Halstead Pottery And Craft Studio Immediately South West Of Numbers 2 And 4 Parsonage Street

Halstead Pottery and Craft Studio, located immediately southwest of numbers 2 and 4 Parsonage Street, is an ancillary rear range to 5-7 High Street in Halstead. This building, which was originally a bakehouse, dates back to the early 17th century and has undergone alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is two storeys high with an attic and features a first floor that is timber framed and rendered externally, with an underbuilding of red brick laid in Flemish bond and some fletton infill. The roof is covered with handmade plain clay tiles.

On the northeast front, there is a double sash window on the ground floor with an 8:8 configuration, along with boarded doors on both the ground and first floors. External timber stairs lead to the first floor.

Inside, the ground floor consists of three bays with transverse bridging joists that are chamfered and have stepped run-out stops. The axial bridging joists in the western bays are chamfered with lambs tongue stops. A side flue brick bread oven occupies the eastern bay and is complete with a cast iron door and surround, as well as a firing hole and flue. All doors were made by the Globe Oven Works in London. The ground floor has a brick floor and shows evidence of a full partition across the end of the eastern bay.

The first floor features a good oak frame with jowled storey posts and slightly curved braces that extend from the storey posts across the bay divisions. There is shallow pitched straight Suffolk bracing in the external walls that falls from the storey posts to the studs, with some original infill made of vertical hazel rods tied to horizontal oak laths. The original rafters support a coupled collared roof that has been reset with side purlins and new strengthening members. There is evidence of full partitions at each bay, with the eastern bay partition extending to the roof apex. This includes a cambered tie beam, while the western bays have straight tie beams that were floored for attic use. The wall plates are joined with bladed scarf joints and four edge pegs, and there are three 19th-century casement windows in the rear elevation.