Secretaries Farmhouse

Secretaries Farmhouse is a house dating back to the 14th century, significantly altered in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is located on Water Lane in Bures Hamlet, though incorrectly shown on Ordnance Survey maps as Brook Street. The house is timber framed with a red brick facade in a Flemish bond pattern, roughcast on other areas, and a roof of handmade red clay tiles. Originally a hall house, it was likely formerly aisled and faces south. A chimney stack of 16th-century origin, rebuilt in the 18th century, sits centrally, with further 18th-century external chimney stacks at each end. An 18th-century rear stair tower and closet wing were added, alongside early 19th-century rear wings extending from each end. A mid-19th-century single-storey, lean-to extension sits beyond the stair tower.

The front facade features two 19th-century French windows inserted into original 18th-century openings, with flat brick arches. A central, half-glazed door from the early 19th century is set within an 18th-century doorcase that includes reeded pilasters and a broken pediment with geometrical tracery in the fanlight. The first floor has two pairs of 18th-century sash windows of 12 lights, and a central Venetian window. A band runs along the first floor level, and a wooden, modillioned eaves cornice extends around the side walls. The roof is hipped with a gablet.

The ground floor consists of a large central entrance hall and rooms to each side, fully plastered. An asymmetrical transverse beam is within the entrance hall, and an axial beam is in the right end, both now boxed in. The hall roof is of crownpost construction, with missing crownposts and heavily smoke-blackened rafters and collars. Some panels of wattle and daub remain in the roof. The stair features 18th-century twisted balusters, a wide handrail, and a dado of pine, which have undergone minor restoration.

A finely drawn estate map of 1796 by John Kingsbury, belonging to the current owner, shows the house in perspective. The front is depicted as it currently appears, with the exception that pairs of sashes occupied the positions of the present French windows, and the first floor’s fanlight had radial tracery. Smaller windows were positioned on either side of the door, representing later 18th-century alterations, and were removed when the present entrance hall was formed. The map indicates that there was no wing on the right-hand side, and the left rear wing was of only one storey.