Moreton Hall School, Bury St. Edmunds, West Suffolk, Suffolk, IP32 (Grade II*)

BURY ST EDMUNDS

TL86SE MOUNT ROAD 639-1/13/477 Moreton Hall School 12/07/72

GV II*

House, now school. 1773. By Robert Adam for Professor John Symonds, a Cambridge don. White brick and slate roof. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys and cellars. According to Symonds’ diary, the foundation stone was laid on April 12 1773 (a year earlier than Adam’s work on the Playhouse in Cornhill). A mid C19 wing extends on the east side. The house was first called St. Edmund’s Hill, later The Mount, and now Moreton Hall School. There are 2 chimney piece designs for St. Edmund’s Hill entitled “for John Symonds 1776” in the Adam collection at the Soane Museum. (Vol. XXIII Nos. 73-75). The Adam block is built as a cube, with a parapet and a wood cornice. Each of the 4 fronts has a wood dentilled pediment. 3 window range on each of the exposed fronts, double-hung sashes with glazing bars on the 1st and 2nd storeys and casements on the ground storey (except on the north front which has double-hung sashes with glazing bars). The pediment on the north front is supported by wood pilasters extending through the 1st and 2nd storeys with ornamented capitals and frieze. An ornamented wood band runs between the storeys. The central window on the 1st storey has a wood architrave and a cornice on console brackets. The ground storey has a large projecting central porch with stone Ionic corner columns, frieze and cornice, surmounted by a wood balustrade. A 6-panel door with side lights is framed by pilasters and a frieze and has a large segmental fanlight with ornamental fan glazing. The porch is flanked by 3-light windows with stone pilasters, frieze and cornice and a pediment over the central light. The west front has a large segmental brick bay with 3 window range running through 2 storeys and surmounted by a wood balustrade with a frieze and pediment above. The south front has an ornamented wood frieze below the pediment and a wood band between the 1st and 2nd storeys. A stone band runs at 1st storey sill level. The 1st storey windows have blind boxes and the central window has a wood architrave and cornice on enriched console brackets. The ground storey has a central doorway with moulded wood architrave and a pediment on enriched console brackets. The door opens on to a raised terrace and is flanked by fine Venetian windows with wood Ionic columns, pilasters and

cornice. The mid C19 east wing is 2-storeys with a parapet and raised brick bands between the storeys. 5 window range, double-hung sashes with glazing bars (except ground storey on the south front which has 4 casements). The north front has a stone Venetian window at the west end. The roof to the Adam block is tiled with a central chimney-stack and stacks above the apex of each pediment. INTERIOR: has 2 Adam rooms on the ground storey with Adam ceilings, doors, ornamental pelmets and furnishings. 1 of the rooms has a double columned ante room at each end with a central bay. Other rooms have good Adam features. A C19 extension to the house contains a stair and rooms with heavy woodwork in Jacobean style. (BOE: Pevsner N: Radcliffe E: Suffolk: London: 1974-: 153).