Hawbush Old House

Hawbush Old House is a timber-framed house at Cressing, formerly wrongly identified as Hawbush Farmhouse and Hawbush Farm. It comprises elements from the 14th century through to the 20th century, and was restored around 1968 with 20th-century extensions.

The building is constructed of timber frame, plastered, and roofed with handmade red plain tiles. It consists of four structurally separate elements. The earliest is a single bay from a 14th-century parlour or solar crosswing, originally two bays, surviving from an early medieval house of which the remainder has been demolished. To the south is a two-bay hall range dating to around 1500, originally floored in one bay only and facing east, with a mid-16th-century external stack to the rear. To the left is a late 16th-century three-bay crosswing, with a 19th-century external stack to its left. To the rear of the left bay of the hall range is a late 16th-century stair tower. The building was extended in the 20th century with single-storey lean-to extensions to the rear and rear left, and a conservatory to the left, dating to around 1984. It is two storeys with attics.

The exterior displays a three-window range of 20th-century casements with diamond leading, and two more windows in gabled dormers. The entrance is in a lean-to porch to the rear left. The roof of the main range has been extended to the left to incorporate the crosswing, with a gablet above it. The right crosswing has been re-roofed to form a catslide to the rear, with twin gabled dormers. The structural frame of the right crosswing is exposed to the front, showing a central cambered tiebeam, arched braces, collar-purlin and binding beam.

Inside, the crownpost is exposed with short straight rising braces on each side and a longer straight brace from a lower point on the crownpost to the collar-purlin. Three original collars and two rafter couples survive in this roof, with the collars half-dovetailed to the rafters and fixed with nailhead pegs. The remainder of this roof is cut off by the alteration to a catslide at the rear and the demolition of the front bay.

In the right crosswing, the floor comprises a moulded axial beam lodged on the framing with chamfered joists of horizontal section with step stops at the outer ends only. The girts are rebated for panelling or wainscot, now missing. On the ground floor, diamond mortices in the rear girt indicate a former unglazed window. The central post of the rear wall has been severed for the insertion of a large wood-burning hearth, supported on a heavy lintel above the mantel beam, which is chamfered with bar stops.

The left side has a blocked original doorway through into the hall, with a double ogee doorhead and two empty mortices for a former draught screen. A pair of four-centred doorheads in the same wall were moved from the other end of the hall range during the 16th century, when the ends were reversed: the original parlour or solar wing became a service wing, and the late 16th-century left crosswing formed a new parlour or solar end, on the site of a former service bay. The left bay of the hall range contained the original front and rear doorways; the position of the front door is indicated by a deep rebate in the corner post. The rear doorway with four-centred arched head was re-sited around 1968 and is now in the side of the left crosswing, but its original position is indicated by peg-holes in the girt. The floor in this bay was infilled in the late 16th century; there is evidence of a former gallery to the rear and an open void in front of it, occupied by a chimney stack (now demolished) and probably a stair to the gallery. Front and back doors were inserted at the right end of the hall range at the same time, since blocked.

On the first floor is an original studded partition between the bays with an altered doorway on the line of the former gallery, and in the rear wall two glazed windows with diamond mullions and grooves for sliding shutters; one mullion is a restoration of around 1968, the others original. Also in this wall is an edge-halved and bridled scarf. At the left end, studs have been removed for access to the rear stair tower. The roof is of clasped purlin construction with cranked wind-braces, not smoke-blackened; this roof appears to be a late 16th-century rebuild.

The left crosswing has moulded binding beams (one hacked away to increase clearance), inserted partitions between the middle and rear bays, and a clasped purlin roof with cranked wind-bracing, originally gabled but altered to hips at front and back to align with the hall range roof. On the ground floor, an original glazed window at the front has been replaced by the present window of similar dimensions. To each side is a smaller glazed window inserted around 1575, each with one moulded mullion and two diamond saddle bars, now with 20th-century glazing. On the upper floor, the left room is lined with oak panelling of around 1600, believed to have been removed from the ground floor around 1968.

The stair tower has a blocked ground-floor window with one ovolo mullion, and mortices for an unglazed window on the upper floor. The stair is rebuilt.

A report, photographs and measured drawings by J. McCann from 1981 are deposited in Essex Record Office and the National Monuments Record. See also RCHM 4.