Building record WCB 087 - Bridge House, Brockford Street

A substantial and picturesque timber-framed structure that was probably built as an inn with a rear gallery during the first quarter of the 16th century. The arched gateway and the neighbouring cottages to the north formed a separate Tudor property but both were part of the ‘Brockford Village Estate’ which encompassed the entire hamlet in the 19th century and were sold together as ‘Bridge Street Farm’ in 1854. The house is understood to have been owned by the Revett family throughout the 16th century, and its four phases of construction reflect their transformation from modest innkeepers at its beginning to gentlemen and Justices of the Peace at its end. The interior reflects the usual domestic layout of the period, with a jettied hall and twin service rooms of circa 1520 to the south and a jettied parlour of circa 1600 to the north, which replaced the smaller original parlour on the same site. The hall chamber preserves a fine cambered ceiling and a pair of arched external doorways that appear to have opened onto a galleried rear wing, but this was also rebuilt when the property was converted into a private house during the latter part of the 16th century. A fragmentary early-16th century wing still survives at the back of the courtyard, but an adjoining malting shown on 19th century maps has been demolished without trace. The house boasts some of the finest Tudor chimney shafts in Suffolk and an exceptional variety of fixtures and fittings from its long and complex process of evolution (S1).