Baytree Farmhouse

Baytree Farmhouse

This is a timber-framed house of early 16th and circa 1600 date, with later alterations and extensions. The building is plastered with some exposed framing, roofed with handmade red plain tiles, and has a 20th-century two-storey extension of yellow brick with flat roof to the rear of the left end.

The main structure comprises two ranges. The early 16th-century range consists of three bays with a long jetty facing north and a 19th-century external stack at the left end. To the right is a circa 1600 range of three bays with a long jetty, incorporating one short bay with a stack in the rear half and a stair and lobby-entrance in the front half, followed by two long bays.

The house rises to two storeys with a cellar and attics. The ground floor features four square oriel windows on scrolled brackets. One at the right end has horizontal slats externally; the others each contain an 18th-century three-light casement. On either side of the left bay is an early 17th-century small fixed light with one ovolo mullion of refined profile. A full-length jetty runs across the front with 19th-century fretted trim, beneath which is some exposed imitation studding.

The first floor displays four 18th-century three-light casements, one small wrought iron casement inserted between the studs of the earlier range, and one original two-light casement over a door in the later range. An 18th-century two-light casement sits in a gabled dormer with 19th-century fretted bargeboards and a moulded finial. Each of these windows incorporates one wrought iron casement, saddle bars on the fixed lights, and rectangular leaded glazing with varying details of latches and handles.

Two feature gables with similar bargeboards and finials accent the composition. An early 19th-century half-glazed door with a four-centred head, nine lights and Gothick tracery sits within a mid-19th-century gabled porch featuring fretted bargeboards and a moulded finial. The porch entrance has a four-centred head with moulded stops; fixed lights with two-centred heads flank each side. A gablet hip marks the left end of the roof. The main stack is decorated with 19th-century grouped diagonal shafts. The right return shows exposed close studding, an ovolo-moulded tiebeam, a blocked original first-floor window, an 18th-century two-light casement with rectangular leading in the attic gable, and 19th-century fretted bargeboards with a moulded finial.

The three left bays are framed with chamfered transverse and axial beams with step stops and plain joists of horizontal section, displaying clear carpenters' assembly marks in the Brentwood or cellular system. An inserted attic floor with plain joists of square section arranged longitudinally dates to the early 17th century. The roof is of crownpost construction with straight axial bracing, jowled posts, and a cambered tiebeam. The right front post of this section is slightly weathered, and the end studs have been removed for the 17th-century extension. The two right bays are framed with chamfered axial beams, unstopped, and plain joists of square and horizontal sections. The attic floor here is original and similar, with original boards. This roof is of clasped purlin construction with arched wind-bracing.

Interior details include 20th-century grates in wood-burning hearths. The winder stair to the first floor has a 19th-century re-used newel of clustered-shafts form and re-used balustrading. The straight stair from the first floor to the attic is original, with solid treads covered by modern treads and risers.

The frame and jointing of both structural parts are illustrated and described in C.A. Hewett's "Some East Anglian Prototypes for Early Timber Houses in America" (Post-Medieval Archaeology 3, 1969, 101-2, 113 and 119), and the marking system is documented in D.H. Scott's "Brentwood Marking" (Historic Buildings in Essex 3, November 1986, 1 and 22-3).