Numbers 62 And 63 And Attached Railings

NUMBERS 62 AND 63 AND ATTACHED RAILINGS, WHITING STREET, BURY ST EDMUNDS

A house, now divided into two dwellings, dating from the 15th century with later alterations. The building is timber-framed with exposed timbers visible on the jettied gable end of No. 63; the remainder is rendered. The roofs are plain-tiled. The structure follows a basic hall range and cross-wing plan.

EXTERIOR

The building is two storeys with attics. The main range has random fenestration including a very wide 60-pane sash window in a flush cased frame to the ground storey and one large gabled dormer with a 3-light casement window. The 6-panel entrance door to No. 62 is paired with that to No. 61 and has the same plain wood surround and rectangular fanlight.

The cross-wing features a 4-light replacement mullioned window of around 1960 with square leaded panes to the upper storey, flanked by two small late 16th-century 3-light ovolo-mullioned side windows. On the ground storey is a 3-light 20th-century casement window with square leaded panes on a moulded sill. In the attic a leaded paned window fills part of an older opening.

A small gabled and jettied two-storey extension to the south side of the wing contains the ledged and battened entrance door of No. 63 in a wood surround with arched spandrels.

Across the front of the main range runs a row of spiked cast-iron garden railings with curly tops to the dividing posts and a matching gate to No. 62.

INTERIOR

Below No. 62 is a small cellar with a coved ceiling of stone and brick and walling with large stone blocks. The ground storey room contains most of the original two-bay hall: the inserted main beam has a double roll-moulding. The trusses of the former open hall are constructed without tie-beams. Long moulded arched braces are pegged to the principal rafters, almost in the form of upper crucks, but are supported on corbels and rise to a collar. The roof has a collar purlin running through the collars of the trusses and below the collars of the remaining pairs of rafters. An embattled fascia runs along the wallplates. The end wall of the hall on the south has widely spaced substantial joists.

No. 63 has an extensive cellar with a large main beam and lodged joists. The porch leads into the remains of a cross-entry at the lower end of the hall. An original inner door has a high doorframe with plain arched spandrels. Beside it stands a carved corbel of the end truss of the hall.

The main living area is in the cross-wing of the former house, divided into two on the ground storey. Empty mortices in one cross beam mark the location of a former partition wall. The front ground storey room, now in two-and-a-half bays, has a plain heavy ceiling exposed. A chimney-stack on the north side wall has stone jambs and an ornately carved and cambered timber lintel with leaf-motifs, which may have come from another house. The rear wall on the west is partly of stone and apparently forms the gable end wall of the adjoining property in College Lane.

A 3-light Norman window with two column mullions, cushion capitals and moulded bases was discovered during restoration in the mid 1960s, when the mullions were reversed.

On the upper storey, the two front bays have an inserted early 16th-century ceiling with multiple mouldings to the main beams and joists. An attic storey has been created by raising the level of the collars of the rafter roof to provide sufficient headroom.