Building record LVM 150 - 9 & 10 Church Street

Despite its present façade, which offers little evidence of the building's original appearance, 10 Church Street dates from the early years of the 15th century and is one of the best preserved medieval houses in Lavenham. The central part of the structure was open to its roof in the manner of a barn, and in the absence of a chimney was heated by a bonfire-like open heath. The finely carved crown post that would have dominated the open hall remains visible above its 16th century inserted ceiling and still retains evidence of centuries old soot. The house was entered by a cross-passage that separated the hall from a pair of floored-over service rooms in the typical pattern of the medieval period. The arch of the front door is intact which is a rare survival. A parlour to the right was contained in a taller cross-wing that was both gabled and jettied to the street. In the 17th or 18th centuries the projecting jetty was cut off and the existing single roof was created by raising the timber-framed walls of the hall and service rooms; when first built the eaves of the hall rose only o the height of the modern first-floor window sills. The exposed timbers of the structure, which contain an unusually large proportion of elm as opposed to oak, would have been rendered at the same time. The internal high end wall that divided the open hall from the parlour has been removed, but evidence in the extant ceiling timbers reveals that in its lower timbers were formerly recessed in the manner of a jetty. Internal jetties of this kind are not common, such features were designed both to maximise space within the hall and create a 'canopy of honour' above the heads of those seated at the high table. In the late-15th century a new courtyard was added to the rear of the parlour cross-wing. This extension was jettied to the courtyard and contained single rooms on both its ground and upper storeys. A further extension was added to its rear gable in the late-16th century, together with an impressive brick fireplace.

9 Church Street contains a fully floored but unjettied timber-frame of the late-15th or early-16th century that appears to have built as an extension to 10 Church Street rather than a separate house. Much of the original fabric has been lost including its crown post roof and most of its walls and ceilings. There was also an extensive renovation in the 1970s. There is evidence of a contemporary internal doorway linking the new structure to a small front service room of no. 10, and the building probably contained one or more workshops together with a gateway that connected the rear yard with the street (S1).