Thorpe Hall

Thorpe Hall is a derelict town house of the Paston family, built mainly around 1600 on the site of the palace of the Bishops of Norwich. It is constructed of rendered and colourwashed brick and flint with plain tile roofs.

The building has an L-shaped plan of two and a half storeys, with a lower two-storey wing to the north west, single-storey porches to the north and east, and a nineteenth-century lean-to and two-storey staircase extension to the west. The two and a half-storey wing displays a four-windowed facade to the east, with a porch at the southern end and an off-centre entrance door towards the northern end. The gabled nineteenth-century porch has a circa 1600 core and features a pedimented entrance with a four-centred arch and rendered ovolo-moulded reveals over original stone ovolo mouldings with barred stops. Inside, the house has a four-centred doorway with ovolo-moulded stone reveals.

A four-light brick-mullioned window with a moulded brick pediment occupies the northern doorway position. Within it is a reset sixteenth-century roll-moulded and stopped frame with a four-centred arch, carved spandrels containing the monogram G and a cockerel rebus. This frame is set in a nineteenth-century surround with colonettes bearing stiff-leaf capitals, a four-centred arch and key block with stiff-leaf foliage. The ground floor window at the southern end contains hollow-chamfered mullions and transom. Fragments of mullions and transoms remain in other windows. Ground floor windows are topped with moulded brick pediments, while first-floor windows have moulded brick cornices. A flint plinth and moulded brick plat band run at first-floor level.

The north facade features a gable with a wide external stack to the east and a central porch. The west wing displays scattered fenestration, with the north wall containing two- and three-light hollow-chamfer mullioned windows, two of which are blocked. A nineteenth-century gabled porch with an ovolo-moulded four-centred arched entrance and spandrel panels stands on this elevation, with a moulded brick pediment supported on consoles. Inside, a roll-moulded oak door frame opens to the house. Remains of six-light brick hollow-chamfered mullioned and transomed windows, pedimented at ground and first-floor levels, survive on the south wall of the west wing.

The south wing includes a nineteenth-century semi-circular bay window on the south gable with a corbelled brick stack above. Brick dentil eaves appear to the west, whilst moulded timber eaves finish the east elevation. Parapet eaves with moulded brick kneelers run along the north and south sides. End stacks terminate at ridge level. A central axial stack and an external stack with roll-moulded set back are found on the south wing. The lower two-storey western range survives mainly to eaves level, though a section of nineteenth-century roof remains at the west end. Three-light mullioned windows with wrought-iron lights and stay bars at first-floor level appear on the north side of the west end. A nineteenth-century northern lean-to passage and nineteenth-century southern canted bay remain at ground-floor window-sill level.

Much of the circa 1600 construction survives internally. The building retains chamfered bridging beams, common joists and double-tenoned joists. Close-studded wattle and daub partitions remain. A sixteenth-century solid-tread newel stair with its associated timber frame structure rises from ground to first floor, with a winding newel stair accessing the attic. The roof is of double-butt purlin construction with wind braces. A stone fireplace from the dining room is held in store for reinstallation. The attic fireplace in the north gable wall features a plastered four-centred, chamfered and stopped arch. Remains of nineteenth-century painted thelis pattern survive on plaster in the staircase area.