Listed Building: ST NICHOLAS (466910)

BURY ST EDMUNDS TL8664NW HOLLOW ROAD 639-1/5/437 (East side) 07/08/52 No.2 St Nicholas (Formerly Listed as: HOLLOW ROAD (East side) No.2 (including wall and ruins of St Nicholas Hospital)) GV II* House, built on the site of the former Hospital of St Nicholas and incorporating fragments of it. Late C15, but mainly C17, C18 and C19. Part timber-framed and rendered, part with exposed timbering and brick nogging, part red brick. Plain-tile roof. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, cellar and attics; complex development, with the exterior formed of several different sections. The west facade, facing Hollow Road, has 2 bays of timber-framing at the south end built up on a ground storey wall of rendered flint rubble. The timbers are partly replaced, with a blocked original window and later windows infilled with brick nogging. To the north of this section is a projecting late C15/early C16 red brick chimney-stack with a diaper-patterned base and a recessed arcaded panel above, now painted black and divided by 6 slender wooden columns to simulate mullions. A C20 window has been cut through part of it. Above the arcade the stack has been rebuilt with C19 crow-stepping and a large plain rectangular shaft. Further north again the upper wall is rendered, above a ground storey of mixed red brick and stone blocks, with a projecting red brick entrance porch, approached by 3 rounded stone steps, the top step part of a re-used sundial. The end section is in C19 red brick: a projecting square bay with mock timbering has 5 small-paned casement windows. The remaining windows on the west and north sides are 2-light mid-C19 in a Romanesque style. The south gable has Gothick wooden hood-moulds above a small-paned 1st-storey sash window and a 2-light attic window which has trefoil heads to the lights and a quatrefoil above. The rear elevation is equally complex. At the south end the 1st storey has a curious applied wooden arcade of 5 rounded arches which may be late C17, but has a 12-pane sash window at each end. On the ground storey, a large flat-roofed canted bay with small-paned sash windows, the principal window surmounted by a fanlight with Gothick tracery. A Jacobean rear door, in line with the front entrance door, has a rectangular ovolo-moulded surround below a storied C19 porch which has an open ground storey. INTERIOR: the chimney-stack on the west side, which is likely to be part of the medieval hospital buildings, and parts of the lower walling on the west, appear to be the oldest parts of the house. The 5 timber-framed bays at the south end are C17, with little framing visible. On the upper floor, the main cross-beams are exposed and there is some original floor-boarding. Part of the roof can be seen, with the rafters, some re-used, pegged at the apex. The principal ground storey room, to the right of the entry, has early C18 rococo ornament to the architraves of the doors and a fine fireplace surround with panels of both brown and white figured marble. (BOE: Pevsner N: Radcliffe E: Suffolk: London: 1974-: 152-3). Listing NGR: TL8636564820