Houchin'S Farmhouse

House. Built around 1590, with alterations in the 20th century. The house is timber-framed, with plaster infill and a roof of handmade red plain tiles. The main range is five bays wide, running east to west, with a central chimney stack. It has three storeys and a cellar. A three-bay service wing is located to the north of the west end, with one axial chimney stack and one storey plus an attic. All windows are 20th-century metal casements, including five in hipped dormers in the service wing. A double, half-glazed door is situated on the south side. The south and west elevations of the main range have jetties at first and second floor levels. The roof of the main range has a gablet hip at the west end and a gable at the east end, which is tile-hung; the chimney stack has been rebuilt above roof level in the 20th century, incorporating seven octagonal shafts. The service wing has a half-hip to the north. Carved grotesque figures are positioned below the jetties at the southwest corner; moulded fascias are present on all jetties. A cement-rendered plinth, approximately one metre high, runs along the base. Shaped sprockets are visible below the eaves. The timber frame includes jowled posts. Curved tension braces are trenched inside the heavy studding, nailed at the crossings. Throughout both ranges, there are chamfered binding and bridging beams with lamb's tongue stops, with joists plastered to the soffits, and original related floorboards. Some posts in both ranges feature ovolo-moulded jowls or ledges. One transverse beam in the service wing appears to be reused from a jettied building. The main range has a clasped purlin roof with arched wind-bracing. Blocked original windows with unrefined ovolo-moulded jambs and mullions are visible on the second floor; others are located in the attic, complete with diamond saddle bars. Face-halved and bladed scarfs are present in the wallplates of both ranges. The west ground-floor room in the main range has a wide wood-burning hearth with ovolo-moulded jambs and a depressed arch, which has been stripped of plaster. The east ground-floor room is lined with original or early 17th century oak panelling, and contains a 20th-century grate. There is an early 19th century quarter-turn staircase with a pine handrail and stick balusters. The building’s timber frame is illustrated and described in C.A. Hewett’s The Development of Carpentry, 1200-1700, an Essex study, 1969, pages 144, 154, 200, 202-3, 207, 210.