE UNTO IT SUFFICIENT MAINTENANCE FOR SIX POORE WOMEN WIDOWS TO CONTINUE FOR EVER".

Listing NGR: TL9826263616