28 And 28A, Cornhill

This is an early 18th-century building that was originally part of a public house, later divided into two shops at numbers 28 and 28A Cornhill in Bury St Edmunds. The facade was remodelled in the 19th century, and further alterations occurred in the 20th century. It is constructed with a timber frame and has a painted brick front, culminating in a rounded corner onto Brentgovel Street. A plain parapet is topped by a stucco cornice with oversailing bands. The tiled roof has four hipped dormers.

The building has two storeys, attics, and cellars and features a nine-window front. The windows are sash windows with plain reveals and flat stuccoed arches with keystones. Projecting ledges beneath the windows are fitted with iron guard-rails supported by small curved brackets. The dormers have two-light casement windows. The ground floor is divided into three sections, including two timber double shop fronts and three large windows with semicircular glazing bars above and flat stuccoed arches. A noteworthy corner doorway, originally decorative with fluted columns, a dentilled pediment, a frieze, and console brackets, was introduced after 1898 during substantial corner remodelling and is now blocked.

The rear of the building incorporates two parallel ranges dating to the mid-17th century, which run behind numbers 32 and 33 Brentgovel Street. Inside number 28, a single main beam with a chamfer and scroll stops is exposed on the upper storey. Number 28A has all its timber framing visible on the upper storey, with the removal of infill allowing a view of the roof structure up to collar level. The interior of number 28A features six bays with a 19th-century chimney stack. The framing includes jowled main posts with mortices, and face-halved and bladed scarf joints in the wallplates. The roof over the three eastern bays is a clasped purlin roof with added collars for a later attic ceiling, while the three western bays feature unstepped butt purlins, also with added collars. The 1st storey ceilings have plain chamfered beams and unchamfered joists. One bay on the ground storey has exposed timbering.