Abbey House

Details

TL8564SE
639-1/8/182
07/08/52

BURY ST EDMUNDS
ANGEL HILL
(East side)
No.30 Abbey House
(Formerly Listed as:
ANGEL HILL
(East side)
No.30 Abbey Flats)

GV
II*

House, now offices. Late C16 core to part; late C18 rear
range; facade of c1820; mid-C19 additions to south side and
part of rear. Front range timber-framed in part and rendered;
slate roof with parapet and cornice.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and attics; cellar to part. Both front and
rear parts of the house are built up against a section of the
precinct wall of the former Abbey of St Edmund. 7 window
range: small-paned sashes in deep reveals with eared and
shouldered architraves and stone sills. Central doorway with
panelled reveals and soffit and a 6-panel door within a
projecting distyle Ionic porch.
The C18 rear range is higher than the front and overlaps it on
the north side. In random flint with an admixture of stone
blocks and red brick; plaintiled mansard roof with a plain red
brick parapet. 2 storeys and attics; gable-end chimney-stacks,
one truncated. Venetian windows to the ground and 1st storeys
face eastwards towards the Abbey Gardens; both have
small-paned sash windows. 3 flat-headed dormers with sash
windows in the lower slope of the roof. One 12-pane sash
window in a flush cased frame in the north gable wall. Behind
the south half of the front a 2-storey C19 extension in flint
and red brick with a slate roof has segmental-arched window
openings and C20 replacement windows. It links with an earlier
C19 range, in flint and red brick with a hipped slate roof,
which was formerly free-standing.
INTERIOR: the left half of the front range, including the
doorway, has fragmentary remains of a jettied late C16 timber
frame. Cellars (now used as offices) with original
beam-and-joist ceilings. The walls were slightly raised and
the roof replaced at a shallower pitch during extensive
building work in the 1820s. A fine mid-to-late C18 stair, with
enriched turned balusters and a plain handrail, rises from the
rear of the central entrance hall. A similar stair, probably
initially part of the main flight, is in the north-east corner
of the front range. The C18 rear range was designed with
impressive rooms on the ground and 1st storeys. The inside of
the Venetian window is enriched with reeded Ionic pilasters
and a moulded cornice above the lights; shutters with sunk
panels. Moulded surrounds to the doorways and dentilled
architraves; a heavy plaster modillion cornice to the ceiling.
The walls have ornate plaster swags with bows, supported by
lions' heads. A roundel containing a plaster head in profile
is suspended from the swag over the rear door by a bow and
cord.
In the upper room later partitions until recently divided up
the Venetian window and a low inserted ceiling cuts off the
arch; some of the interior mouldings are missing and no
ornamental plasterwork remains. The upper storeys of this rear
range form a complex of small rooms and attics. The
development of the building between c1770 and c1830 is shown
in a series of C18 and early C19 prints and paintings of Bury
St Edmunds.
(BOE: Pevsner N: Radcliffe E: Suffolk: London: 1974-: 148).

Listing NGR: TL8555064176

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

466644

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Suffolk, (1974), 148

End of official list entry

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