79, Guildhall Street

BURY ST EDMUNDS

TL8564SW GUILDHALL STREET 639-1/14/402 (West side) 07/08/52 No.79

GV II*

House, now offices and flats. C18 exterior with partly C12 core. Timber-framed above a plinth of stone blocks; roughcast. Slate roof with a moulded wood eaves cornice. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, attics and cellar; 2 wings at rear. 5 window range: 12-pane to the 1st storey and without glazing bars on the ground storey, all in heavy flush cased frames. A central 6-panel door has a semicircular fanlight with radial glazing bars and a doorcase with panelled pilasters and cornice. INTERIOR: cellar below the northern half of the front with C18/C19 brick walls almost entirely to the south and east, on the west mixed with areas of flint rubble. The north wall is of flint rubble with various recesses. C15/C16 bridging beam to ceiling, probably intended to rest on supporting piers; C18/C19 joists. Running through the ground storey from north to south is a thick wall faced with ashlar blocks along its western face. This contains a Norman doorway, which is at the back of the present cross-entry, with a roll-moulded arch; the nook shafts have capitals with volutes. At the south end of the wall is another narrow doorway with a chamfered pointed arch, probably dating from the late C12. A low round-headed window with a chamfered arch, boarded over, is half way along the same wall. This wall appears to extend for the whole length of the building and may have a return wall on the north between No.79 and No.80 (qv). 2 pairs of tall timber columns with matching 'Norman' capitals are spaced along the present cross-entry, one pair immediately inside the entrance door. A C17 rear wing on the south has a heavy main beam with large chamfer and lambstongue stop with quirk and has been extended into a later bay. A rear wing on the north now forms part of the adjoining premises and has no exposed original features; between the 2 wings is a flat-roofed extension containing a stair with ramped handrail but with boarding covering the balusters.

Listing NGR: TL8524864026