4, Honey Hill, Bury St. Edmunds, West Suffolk, Suffolk, IP33 (Grade II)

BURY ST EDMUNDS

TL8563NE HONEY HILL 639-1/11/442 (South side) 12/07/72 No.4 (Formerly Listed as: HONEY HILL (South side) No.4 (Coach and Horses Public House))

House; later a public house but now a house again. C14 core with C17 and later additions and alterations; restored by the Bury St Edmunds Town Trust in 1988. Timber-framed and rendered; slate roof. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, cellar and attic; originally with an aisled hall and a 3-bay cross-wing to the west. 4 window range: 12-pane sashes in flush cased frames. A half-glazed C20 entrance door is in a plain wood surround. INTERIOR: large cellars in 2 sections: on the east, mixed walling with Tudor brick below the area of the C17 rear stair wing and one angle with chamfered stone quoins. Other walls have a mixture of rubble flint, reused stone blocks and brick. On the west, a smaller cellar has rough walling in a similar combination and the dividing wall between the 2 parts is particularly rough and irregular. All the wall surfaces are painted. On the ground storey, one truss, originally at the upper end of the C14 aisled hall, contains 2 reused C13 arcade posts with trenches for passing braces. At the south end of this truss is a blocked ogee-headed doorway which originally led from the cross-wing into the aisled hall. Exposed timbers in the remainder of the house are limited and all of the C17: the inserted main beam in the former open hall area is ovolo-moulded with cut-off stops. A large ovolo-moulded beam on the 1st storey is unrelated to main posts. A 2-bay rear wing on the south-west has principal rafters visible, and in the attic the west gable has the remains of widely-spaced C14 framing with wattle-and-daub infill surviving. The rear stair wing has widely spaced C17 studding on the upper storeys and rises to the attics. The early C19 winder stair has stick balusters, turned newels and closed strings. (Aitkens P: No.4 Honey Hill: a report on the architectural history: 1988-).