Building record BIL 061 - Red House

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Summary

18th century red brick and timber-framed building

Location

Grid reference Centred TL 9926 4949 (22m by 18m)
Map sheet TL94NE
Civil Parish BILDESTON, BABERGH, SUFFOLK

Map

Type and Period (1)

Full Description

The central front door leads to large hall lit by a flanking sash window on each side. To the left (facing the rear) is a dining room of near identical size to the entrance hall and accessed by recently constructed, awkwardly proportioned and detailed, double doors. To the rear of the hall there is a plain main staircase offset in one corner and very modest in design relative to the proportions of the room - but this may have been a consequence of the constraints of space arising from the adaptation to accommodate retention of the timber-framed rear wing. The joinery detailing is more typical of the early 19th century (c.1810-30) than of the 18th century. The ceiling of the entrance hall and the dining room both have closely spaced exposed moulded ceiling joists but the structural relationship to the inside of the reconstructed 18th century front elevation suggests that these elements have been reused/repositioned and may not have survived the rebuilding in situ. To the right of the entrance hall, is the living room, slightly larger than the entrance hall and is also accessed by matching double doors of recent provenance. This room is plain, with a simple white marble chimneypiece in a brick opening (i.e. without a cast-iron fireplace or grate) located in the end wall, to a design typical of c.1810-1830 or later and represents an unassuming fixture as the focus for the original domestic and social functions of the room. The living room has a very narrow ceiling cornice band and working window shutter joinery (a single leaf per side) to the front elevation but is otherwise the room is very plain. A pair of modern French doors has been added to the left of the fireplace on the southeast facing external wall. To the rear of the formal rooms in the main range there is a main rear mediaeval two-storey rear wing in use as the kitchen with a ceiling of exposed, closely spaced moulded ceiling joists. The internal face of the wall to the southeast facing elevation has exposed mediaeval mullioned window joinery and there is a substantial brick fireplace to the gable end. There are no other ground floor features or fixtures to the main rear wing of heritage
significance.

Connected to the two-storey rear wing there are three minor much later and much altered single storey extensions: to the northwest (to the rear of the entrance hall) to provide a cloakroom/WC; to the southeast (to the rear of the living room) to provide a pantry; and to the northeast (to the rear of the kitchen) to provide ancillary living space. This last extension has a stair down to a large brick vaulted cellar21, and a recently constructed secondary stair to the first floor rear where a rudimentary gallery has been formed in the modern era from salvaged timbers.

The brick vaulted cellars appear always to have been accessed from the rear, do not extend forward to the front range and their retention intact in
conjunction with the rear wing above them may partly explain why, in maintaining a consistent ground floor level throughout, the re-fronted front range sits well above the road requiring three shallow steps up to the central front door.

Externally, two-storey rear wing and the extensions are principally faced in a modern hard cementitious render (on expanded metal lath – visible at points internally) with some minor rebuilding in red brick (part painted). The smaller northwest and southeast mono-pitch extensions are roofed in plain tile while the larger extension to the rear of the kitchen is gabled and roofed in slate to a notably shallower pitch than the rest of the rear elevations. The rear elevations have a very mixed fenestration arrangement and none of the windows or their fittings are of great antiquity (S1).

Sources/Archives (1)

  • --- Unpublished document: Kindred, B.. 2020. Heritage Impact Assessment: Red House, 126 High Street, Bildeston.

Finds (0)

Protected Status/Designation

Related Monuments/Buildings (0)

Related Events/Activities (1)

Record last edited

Mar 27 2025 2:14PM

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