Riverside Maltings

Riverside Maltings, Coggeshall

A late 16th-century timber-framed house, now divided into two dwellings (Nos. 2 and 3), standing on the east side of Bridge Street. The building was renovated in 1982.

The main structure comprises a 4-bay range of 2 storeys facing west, with two rear wings and connecting extensions. To the rear right is a 2-bay wing of 2 storeys with an attic storey, featuring a chimney stack at its junction with a further 2-bay 2-storey extension that projects to the right. To the rear left stands a 2-bay wing of 3 storeys. A small extension bridges between the two rear wings at upper-storey level. The building is constructed with timber framing and plastering, roofed with handmade red plain tiles. The walls display jowled posts, with girts and wallplates that are chamfered and finished with lamb's tongue stops, a feature indicating a date after around 1565. Three gables of varying sizes rise above the ridge of the main range.

The left two bays of the main range are structurally separate from the remainder. Internally, the main range contains axial beams that are chamfered with lamb's tongue stops, while the left bay has plain joists of horizontal section. The right bays feature chamfered joists of square section with lamb's tongue stops. An original unglazed window with modern glazing is present, with one diamond mullion of machine-sawn timber inserted and others reversed so they are now weathered on the inside.

The ground floor includes one early 19th-century sash window of 16 lights and the unglazed window mentioned above. The first floor has two similar sash windows. No. 2 has a 20th-century plain door, while No. 3 has a 20th-century half-glazed door. The rear wings contain jowled posts and curved braces trenched inside the studding, with unglazed windows featuring diamond mortices in the upper storeys; modern diamond mullions have been inserted in No. 2. A window of early glazed type, with ovolo-moulded surround and unrefined ovolo mullion, is located in the lower right wall of No. 2.

The chimney stack to the rear right has five octagonal shafts, truncated. In front of it is a wood-burning hearth with a chamfered depressed arch that has been re-pointed. Behind this stack stands a large disused wood-burning hearth, with a smaller disused hearth above featuring an ovolo-moulded depressed arch. On a wall of this room is a mutilated wall painting with poppies, dated around 1600.

No. 2 contains an early 19th-century straight stair with turned newels, a moulded handrail of pine, and stick balusters that have been sand-blasted. Both sections of the house show wallplates with edge-halved and bridled scarfs and grooves for sliding shutters.

The combination of chamfered beams with lamb's tongue stops and the presence of an unglazed window indicates the building was constructed between 1565 and 1600, likely in three or four successive phases. A map of 1639 held by Essex Record Office shows the structure as a main range with two rear wings. An illustration by J. Greig in his work Excursions through Essex depicts the rear wings thatched, the main range tiled and partly ashlared. The property was the birthplace of Dr. John Gardner (1804–1880), a physician and co-founder of both the General Apothecaries' Company and the Royal College of Chemistry. The name derives from Roode's Land.