One of the few of our buildings revealing its age from the outside!
The Ancient House has been known as Brimstone Tenemants, school, jewellers, tobacconist and now a solicitors’ - enjoy the piece of carving above the door.
Known in the Victorian Times as the Brimstone Tenemants, we also know it as the Ancient House, one of the few in Harleston to reveal its age to passers by. Yes, it does have its Victorian bow window – spot the iron pole to help support the beam above, and the box to house a long gone shop blind that cuts across the middle of the shop front – BUT to the left of that blind box we can still see the beautifully carved bressummer bean supporting the upper stories. Does that beam continue behind the blind box or did the Victorians or some earlier ‘improvers’ destroy it in the name of progress?
Dating from the 16th C this was old when the Mayflower Pilgrims left for the America well into the 17th Century! It would then have had a thatched roof over the attic, the later black glazed pan tiles allowed for a Victorian wedge shaped dormer to be inserted, allowing light into the attic.
Look out for the carvings at the bottom of the brackets – is one a lion and one a grumpy cherub or are they both lions?
If you peer up at the large chimney you will see that instead of mass-produced pots, someone built square brick flues at an attractive 45 degree angle to the base.
In the early 19thC the Dove School, founded for the education of poor children and formerly housed in the old Chapel of Ease was held in this building, accessed by an outside staircase so presumably in one of the upper rooms so as not to disturb the tenants!
Owned by a Mr Smith in 1771 by 1839 Tailor John Blomfield owned both this and the adjacent building on the corner of Bullock Fair Close. It was sometime between 1851 and 1861 that the adjacent shop became a butchers. So it was after that period the sun shielding canopy, and the lift up windows to display the meat – peer closely and you will see the remnants.
Old John Blomfield died in 1875 to be replaced by Michael Mothersole Jeweller and Watchmaker – one of several in the town although not of the fame of the 18thC local clockmakers, I suspect the shallow lockable display window dates from his time.
He would most likely have been focussing his trade on the relatively affordable American Waltham pocket watches – essential for any young man aspiring to a bit of status but was also assembling aneroid barometers and other pieces of fine engineering. Following his death in 1888, his wife took over the business until her son Herbert was old enough to step in.
By the 1920s, Ancient House became a tobacconists, a popular past time believed to clear your bronchial tubes.