Cressing Park

Cressing Park is a house dating from the early 16th century, with substantial alterations made in the late 16th century, the 17th, 18th, and 20th centuries. The house is timber-framed, with plastered and weatherboarded walls, and a roof of handmade red plain tiles. It originally comprised a two-bay hall facing southwest, with a late 16th-century axial stack at the left end, and a storeyed parlour/solar bay at the right end. A two-bay crosswing was added around 1600 to the left end, with a disused 19th-century external stack and an 18th-century one-bay extension to the rear. A 19th-century single-storey extension of painted brick, with a roof of red clay pantiles and an internal end stack, extends to the rear of the crosswing. A 19th/20th-century lean-to extension, weatherboarded with a slate roof, is located in the rear right angle. The crosswing is two storeys high, while the hall range is single-storey with attics. The ground floor has two 20th-century casement windows, while the first floor has one 20th-century casement and two more in gabled dormers. A 20th-century door is set within a 20th-century hipped porch. The front elevation is plastered, with weatherboarding to the returns, and a plastered upper section over a weatherboarded dado on the rear elevation.

A notable feature within the right bay of the main range is a chamfered axial beam with plain horizontal-section joists, jointed to it with soffit tenons with diminished haunches. The original ground-floor partition has been removed and replaced with a later partition of large studs and primary braces, nailed together and now exposed as an open frame. The left bay of the hall contains a wide wood-burning hearth with original seat recesses and two original salt recesses with convex V-heads of moulded bricks. The hearth has original chamfered mantel jambs measuring 0.33 metres. An inserted floor from around 1600 is present in the hall, comprising a chamfered axial beam with vertical-section joists supported on softwood clamps. The roof of the hall range was rebuilt in the 17th century in a clasped purlin form, incorporating some re-used smoke-blackened rafters. A smaller 17th-century hearth is located nearby, with rounded internal splays, a replaced mantel beam and some modern brickwork at the front, and jambs measuring 0.23 metres.

The crosswing features a chamfered binding beam with lamb’s tongue stops, joists plastered to the soffits, jowled posts and an original butt-purlin roof without a central tiebeam, where the principal rafters dovetail directly to the wallplates. The 18th-century rear bay has unjowled posts. The interior has been substantially altered and renovated; the most significant remaining feature is the late 16th-century hearth in the right bay, which serves as a good example of its type. The retention of external weatherboarding has helped to maintain the traditional character. The property was previously known as Wright’s Farm until September 1986; the name Cressing Park is not historically accurate.