Rear Wing Of Bank House

TL 6730 GREAT BARDFIELD HIGH STREET (north-west side)

8/178 Rear wing of Bank House, 21.12.67 (formerly listed with Bank House )

GV II*

Public building, probably a guildhall, now divided into a first floor flat, a ground floor store, and the kitchen of Bank House. Late C15, altered in C19 and C20. Timber framed, plastered and partly bricked, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. 6 bays facing SW (at right angles to High Street), behind Bank House. No stacks. On the ground floor the 2 bays at the right end have become the rear kitchen of Bank House, a much later building. The left bay has become the entrance and stair to the flat which comprises the whole first floor. The remaining 4 bays comprise a store and entrance. The SW long side was originally jettied throughout, but is now underbuilt with modern red brick for slightly more than one bay at the left end. The next part-bay and bay have been bricked on the line of the original wall, and the left return wall and the whole rear wall are bricked. 2 storeys. 4 C20 casements on ground floor, 5 on first floor. One C20 door. Blocked original door at right end, with 4-centred door- head. Exposed beams and joists in 5 of the 6 bays. 3 plain brackets, the others missing. 2 attached shafts of half-octagonal section with moulded and crenellated capitals. The ground floor was originally divided into spaces of 2, 1 and 3 bays respectively, one studded wall now removed. In the 2 right bays the transverse and axial beams are moulded to a double-ogee profile with converging stops. In the 3 left bays the transverse and axial beams are chamfered with step-stops. The remaining bay is only 2.20 metres long, has no axial beam, and probably contained the original entrance stair. The transverse beam forming its right side is moulded to the right, chamfered and stopped to the left. The upper storey is divided into 2 rooms of 3 bays each by an original studded partition. There are edge-halved and bridled scarfs in the walls, and the roof is of crownpost construction with axial braces. This building appears to be the guildhall confiscated by the Crown in 1547, 'the messuage called le Yeldehall in Great Bardfelde, Essex' sold by the Court of Augmentations to William Berners in 1549 (Calendar of Letters Patent, Edward VI, 11, 366), and endowed as a school 'for the teaching of grammar in the guildhall there' by the will of Serjeant William Bendlowes, 1584. (See Place House, 8/129, and the parish church, 8/115). The guildhall was mentioned again in an inquisition of 1611 (Chancery, Inquisitions for Charitable Uses, 4/9). The site of a Guildhall is recorded approx. 25 metres to the SE in OS maps of 1876, 1896 and 1921. There may be some confusion with a 'Town House' described in churchwarden's minutes in 1795 as being in derelict condition, and in 1796 as 'lately removed', but this was probably a post-medieval market building comparable with that still present at Steeple Bumpstead. RCHM 30.

Listing NGR: TL6753030562