Building record NDM 055 - Rampant Horse Inn

Grade-II listed 16th century timber-framed structure. It's current name can be traced to 1834 and derives from the heraldic symbol of the Georgian kings, but previously the building can be identified with 'the Chequer' of 1544. The property preserves a number of istoric features including a fine roll-moulded ceiling, a Tudor brick cellar with original niches and two rare ‘square-mullioned’ 16th century windows of a type that is unique to Suffolk. The building’s principal historic interest lies in the remarkable manner of its development, initially consisting of a pair of modest Tudor houses, each of similar proportions, status and layout, that were subsequently combined at an unknown date to create the present inn. The oldest part of the structure lies to the left of its entrance from Coddenham Road and dates from circa 1540: it formed an L-shaped dwelling with a jettied hall and service bay in front of a rear parlour wing built over a cellar. This building may well have been ‘the Chequer’ of 1544. To the right of the entrance lay a second, slightly later house, also with a jettied hall and service bay to the street and probably with a small rear parlour. The two were divided by a large shared chimney that appears to have been removed as recently as the 19th century. The small parlour was replaced in circa 1600 by a large rear wing of four bays that may have contained the workshops of a wealthy clothier, Robert Smith, whom the Herrings identified as the inn’s owner in the late-16th century. Smith may have been responsible for combining the older houses. A further two bays were added to the rear wing in the mid-17th century, but extensive losses to its frame in the 20th century have made any precise analysis impossible (S1).