Building record BSE 747 - Mustow Corner House

Mustow Corner House is one of three dwellings that together form the grade II listed building known as ‘Mustow Corner House, Mustow House and The Garden House’.
Attached at the east end of Mustow House and historically part of the site is The Dutch House, separately grade II listed.

Until the 17th century, Angel Hill was known as The Mustowe, meaning ‘meeting place’, and was the site of the Bury Fair, probably as far back as the 12th century.
Mustow House is understood to have been constructed in the 16th century and 17th century, although it has been modified in every century since then and is now of Georgian appearance due to its late 18th century fronting in brickwork. The Dutch House, attached to the east end of its frontage, was constructed in the 19th century, and it is speculated in Bettley & Pevsner’s 2015 Suffolk: West that this may have been the coach house for Mustow House. From at least 1881 until the early 1930s, Mustow House was divided into two parts and during this time Mustow Corner House was used first as a dwelling and then for a time as a home for unmarried mothers. Reunited with Mustow House by 1935, then in use as a kindergarten, the building appears to have been residential by 1937, later becoming the Red Cross headquarters and briefly a hotel and nursery, before being divided into four dwellings in the 1980s.

Pre subdivision, Mustow House had a nine-window front range; Mustow Corner House now comprises four of these on each floor, including one of three windows in the centre of the building that break forward slightly. The original C16 and C17 timber-framed and rendered building underwent a fashionable ‘fronting’ in brick during the C18 and no evidence of its previous appearance remains visible from the public domain. In the mid C19, the building was extended to the north and west and raised to its current height, above a stone band at second floor sill level, with a moulded brick cornice, plain parapet and moulded plinth. The Garden House at the rear is understood to have been constructed at this time. The front elevation is constructed from fairly dark and well-textured bricks. They have diagonal drying marks known as skintlings, indicating a pre C19 date of manufacture, and are neatly laid in Flemish bond pointed in a mortar coloured red to give an even appearance. In C18 style, the narrow front windows are set flush with the outer face of the brick skin. They are tallest at first-floor level, indicating that the principal rooms were located here in the past. Mustow Corner House is accessed by means of a doorway in the front boundary wall at the west side of the building. A door leads into the courtyard garden, where access into the house is through the former side door of Mustow House, located within a shallow single-storey lean-to extension. This was constructed in the mid-C19 and has been modified since. Above the lean-to, the full height side wall conceals a double-pile roof, its valley gutter position identifiable by the hopper head. In the front range loft, the variation in pitch between the front and rear roof slopes is apparent. Front slope rafters are C19, except where reused. Rear slope rafters are earlier.