I made the mistake of trying to get to Ickworth House using TomTom on Saturday. The man at the Shell garage was much more helpful. But there was a bonus: an unwonted tour of Suffolk took me to Hawstead and rounding a corner I was presented with the delightful surprise of the Metcalfe Almshouses siting comfortably across a green. Pevsner does not share my delight: ‘A hungry-looking job of grey bricks…The two middle doorways are taken together under one ogee arch – the one plum in the cake.’
Photo: Metcalfe Almshouses, Hawstead, Suffolk, March 2019