83, Whiting Street

House at 83 Whiting Street, Bury St Edmunds

This is a timber-framed house dating from the early 16th and early 17th centuries, fronted and raised in the 18th century. The building is rendered and has a slate roof. It consists of a 2-bay front range, originally jettied, and a long rear range built in two phases, connected by an internal chimney-stack.

Exterior

The front elevation has 3 storeys and cellars, with a 3-window range. All windows are sashes in flush-cased frames, with a single vertical bar to the lights on the ground and first storeys, and 12 panes on the second storey. The off-centre door has 6 raised fielded panels, a plain architrave, and a flat pediment supported by solid console brackets.

The rear range extends for 5 bays. The 2-and-a-half jettied bays to the east are now underbuilt in brick. Evidence of former ovolo-moulded mullioned windows survives along the south wall. The roof was raised in the 19th century and is slated.

Interior

Both the front and rear ranges have cellars. The cellar below the front range is rendered and contains several wide brick-lined niches, apparently contemporary with the timber frame above.

The ground storey of the 2-bay front range is now divided by an early 18th-century panelled partition into two rooms, but was originally one open space. Both rooms have main beams with multiple roll-mouldings and curved stops, with evidence for an underbuilt jetty. Remains of reset Jacobean panelling appear in both end walls. During restoration in 1991, paintings thought to date from the early 16th century were discovered behind the panelling on the north wall. These paintings cover both plaster and studs of the shared partition wall with No. 84, displaying a formalised repetitive pattern of fruit, leaves and diagonal bands of lettering, now illegible. All three ground storey windows retain boxed pull-up shutters in good condition.

The chimney-stack on the rear wall of the north bay has a timber lintel with multiple roll-mouldings and leaf stops, with red ochre colouring and lining over the brickwork. On the upper storey the partition wall has exposed studding with a single long brace at one end. The north end wall contains only the main components of the frame and was built against a pre-existing building. The top storey is a 19th-century addition.

A stone-flagged hall at the rear leads to the 2-storey timber-framed range at the back. This rear range is in 5 bays: the 3 early 16th-century eastern bays were originally jettied, while the other 2 bays are an unjettied 17th-century addition. The older bays have exposed studding along the north wall, heavy unchamfered joists set flat, and main posts with the jowls hacked off. The internal chimney-stack linking the two ranges features a large open fireplace with a plain chamfered lintel and cut-off stops, with traces of red ochre colouring on the brickwork and 2 pointed niches, one set very high. An inserted 5-light window with roll and cavetto mouldings to the mullions and narrow iron bars runs along the north wall.

Partitions throughout the rear range were removed or repositioned in the mid-19th century, when the roof was raised and slated at a shallow pitch.

Historical Context

From 1758, the first year of surviving rating assessments, until his death in 1762, the house was owned and occupied by Thomas Warren senior, the surveyor who produced a fine printed map of the town in 1747. He was succeeded by his son Thomas, also a cartographer, who lived in the house until his death in 1805.