81, Guildhall Street

House, now offices, at 81 Guildhall Street, Bury St Edmunds

This is an 18th-century house with substantial alterations and additions made between 1789 and 1791 by the architect John Soane for James Oakes, a yarn merchant who later became a banker in Bury St Edmunds. The building is constructed of red brick with roofs that are part pantiled and part slate.

The exterior presents a sophisticated composition of 2 storeys with cellars and attics. The main body consists of a centre block flanked by two pedimented wings. The centre block features a stuccoed parapet with a Ketton stone cornice, dentils and plinth. It has a 5-window range arranged in the pattern 2:1:2, with the centre bay breaking forward slightly. All windows are 12-pane sashes in flush cased frames with flat gauged arches. A raised brick band runs across the building at the level of the first storey window sills. Three segmental-headed dormer windows punctuate the roof of the centre block. The central doorway is particularly fine, with a 6-panel door and a semicircular fanlight featuring heavy ornate glazing, set within a Tuscan doorcase with an open pediment and engaged columns.

The pedimented wings to north and south were added by Soane and are linked to the centre block by narrow slightly recessed bays. These bays contain a single sash window in plain reveals on the upper storey and a 6-panel door with a plain rectangular fanlight below. Each wing has a 12-pane sash window to the upper storey in plain reveals with a flat gauged arch. The ground storey of each wing features a tripartite sash window set in a segmental-arched recess with a lintel ornamented with 9-leaf paterae. A circular lunette sits in the tympanum of each pediment.

The north wing was originally designed as a counting-house with a dining parlour for customers above, and from 1794 it became the premises of Oakes' Bury and Suffolk Bank. The south wing contained a dining-room with a drawingroom above. Screen walls with brick dentilled parapets flank the wings to north and south; each stretch comprises 3 bays with recessed panels divided by pilasters. The south wall has two 6-panel doors and one sash window on the ground storey, while the north wall has one 6-panel door.

Two rear wings extend from the main building. The northern rear wing has a mansard roof, slated on the upper slope and plaintiled on the lower. Facing St Andrew's Street to the north is an early 19th-century range constructed in brick and flint, originally part of James Oakes' yarn warehouses, connected to the main building by a 20th-century link.

Interior features are substantial and of high quality. Extensive brick-lined cellars lie below the original centre part of the building. Within the central range is a fine late 18th or early 19th-century geometrical stair and balustrade with a moulded wreathed and ramped handrail, fluted open strings and delicate turned balusters. A simpler rear winder stair has a wreathed handrail and stick balusters. The area between the two parallel rear wings has been converted into a large 2-storey hall with 20th-century roofing. A sash window in the former back wall is semicircular-headed with radiating glazing bars. The Soane extensions to north and south contain internal window shutters with sunk panels. At the north end is a fireplace with a fluted architrave and paterae.