Walsham le Willows - Mid Suffolk District Council

Traditional Building MaterialsWalsham le Willows exhibits a greatdiversity in its buildings, employing thefull palette of Suffolk's vernacularmaterials. For the most part these arerandomly scattered through the village,one material juxtaposed against anotherwithout a second thought.There are of course many traditionalSuffolk timber-framed buildings withrendered walls rather than exposedframing. Some of these have panels ofpargetting and there seems to be an oddlocal variety of this employing decorativepatches of roughcast render, probablythe work of just one craftsman. Anumber of white lap-boarded buildingscan also be found, including the formerGuildhall, plus many outbuildings withblack stained boarding.In addition to the Church there is anabundance of flint, both in cottages andin many boundary walls, usually usedwith red brick dressings and quoins. Ontop of all this there is an abundance oflocal brick, both of the red and whitevarieties, often used together in the 19 thCentury buildings. There is one examplein red employing rat-trap bond.Roofing materials are equally diversewith a number of thatched buildings(usually on rendered timber frames).There are also many plaintiled roofs anda scattering of pantiles, both red and theblack glazed variety. The Guildhall hasa mix of plaintiles on the hip ends and aflattened Roman style pantile on the mainslope. Slate can also be found on manyof the red brick cottages and granderwhite brick buildings of the early 19 thCentury.