7 and 8, Stow Road

Nos. 7 and 8 on Stow Road are a pair of council houses designed in 1892 and built between 1893 and 1894 by Mr. Whitmore, the Suffolk County Surveyor, for Thingoe Rural District Council. They are constructed of red brick with slate roofs featuring ridge crests and a central shared chimney stack.

These two-story semi-detached houses have rear single-story back kitchen/wash houses and lavatories. The windows are timber casements set under arched brick heads, and the doors are timber with toplights above. There is a single sill band at the first floor level. The interiors have not been inspected.

This pair is one of four pairs of houses believed to be the first rural council housing built in England under the Housing of the Working Classes Act 1890. This act allowed local authorities to acquire and develop land for housing, although it was adopted by only eight rural authorities, despite the recognition that agricultural laborers faced housing conditions as poor as those in inner cities. The houses remain in little-altered condition.