34, Churchgate Street

BURY ST EDMUNDS

TL8564SW CHURCHGATE STREET 639-1/14/247 (North side) No.34

GV II

House and shop. Early C18 with C19 alterations; C16 core to part. Timber-framed, rendered and lined; hipped pantiled roof. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and cellar; on a corner site with a long side frontage to Angel Lane. 2 window range: both upper windows are late C19 or C20 replacements, one a sash window with a single vertical bar. A raised stucco band between the ground and 1st storeys is almost entirely covered by the fascia of the shop front. The front has a single window divided into 3 lights by vertical mullions and a transom, with a shop door on the right and a house door on the left, both half glazed, in doorcases with plain pilasters. A cast-iron foot-scraper in a semicircular-headed recess beside each door. An end chimney-stack has a high narrow red brick shaft. The long 2-storey range down Angel Lane is roughcast with 4 upper windows on different levels, all small-paned sashes in flush cased frames; a variety of ground-storey windows, one an old fixed small-paned former shop window with a door beside it. At the north end a small single-storey brick extension contains its original brick oven. INTERIOR: extensive cellars with flint rubble walling and heavy timber ceilings and a timber-framed partition wall; an arched recess at the rear has the remains of a well. The present shop and the room above it each have early C18 panelling to the walls and a corner fireplace with a bolection-moulded surround. A large rear upper room has full height bolection-moulded panelling and fireplace surround and a moulded plaster cornice. The panel above the fireplace contains a C18 oil painting of a hunting scene. A fine early C18 dog-leg stair and balustrade has barley-sugar-twist balusters, square newels, moulded handrails, closed strings and panelled dado. The roof over the main part of the building was replaced in the C19 at a higher level. On the west side there is an overlap with the adjoining house, and the entrance door to the left of the shop leads into a narrow passage with a C16 multiple-moulded main beam and a trimmer beam which extends into No.33. The narrow room above is on a lower level than the rest of the upper storey and a rear upper room of No.33 is approached only from the upper storey of No.34. The large faggot oven at the

rear had been converted to coal firing, but retains its original cast-iron doors and fittings. A cast-iron panel, said to come from part of the oven, is now in the main upper room: it bears a crown and an 8-pointed star and the ornate letters GR in a roundel with 111 above.

Listing NGR: TL8550164072