Market Cross

The Market Cross in Bury St Edmunds is a former playhouse and town hall, now serving as an art gallery on the upper floor with offices below. It was constructed between 1774 and 1780 by architect Robert Adam and built by Thomas Singleton, a local stonemason who also carved the decorative panels. The building features white brick with Ketton stone dressings on the upper storey, which sits above a rusticated ground storey.

The exterior has two storeys and an oblong cruciform plan, located on an island site. The ground storey is characterized by semicircular headed arches on all sides and is partly open, with some windows featuring glazing-bars. The doorways on the north and south fronts are flanked by panels carved in low relief with masks and emblems representing the Muses. The upper storey has a Venetian window on each of its four principal faces, framed by Ionic engaged columns that support a frieze and pediment. Plastered niches on either side display Etruscan-style stone ornaments, with stone panels above featuring swags and paterae. The remaining faces have 19th and 20th-century replacement small-paned sash windows set in moulded stone architraves, some adorned with pediments on console brackets, while others have cornices and ornamental friezes. All first-storey windows are complemented by stone balustrading at the sills, and the building is crowned with a stone cornice and a stone band below.

The interior has seen considerable alterations, resulting in a rather plain upper room. It features plaster cornices with palmettes, and the ceiling has three central bosses with acanthus-leaf decoration and a fluted outer ring with swags. The doors have four long moulded sunk panels. A fireplace in the Adam style, made of cast iron, is adorned with detached fluted columns and decorated with plaster swags and garlands. An identical fireplace surround can be found in a principal bedroom at No. 2 Angel Hill, which is now part of the Angel Hotel.