Mayflower House

TL 82 NW COLNE ENGAINE ELMS HALL ROAD (north side)

5/10 Mayflower House 3.11.72 (Formerly listed as House c.150 yards west of Elms Hall)

• II

House. Circa 1600, extended in C20. Timber framed, plastered, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. 3 bays facing S, with stack in middle bay, forming a lobby-entrance. Full-length lean-to extension to rear, and C20 extension of one storey with attics to rear of right end. 2 storeys and attics. 3-window range of C20 casements. Central C20 door. 4 octagonal chimney shafts, each with a roll moulding at the base, rebuilt at the top. Jowled posts, close studding, edge-halved and bridled scarf in wallplate. The first and attic floors have chamfered beams with lamb's tongue stops, and plain joists of horizontal section. Mortices for early glazed windows. Blocked window on first floor at centre front, possibly with ovolo mullions and saddle bars concealed in plaster. The stack is behind the axis, leaving space for a stair in the lobby-entrance, now missing; the flues emerge at the ridge. On the ground floor 2 large wood-burning hearths, the right mantel beam renewed, the left mantel beam original, with cranked upper surface, chamfered below with mason's mitre stops, and chamfered brick jambs. On the first floor, one hearth to right of stack with chamfered jambs, 4-centred arch and original plaster. Clasped purlin roof with straight wind-bracing. RCHM 4 reported a modern date 1620 on the W gable and an original bay window at the W end of the house with 6 transomed lights with moulded mullions, both missing in 1985. Formerly known as nos. 1 and 2, Railway Cottages and Elms Hall Farm Cottages. A photograph and plan appear in A.L. Cummings, 'The Framed Houses of Massachusetts Bay, 1625-1725', 1978, as prototypical of the earliest New England houses.

Listing NGR: TL8368029844