Masongill House

BURY ST EDMUNDS

TL8563NW WHITING STREET 639-1/15/723 (West side) 12/07/72 No.69 Masongill House

GV II

House. C15 and C16 with later fronting. Timber-framed and rendered with applied mock timbering. Plaintiled roof with a modillion eaves cornice. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and cellar: 2 wings at rear. 2 windows to each storey: 16-pane sashes to the 1st storey, tripartite sashes with 12-pane central windows to the ground storey, all in flush cased frames. A 6-panel entrance door with the top 4 panels glazed has a moulded architrave and a shallow hood on shaped brackets. It is approached by steps with iron handrails, and surrounded by a C20 cast-iron openwork porch. INTERIOR: brick-lined cellar. Front range in 2 long bays. The room on the left of the entry has some exposed studding on the rear wall and a fireplace on the south side wall. A cast-iron C19 grate has a row of C17 blue Dutch tiles above. The room to the right has a main beam which has been adzed back and chamfered flat joists with step stops. A chimney-stack on the rear wall has an open fireplace with a plain timber lintel and old brickwork rebuilt. Part of the upper stack is in flint. The north rear wing is in 2 bays, originally forming a single room on each storey, but now with partitioning. The fireplace on the west side of the internal chimney-stack has a very large plain cambered lintel with supporting stone jambs in an altered position. On the upper storey, the north wall has exposed studding and very heavy tension bracing. The cambered tie-beam of the former open truss has a peg-hole for a crown-post, but the roof above is a complete C20 replacement. The base and part of the shaft of the crown-post remain in the house, the shaft octagonal with curved stops to the base. The south wing abuts on the rear wing of No.68 (qv). The roof over the front range was reconstructed in the C19; it incorporates a number of earlier rafters, including some with smoke blackening from the roof of an open hall, possibly from an earlier form of the present house.

Listing NGR: TL8531863996