Description

BURY ST EDMUNDS

TL8564SW CORNHILL
639-1/7/295 (North side)
07/08/52 Moyses Hall

GV I

Includes: No.41 CORNHILL.
Merchant house, later used for a variety of purposes,
including an inn, a Bridewell, a prison and a police station;
now a museum. Late C12, considerably restored and altered in
1858. In flint and stone with 2 steep gables to the plaintiled
roofs.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, attic to part, cellar to part. A wide
freestone buttress at each end of the main front and a similar
central buttress between the 2 gabled halves of the building.
A moulded stone string course runs across the whole front at
1st storey level.
The right half of the building has 2 linked original Norman
windows beneath roll-moulded arches resting on colonnettes
with crocket capitals. The windows are 2-light, rectangular in
form with roll-moulded surrounds. The left half has a C15
traceried 2-light window in a rectangular surround on the 1st
storey: the dividing mullion has a capital bearing a carving
of a wolf guarding St Edmund's head. On the 2nd storey, 2
early C19 2-light pointed-headed windows with square leaded
panes and stone surrounds. On the ground storey, four C19
2-light windows with diamond leaded panes have stone reveals
and moulded segmental-headed surrounds. The entrance door on
the right between 2 windows has a similar moulded
segmental-headed surround. The east wall, in a mixture of
flint and stone blocks, is mainly a C19 reconstruction. On the
ground storey it has a semicircular headed 2-light window and
a doorway with a triangular pediment and an architrave with
wood keystone. A further 2-storey section to the north has
flint walling alternating with red brick bands and cross
windows with rectangular surrounds and moulded brick
hood-moulds.
A skeleton clock dial in the apex of the south gable. Clock
with birdcage frame made by John Moore & Sons, Clerkenwell,
London, dated 1876, installed by Vale & Richardson, 14
Abbeygate Street, Bury St Edmunds. Timber closed belfry
containing clock chime of 3 bells, the 2 quarter bells of 1876
cast by John Taylor & Co. of Loughborough and the hour bell
dated 1806, by the Whitechapel bell foundry.
INTERIOR: stone groin-vaulted ground storey, the western part
in 3 bays and the wider eastern part in 6 bays, supported on

massive circular piers with simple square capitals. A C16
brick arch with a shallow pointed head now links the 2 halves
of the building.
The rear range on the north east was an open arcaded storage
area known as The Passage. Along the west wall are wide C16
brick arches. The hall and solar are on the 1st storey,
approached by a C19 stone newel stair in an added lean-to in
white brick with a slate roof. This stair has a 2-light
diamond-leaded casement window in Gothic style on the 1st
storey; beside it on the rear wall are 2 small blocked barred
windows inserted when the building was used as a prison. The 2
C12 windows to the hall have nook-shafts with a roll moulding
which is continued over the arch.
A C16 fireplace in the dividing wall with the solar has a
timber lintel and stone jambs, both with a smaller version of
the roll-moulding round the window arches. The jamb on one
side has been moved inwards. Beside it, a pointed headed stone
doorway. In the solar, the early C16 stone fireplace surround
has a double ogee-moulding to the shallow arch. To the left of
this fireplace is an altered Norman doorway probably
originally for an internal stair, with a reset C14 head.
The rear range, which seems to have originally extended
further north, is in 2-and-a-half bays and has a high
timber-framed rear wall with 2 middle rails. The C16 roof has
clasped purlins with a hollow chamfer moulding and short
cranked windbraces. Arched braces to the collars corbelled out
from the walls. No original tie-beams, but 3 later re-used
ties have been inserted.
Scheduled Ancient Monument.
(BOE: Pevsner N: Radcliffe E: Suffolk: London: 1974-: 152).

Listing NGR: TL8530164370

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Moyse's Hall at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17526591

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2