Houchin'S Farmhouse

TL 82 SE COGGESHALL

6/4 Houchin's Farmhouse 2.5.53

• II*

House. Circa 1590, altered in C20. Timber framed, plastered, roofed with handmade red plain tiles. Main range of 5 bays aligned E-W, with central stack; 3 storeys and cellar. 3-bay service range to N of W end with one axial stack; one storey and attic. All windows are C20 metal casements, including 5 in hipped dormers in service range. Double half-glazed doors to S. The S and W elevations of the main range are jettied at first and second floors. The roof of the main range has a gablet hip at the W end, a gable at the E end, which is tile-hung; stack rebuilt above roof level in C20, with 7 octagonal shafts. The service range has a half-hip to the N. Carved grotesque figures below both jetties at the SW corner; moulded fascias to all jetties. Cement-rendered plinth approximately one metre high. Shaped sprockets below eaves. Jowled posts. Curved tension braces trenched inside heavy studding, nailed at the crossings. In both ranges, chamfered binding and bridging beams with lamb's tongue stops, joists plastered to the soffits, original related floorboards. Some posts in both ranges have ovolo-moulded jowls or ledges. One transverse beam in the service range is re-used 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 on the second floor; others in the attic complete with diamond saddle bars. Face-halved and bladed scarfs in the wallplates of both ranges. The W ground-floor room of the main range has a wide wood-burning hearth with ovolo-moulded jambs and depressed arch, stripped of plaster. The E ground-floor room is fully lined with original or early C17 oak panelling; C20 grate. Early C19 quarter-turn stair with pine handrail and stick balusters. The frame is illustrated and described in C.A. Hewett, The Development of Carpentry, 1200-1700, an Essex study, 1969, 144, 154, 200, 202-3, 207, 210. RCHM (Feering) 2.

Listing NGR: TL8708423548