Listed Building: De Vere House and 60 Water Street (276838)

A merchant’s house constructed in around 1520-1530, originally as the forward extension of a fifteenth century open hall house. Parts of the building were demolished and reconstructed in 1926. Historically, the buildings on the south side of Water Street stood much further back from the present street line. They were separated from the road by a water course (hence the name of the street) which was culverted in around 1520. The covering of the waterway allowed those earlier houses to extend out towards the road. The building known today as 'De Vere House and 60 Water Street' (hereafter 'De Vere House') originated as a fifteenth century hall house set back beyond the waterway. After the construction of the culvert the house was extended forwards, initially with the construction of outer cross wings at the east and west ends of the plan. These were quickly followed by a new hall and an enclosed porch built between the outer wings. The existence of a lost cross wing at the western end of the building is inferred from fabric evidence, including the open framing of the ground floor of De Vere House. It must have been demolished within 100 years of its construction and the site has since become the separate property of 61 Water Street. The eastern cross wing remains standing. The size of the house and sophistication of its framing are expressive of Lavenham’s extraordinary mercantile wealth in the late-Middle Ages. Post-medieval Lavenham was markedly less prosperous, and in common with many rural market towns its large vernacular houses faced subdivision by the C19. In around 1865 the house was divided into three. Historic photographs from the late-C19 show an additional jettied bay at the east end of the house. Known as 59 Water Street, it was demolished in the early C20. In 1926 the building, then somewhat dilapidated and known as Garrard’s House, was to be demolished and elements of its timber frame were to be reassembled elsewhere. Popular outcry was taken up by The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, by politicians, and in the national press. The scheme was halted at an advanced stage: the C15 rear range had been entirely destroyed, and the eastern cross wing had already been taken apart.The front gable of the eastern cross wing was reassembled. The rest of the framing of that wing was rebuilt in a mixture of old and new materials. The rear range, replacing the C15 parts of the house, was newly constructed in the 1920s. The 1980s saw the construction of a ground floor extension with a kitchen at the rear of the eastern cross wing. Until the early C21 the house was still subdivided and separate addresses existed for the demolished property at 59 Water Street, the eastern cross wing at 60 Water Street, and the rest of the building known as ‘De Vere House’. The building retains two addresses but has since been combined into a single domestic plan internally. MATERIALS The building has an oak frame, infilled to the street with brick nogging. The roofs are covered in plain tiles. EXTERIOR The house faces north onto Water Street and comprises two wings with gables on the front, a smaller gable between them and a wing at the rear. It is two storeys high with an attic over the western wing accessed by an external turret within the centre of the first-floor plan. The upper storey is jettied on the street front at two levels on carved bressumers, soffits and wall plates with curved brackets and some moulded capitals and the remains of shafts. There are also carved bressumers in the gables. The windows have all been reconstructed in C15-C16 style and there are oriel windows on the ground storey. The door jambs are carved with canopied figures, likely to be C15 in date and probably relocated here from an earlier footbridge over the waterway. A small part of the original brick nogging survives between the front door and the western oriel, the rest dates to the 1920s.To the west the house abuts 61 Water Street. To the east the building has a 1920s timber frame with render infill. The rear elevation comprises a pair of two-storey gables of differing depths, both rendered, one roughcast. At ground floor there are single storey extensions at the east and west ends of the plan and a late-C20 pergola between them. INTERIOR As externally, the interior is a mixture of original early-C16 timber framing, 1920s reconstruction and some new C20 fabric. While the original internal porch has been removed, the evidence for it can still be read in the fabric of the ground floor interior. High-quality carved and moulded ceiling beams can be found on the ground and first floors. Cut into the original brick chimney stack is a rare early-C16 brick spiral staircase, inserted into the plan shortly after the completion of the building. It has a recessed handrail set into the outer wall.The front room of the western wing at ground floor includes evidence of two painted decorative schemes: imitation brick nogging, and a later-C16 or C17 scheme of monochrome foliage. Within the western wing at ground floor there is a blocked C17 window and at first floor there is evidence to suggest a late garderobe formed part of the original plan. The attic storey over the western wing has butt-purlin roof construction with wind braces and a ridge piece.