Building record WBG 134 - 30 Market Hill

One of the oldest buildings in Woodbridge, dating to the second half of the 14th century. The front of the house, abutting Market Hill, was built around 1380 and reflects the typical domestic layout of the Middle Ages. To the right of the present front door, which still occupies its original position, lay the medieval hall, open to its roof in the manner of a barn and heated by an open hearth burning on its floor. A ceiling was inserted into this space during the mid-16th century, and a brick chimney was built against its back wall. A rare example of a Tudor merchant’s mark is carved in the centre of the fireplace lintel, which also retains traces of 16th or early-17th century floral painting. The front door originally opened into a cross-passage which separated the hall on its right from a pair of service (storage) rooms on its left. The cross-passage and service rooms were floored over, unlike the hall, and were jettied to Market Hill (i.e. their upper storey projected into the street). Instead of constructing the jettied end of the house in the usual fashion as a structurally separate cross-wing, gabled towards the street, both hall and jetty in this instance were built parallel to Market Hill beneath the same roof. This arrangement produced a distinctive external appearance, with the open hall recessed behind its eaves, and buildings of this type are known as Wealden Houses. Such houses are common on the Weald of Kent and Sussex, from which their name derives, but rare in East Anglia. Behind the present house, and reached from the cross-passage, lies a most unusual structure which was added to the original building within a decade or two of 3 its construction. This rear wing contains a second open hall, linked to the main house by a cloister-like passage, that probably functioned as a brewhouse or bakehouse. It now, appropriately, contains the modern kitchen. Both bakehouses and Wealdens of this early period are rare survivals (S1).