Marvel'S Garden

Marvel's Garden is a Grade II* listed house located on Pebmarsh Water Lane, dating from around 1400, with alterations made in the late 16th century and an extension added in the 19th century. The house is timber framed, plastered with exposed framing, and has a roof covered with handmade red clay tiles.

The original structure features a two-bay hall oriented northeast-southwest, with a late 16th-century axial stack in the northeast bay. There is an integral storeyed service bay to the northeast and an integral storeyed parlour or solar bay to the southwest. A two-bay extension was added to the northwest of the parlour or solar bay around 1560, while a single-storey extension was added to the northeast of the service bay in the 19th century. The original building has one storey with attics, while the northwest extension has two storeys.

On the northwest elevation, there are three 20th-century casement windows and a window with 19th-century wooden slats on the ground floor, along with two 20th-century casements on the first floor, one of which is in a slated swept dormer. The entrance features a boarded door with two glazed panes. The original building displays widely spaced studs with curved tension bracing that are trenched to the outside, and hipped gablets at both ends. The northwest extension has close studding with curved braces that are trenched to the inside, and it includes mortices for removed oriels.

Inside, the house has jowled posts and deep arched braces supporting the central tiebeam of the hall. The crownpost roof features an octagonal crownpost with a moulded capital and base, along with complete four-way bracing. The upper half of the hall window is present but blocked. There are twin service doorways, a doorway to the stair, and a parlour doorway, all of which are chamfered with straight heads. Ogee display bracing is found on the service end of the hall. Most of the original rafters in the hall, except for one, are heavily smoke-blackened, with the blackening extending to the gablets. The service bay retains original lodged plain joists, while the parlour or solar bay has 20th-century joists. Moulded beams are present in the northwest extension.

Marvel's Garden is an exceptionally complete and unchanged example of a typical Essex hall house, notable for its early use of straight doorheads. The northwest extension also retains unusually complete and datable evidence of its original form.