The Ancient House is a Grade I listed building in the West Suffolk local planning authority area, England. First listed on 20 February 1958. A C15 House.
The Ancient House
- WRENN ID
- solemn-parapet-oak
- Grade
- I
- Local Planning Authority
- West Suffolk
- Constituency
- West Suffolk MP: Nick Timothy (Con)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 20 February 1958
- Type
- House
- Address
- The Ancient House, High Street, Clare
- OS grid reference
- TL 769 454
- Coordinates
- 52.07883, 0.58075
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Ancient House is a 15th-century timber-framed and plastered building located on the east side of High Street in Clare. It features a hall block and a jettied crosswing at the east end, with 17th-century additions to the west and south. The house has two storeys, and the crosswing jetty is supported by brackets with shafts. The north front and west gable display fine pargetting, which has been restored. The west gable is dated 1473. The windows are casements with lattice leaded lights. The crosswing includes a five-light oriel bay on both the ground and first stories, featuring moulded sills, with one oriel bay adorned with carved arms and supporting animals. The gable is decorated with shaped and carved bargeboards, and the ground storey has a blocked doorway with carved spandrels.
Inside the crosswing, there is a fine ceiling with moulded beams and joists, complete with leaf stops. The roof is tiled, and there is a heavy red brick chimney stack on a rectangular base with a sunk panel on the east end.
The Ancient House, along with No 27, No 15 (The Vicarage), the wall to the Vicarage, No 16 (Galloway House) on the west side, and the Church of SS Peter and Paul, form a group of historically significant buildings.
Local climate
The Ancient House sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 710 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 85% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 74% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 33 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 55% of listed buildings. Of these, 17 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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