Latchleys Farmhouse

Latchleys Farmhouse is a manor house, originally built around 1520, with significant extensions in the 17th and 18th centuries, and later alterations in the 20th century. It is constructed of timber framing, plastered walls, and a roof covered with handmade red clay tiles. The main range, aligned north-south, comprises five bays and is jettied to the west, featuring an external chimney stack on the east wall of the second bay from the south. A three-bay range, likely dating to around 1600, adjoins the northern end of the main range, with a chimney stack at the junction and a stair tower in the southwest angle. Smaller 17th and 18th century extensions project eastward from the main range, and a further 18th century extension sits to the west of the west wing. Parts of the original jetty have been enclosed and underbuilt. The house has two storeys and a cellar. The south elevation features a six-panel door, a four-panel door, and eight 20th-century casement windows on the ground floor, with a further eight casement windows on the first floor. The stair tower roof is hipped. 19th-century scalloped bargeboards are present on the south gable. The central chimney stack displays grouped diagonal shafts. The west end of the west wing is adorned with weathered 17th-century carved bargeboards.

The interior features jowled posts and curved braces trenched inside heavy studding. The original range exhibits cambered tiebeams with one surviving pair of braces forming a depressed arch, edge-halved and bridled scarfs in the wallplates, and a clasped purlin roof with arch-braced collars and curved wind bracing, with a ceiling inserted around 1600. A ground-floor room, originally comprising two bays in the north of the building, has transverse and axial beams with double ogee mouldings, carved running foliage, and carved bosses depicting roses, pomegranates, and other motifs. The adjacent room, originally two bays but later divided, contains a late 17th-century cast iron fireback depicting Neptune and mermaids, although it was previously recorded in a different location by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (RCHM). A shortened bay, originally partitioned off, is now combined with the adjoining room. Internally, part of the jetty is exposed, revealing a plain brace and unusually wide joists with soffit tenons and diminished haunches. The west wing has particularly tall rooms on both levels, and blocked dormers in the north roof pitch suggest the attic was intended for living space. Face-halved and bladed scarfs are visible on the wallplates, and the roof utilizes a clasped purlin construction. The staircase, dating from the early 17th century, features a well, square newels, large turned balusters, a heavily moulded rail, and a broad string with bolection-moulded diamonds. Some interior features previously documented by the RCHM are no longer present. A tapestry from the house is now held at the Saffron Walden Museum. The presence of pomegranates in the carved decoration allows for a precise dating of the earliest section of the house to the period between 1509 and 1526, aligning with the coronation of Catherine of Aragon and her subsequent decline in the King’s favour. This provides a valuable confirmation of dating methodologies used in Essex.