Old Timbers

Old Timbers is a timber-framed house of 15th and early 16th-century date, altered in the 20th century, located on the north-east side of Church Street in Kelvedon. The building is plastered with exposed framing (including 20th-century replacement work) and roofed with handmade red plain tiles.

The house comprises a 15th-century 2-bay hall facing south-west, with an early 16th-century stack positioned at the right end in front of the axis, and an early 16th-century 3-bay crosswing to the right, extending to the rear. The hall rises to one storey with attic; the crosswing is of 2 storeys. A 20th-century external stack and a 20th-century single-storey lean-to extension have been added to the left of the rear bay of the crosswing.

On the ground floor, there is one 20th-century casement window and one splayed bay of 20th-century casements below the jetty of the crosswing, adapted from an earlier shop window. The first floor contains one 20th-century casement and another in a gabled dormer. Two plain boarded doors and 2 plain brackets below the jetty are visible externally. The stack has been rebuilt above roof level.

Much of the exposed framing of the hall is 20th-century replacement. The framing of the crosswing is substantially original, though timbers around the first-floor window have been replaced. The wall studding is of close type, with curved tension braces trenched to the outside. An early 17th-century inserted floor in the hall comprises 2 transverse beams and plain joists of vertical section, with considerable 20th-century replacement. Some rebated hardwood floorboards remain in the left bay, fixed with 20th-century nails. Original smoke-blackened rafters and collars survive from a crownpost roof, though the collar-purlin and crownposts are missing. The ground level has risen considerably, both outside and inside.

The frame of the crosswing is substantially complete and largely original. It features jowled posts and 2 chamfered binding beams with step stops. The joists are of horizontal section, hollow-moulded in the front and middle bays (except below the stair) and plain in the rear bay. Joists are jointed to the binding beams with central tenons with housed soffits, scribed to the profile of the moulding where appropriate. The lower storey was originally unpartitioned; an original studded partition separates the middle and rear bays on the upper storey.

An exceptionally well-preserved unglazed window complete with 3 diamond mullions and a groove for a sliding shutter stands to the right of the middle bay on the ground floor. It has been blocked externally since soon after construction, which accounts for its fine condition. Diamond mortices and shutter grooves for other unglazed windows are visible in the upper storey in the front and rear bays of the right wall and at the rear.

A cambered tiebeam spans between the front and rear bays, with 2 chamfered arched braces 0.10 metre wide. The roof is of butt-purlin type with an arched collar and curved wind-bracing. The left wallplate shows a slightly splayed and bridled scarf.

Early 16th-century wood-burning hearths stand back to back in the hall and crosswing. The hearth in the crosswing features a chamfered mantel beam with quadrant curves in the soffit at each end, now embedded in brickwork, indicating later alteration. The hearth in the hall has chamfered jambs, a similar mantel beam with cranked top, and above it, 3 hollow-moulded niches with 4-centred heads. One similar niche is located in the rear of the stack.

A rare 17th- or 18th-century plank and muntin partition of pine on the first floor of the crosswing divides the front and middle bays. An original doorway passes through this partition, a feature of special historical importance.

The house abuts closely against nos. 1–5 High Street to the right. The 3 unglazed windows in the right wall indicate that this house occupied the site before the adjacent building. Strong similarities in construction between the crosswing and nos. 1–5 High Street suggest both were built by the carpenters of the Abbot of Westminster, with little time elapsed between their construction. Shared features include an unusual type of scarf, butt-purlin roof construction (rare in Essex at this period), hearths with niches, and brick of identical type recorded in the original cellar of no. 3 High Street. The smaller Church Street house determined how far the south-west wing of the larger High Street building could extend.