Building record PAL 060 - The Old Guildhall

The Old Guildhall lies immediately opposite St Peter’s church in Palgrave and may have been built by the church for use by a religious guild which shared its dedication and is documented from 1452. Guilds of this kind were not involved in trade regulation, but allowed parishioners in a Catholic society to club together to pay priests to sing masses for their souls. They were also concerned with raising money for charitable purposes, church maintenance and the arrangement of religious processions and celebrations. The existence of such bodies was intimately connected with a belief in purgatory, which was anathema to the Protestant Reformers, and they were abolished as part of the English Reformation in 1547. Many guildhalls were confiscated by the Crown but in this instance the building later belonged to a trust administered by the churchwardens on behalf of the poor. Although still known as a guildhall in the 19th century it was shown as the parish workhouse on a map of 1812. The modern property is listed at grade II* and represents one of the finest and best preserved rural guildhalls in Britain. The great majority were demolished or altered beyond recognition after 1547 but the original layout here can be fully understood and the finely carved roof structure of the jettied first-floor hall is among the most spectacular in Suffolk. When first built,probably in the latter part of the 15th century, this great hall of four bays and over 40 feet in length was lit by oriel windows and spanned by three unusual trusses with octagonal crownpost sresting on high arch-braced collars to give a sense of space and height. Over a hundred people are likely to have dined here on the feast day of St Peter, and would have made full use of a narrow anteroom adjoining the entrance. The pioneering Perpendicular roof sacrificed structural stability for spectacle, and by the beginning of the 16th century a set of finely moulded new arch-braced tie-beams was inserted at eaves level to combat an outward movement of the walls. This extraordinary development, which is now hidden above a 17th century ceiling, has a close parallel in Suffolk at the guildhall of Stoke-by-Nayland. The firstfloor hall was reached by an external stair tower that still survives to the rear and is linked to a medieval kitchen in the right-hand bay of the lower storey by an original arched door and an exceptionally rare serving hatch. This kitchen would have contained a massive fireplace in a chimney adjoining the external gable, similar to that of nearby Yaxley guildhall which extends to 17 feet in width, but the chimney here was rebuilt in the 18th century. The rest of the lower storey was occupied by a three-bay central hall entered by a cross-passage and adjoined by a single service room on the left. This arrangement reflects the pattern of contemporary domestic houses but the hall was not heated and probably served as a ‘committee’ room for smaller guild meetings (S1).