Barrack Cottages, North East End

Barrack Cottages, located at the northeast end of Tilbury Hill, is a public building of uncertain purpose that dates back to the mid-16th century or earlier and is now used as a cottage. The structure is timber framed, with parts plastered, weatherboarded, and bricked, topped with a roof made of handmade red clay tiles. It consists of three bays aligned northeast-southwest, featuring a chimney stack in the north corner of the middle bay and an external chimney stack at the southwest end, which is now enclosed in an adjacent cottage.

The building has two storeys, with the southeast elevation being plastered. It includes two 19th-century plain boarded doors with tiled lean-to porches—one open and one weatherboarded—along with two 19th-century cast iron lattice windows and one 19th-century wooden casement window on the ground floor. The first floor has two additional 19th-century wooden casement windows.

Inside, the building features jowled posts and heavy studding, with one complete unglazed window that has three diamond mullions located in the upper part of the northwest wall. The binding beams, tiebeams, and posts are stop-chamfered with step stops. All joists are plain and of horizontal section, running lengthwise. The wallplate scarfs are face-halved, bladed at one end, and housed at the other. The roof has clasped purlins with curved wind-bracing, and the internal stack is made of 16th-century bricks. Originally, there were no partitions on either floor. This building likely served a public function, possibly as a courthouse, and is a rare type that remains substantially unaltered, making it of exceptional historic interest.