The Old Vicarage

TL 7615 and 7715 TERLING OWL'S HILL (south side)

8/147 and 9/147 The Old Vicarage

GV II*

House. C14/C15, altered in C17 and C19. Timber framed, plastered, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. 3 bays aligned NE-SW, facing NE, with C19 central stack. Single-storey extension to left, c.1974. 2 storeys. NE elevation, one C20 casement on each floor, and in attic gable an original 2-light window with wooden tracery, each light cinquefoiled with 2 trefoils above, originally unglazed, now glazed on the outside. Jetty with exposed joists of horizontal section, 2 plain brackets, and a mortice for a third. C20 door in left extension. The rear bay of the roof has a hipped gablet. The interior is mainly plastered, but all the visible posts are deeply chamfered. In the SE side is a roll-moulded arch, only partly visible, apparently of an original window. Immediately to rear of it there are indications of a former cross-entry. The C19 inserted stack has C20 grates at front and back. On the upper floor chamfered arched braces rise to the front internal tiebeam. A re-located bracket supports an early C17 framed ceiling, with plain joists of horizontal section. The roof is of crownpost construction, almost complete. The front crownpost is of cross-quadrate section with wide 4-way arched braces of which one has been severed for the inserted stack. The rear crownpost is plain with wide axial arched braces, and down-braces to the tiebeam, trenched into the studs of an original partition. Original hip. The front crown stud forms the central mullion of the gable window, rebated with step stops, and the wooden tracery is nailed to it. This is a small house of high quality, possibly for a priest. Tenements 'in which the parish clerk now lives', rent 4s. p.a., and 'in which John Brian the chaplain now lives', rent 6s 8d. p.a., are mentioned in a rental of 1475 (Essex Record Office, D/M, M.169). RCHM 14.

Listing NGR: TL7702315050