One of the oldest buildings in Halesworth has come up for sale - complete with a witch's mark on the fireplace and a "few rumours" about ghosts.

When antiques experts and business owners Kate Button and her husband viewed the imposing white building overlooking Halesworth marketplace in 2014, she says it was love at first sight.

“We just thought it was fantastic,” she says. “Lovely position, great building, lots of character, and suited our trade obviously very well.”

Now, she says, she hopes someone else will love it too, as it hits the market with Attik Estate Agents at a guide price of £650,000.

The building dates back to 1570 and is Grade II star-listed. “It was a merchant’s house – a very rich merchant’s house – and sits right at the top of the marketplace, which was a very important place,” says Kate. “Very much a case of ‘look at me, I’ve got lots of money!’”

It was one of four properties owned by the Walpole family and, in 1617, it got its first wine licence. After that, it pretty much stayed a licensed premises, trading as The Three Tuns, until the Southwold-based brewing company, Adnams, bought it in 1927 and ran it as a social club.

When Kate and her husband bought it as the home of their business, Blackdog Antiques, they changed it back.

Kate admits that taking on such a historic property was a little daunting – and so, too, was the size of the space, offering an impressive 4,500 sq ft. “Because it had been owned by the same company for that many years, and it hadn’t been open to the public, it required a lot of work,” she says.

“There were certain alterations done which probably weren’t in keeping with the building, so we removed a lot of the MDF additions and went through English Heritage – we had to stop work for two months until all the permissions went through – and then reinstated some new oak to replace the old oak that had been taken out.”

Renovating and restoring the building has been something of an adventure for the couple, who have done most of the work themselves – up to and including the discovery of its ‘secret’ rooms.

“When the lady from Adnams took us around, she said ‘there’s a secret room in there, but we don’t know how to access it.’ So when we were doing the restoration work, we were sort of hanging around and my husband had taken the skirting board off and could see that there was light under this end wall and thought that was a bit strange, so got right down and looked and could see into the space.

“We started knocking the wall down and all they had done was take the door off and put plasterboard over it and that was actually the entrance of the secret room, which is the length of this side extension.”

Inside the room, Kate says they found some “interesting” finds, including some photos of George V’s Silver Jubilee, dating back to 1935.

“The photo shows this great big roll of cloth going right across the front of the building in red, white and blue and we found the roll of fabric, which was great, and some of the flags they’d hung out in some of the other celebrations.”

In another secret room they found enamel advertising shades, which they’ve kept behind the counter of the shop, and a “lovely roof tile” which has what looks like a cat footprint in it.
The ground floor comprises four showroom areas, a cloakroom, two inner lobbies, a cellar and three store rooms, and the first floor is just as impressive too, offering four separate rooms which have been currently used for storage.

The second floor has two huge rooms, which measure over 55ft in length and boast panoramic views from their windows as well as a fantastic trussed roof.

There is history in every part of the building, from the witch’s mark on one of the fireplaces to the side extension, which Kate says they’ve had an expert come in to have a look at. “We thought it was Victorian because it’s sort of basic Victorian bricks, but it dates back to a similar time to the original main building and there’s evidence of an old garderobe”, a type of medieval toilet.

“We’ve had a few rumours about ghosts,” Kate laughs, “but we haven’t seen any.

"My husband has had a few tools disappear and then reappear and apparently a lot of the barmaids who used to work behind the bar at the social club said there were things there. We had a tradesman in recently, doing some electrics, and he swore he saw one at the bottom of the stairs. But if there are, they’re very friendly. I haven’t had any bad feelings.”

Over the past few years, Kate says that the business has become more event-focused, which means they no longer need their shop. “We feel it’s time to pass it on to new custodians who are going to love it,” she says, and with the right planning permissions in place, the property offers huge potential, as either or both a commercial and residential premises.

“It’s a really important building – probably one of the most important in Halesworth,” Kate says. “But it needs someone new to take it on to take it further.”

Blackdog Antiques, Halesworth, is on the market at a guide price of £650,000. For more information, call 01986 485009.