3, Honey Hill

This is a substantial house, now divided into two dwellings, dating back to the 17th century and with significant alterations in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and later 19th-century additions. It is believed to occupy part of the site of the song school buildings of Bury St Edmunds Abbey and straddles a section of the Precinct wall. The front and sides are faced with white brick, while the rear is constructed of random flint and red brick. A rear wing is finished with mock timbering, and all ranges have slate roofs, with the front being hipped.

The main elevation, facing Honey Hill, has a four-window range on the front, consisting of 12-pane sash windows in shallow reveals with flat, gauged brick arches. A single window on each storey on the west side is set within a semicircular brick recess. A central entrance features a six-panel door with a rectangular fanlight and a flat, gauged brick arch. A flat-roofed extension to the west incorporates a garage with double doors and a single 16-pane sash window. An extension on the east has a parapeted front wall, a 12-pane sash window, and a six-panel door recessed within a surround of plain Doric columns, topped with a segmental fanlight with radiating glazing bars set within a segmental brick arch. The east side has a six-window range of 12-pane sash windows. The rear range overlaps the front on the west and features irregularly placed 16-pane sash windows in flush cased frames with segmental-arched heads; two are visible on the ground floor, and there are three half dormers with sash windows and shaped bargeboards above rendered apexes. A late 19th-century wing on the north-east incorporates ornate applied mock timbering, fluted bargeboards, three narrow gable-end windows, and a tiled roof.

The interior of the central section reveals fragments of a thick dividing wall of rubble flint between front and rear rooms, part of the original Precinct wall, which extends several metres northwards at the rear of the house. The back range is the oldest part, showing remnants of 17th-century timbering. While documentary evidence suggests the building existed by 1702, most interior features are from the 18th or early 19th century. Principal ground and first-floor rooms have ornate plaster cornices and six-panel doors. A large upper room possesses a decorative plaster centrepiece to the ceiling and an Adam style fireplace with fluted Ionic pilasters and an architrave featuring a carved urn on a central tablet. The late 19th-century wing on the north-east has panelled interior detailing.