4 And 4A, The Traverse

BURY ST EDMUNDS

TL8564SW THE TRAVERSE 639-1/14/633 Nos.4 AND 4A 07/08/52

GV II

House, now divided into 2 shops. Late C16/early C17, with C18 front. Timber-framed; fronted in dark red brick with lighter red brick dressings. Plaintiled roof with ornamental crest tiles. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, attics and cellars. 5 window range: sash windows in flush cased frames with flat gauged arches, 9 panes to the top sashes of the 3 northern windows, the remainder with plate glass. The arches above the 2 end windows and the middle window have moulded soffits. A recessed panel below each window. 2 gabled dormers with pierced and fluted C19 bargeboards have 2-light small-paned casement windows and mock timbering in the apex of the gables. The ground storey to No.4 has 2 C18 window surrounds with fixed glass and a 6-panel door with an ornamental rectangular fanlight. No.4A has a late C20 shop front. The Skinner Street range, of 2 storeys and attics, is a C18 addition with the 1st and 2nd storeys faced in C19 white brick. The overhanging attic storey has 2 rendered gables with Edwardian mock-timbering, fluted bargeboards and ornamental ridge tiles. 3 window range: 12-pane sashes in flush cased frames. On the ground storey, No.4 has an Edwardian cross window with a flat gauged arch in red brick and No.4A a small-paned C19 shop window with pilasters and cornice flanked by a C20 half-glazed door and fanlight. Paired central 6-panel doors in plain reveals have semicircular arched heads in red brick. INTERIOR: cellar below No.4 has heavy chamfered main beams to the ceiling of the front range and similar beams with very heavy joists set on edge at the rear. The 2 halves of the cellar are linked by a C17 doorway with moulded jambs. Below No.4A the front cellar has a thick wall running through at right angles to The Traverse with a wide low pointed arch. Most of the walling is concealed, but one small section is of ashlar blocks laid in regular courses. Below the Skinner Street range is a single massive chamfered main beam. The ground storey of the building, now divided into 2, is one frame with 2 rooms along the street frontage, both with ovolo moulded main beams. In No.4 the beams have additional applied mouldings. A C18 passageway through the middle of the house has been

removed. The Skinner Street range, added in the C18, contains a fine dog-leg stair to No.4 with barley sugar twist balusters, a wreathed and ramped handrail and a dado with sunk panels. The stair to the front attic has C18 vase-on-reel balusters, probably reused. No features exposed in either front or rear attics. The upper storeys of No.4A have been considerably modernised.

Listing NGR: TL8527864300