The Woolpack Inn

The Woolpack Inn is a timber-framed house, now a public house and restaurant, located on the north-west side of Church Street in Coggeshall. It dates from the 15th century, with alterations made in the 16th and 20th centuries. The building is constructed of timber framing with areas of exposed framing and some weatherboarding, and is roofed with handmade red plain tiles.

The structure has a complex plan comprising six distinct blocks. The earliest section (block 4) dates to the late 14th century and contains widely-spaced studding with two blocked unglazed windows in the right return. It features a crownpost roof with cranked down-braces and arched axial braces. Block 5 was added around 1400 and was originally undivided at both storeys with unstudded fronts except where it projects to the right. It had unglazed windows at both jettied ends and contains central-tenon floor jointing with a crownpost roof featuring curved down-braces, arched axial braces, and two gablet hips.

Block 3 has an underbuilt full-length jetty to the left and central-tenon floor jointing. It originally comprised two rooms of two bays on each storey, with evidence of further forward extension before being truncated for the construction of block 2. It has a crownpost roof with arched axial bracing only.

Blocks 1 and 2 form a single build dating to the mid-15th century. Block 1 comprises a two-bay hall facing east with an early 16th-century stack in its front left corner. It contains a spere truss at the left end, with open trusses at both storeys featuring spandrel-struts in the middle truss. The rear girt is moulded and crenellated with an original four-centred doorway below. An octagonal central crownpost with a moulded and crenellated capital supports four-way arched braces. The hall was originally open but a floor was inserted around 1500 and the front wall was rebuilt with oriels at both storeys. The joists and beams are moulded, with a framed trap for a chimney that predated the present one, probably timber-framed. Block 2 is a two-bay crosswing to the left, incorporating a through-passage, original shop, and inserted stack. It has a cellar below that is original.

The building also includes a four-bay extension to the rear (block 3), of which the front two bays are jettied to the right, and a two-bay crosswing to the right of the hall (block 4) with an internal stack. A two-bay range to the rear of the hall and right crosswing (block 5), parallel with the hall, is jettied at both ends. Early 19th-century single-storey extensions to the rear right are constructed of red brick in Flemish bond, roofed with red clay pantiles, and terminate with a coach-house.

The building stands two storeys with a cellar. The front elevation of the hall range features on the ground floor a 20th-century casement below the head of an early 16th-century splayed oriel that is moulded and crenellated with mortices for moulded mullions. The first floor has the sill of an early 16th-century splayed oriel, moulded and with floriate carving, with 20th-century casements.

The left crosswing on the ground floor has two 20th-century casements in original shop windows with hollow-chamfered four-centred arched heads, a blocked rebated narrow doorway to the right with a similar head, and a wide similar doorway to its right with 20th-century double doors and a leaded overlight. The jetty features a moulded bressumer with three hollow-chamfered brackets on semi-octagonal attached shafts (one restored). On the first floor is one 20th-century casement, exposed 'Suffolk' braces trenched outside close studding, and a moulded and crenellated tiebeam. The right crosswing has an underbuilt jetty with, on the ground floor, a 20th-century splayed oriel and 20th-century door with four-centred head. The first floor contains a 20th-century casement, a late 16th-century inserted window with one diamond saddle bar (blocked), a hollow-chamfered tiebeam (restored), and exposed external bracing (mostly restored). The left return is weatherboarded. The right return of block 4 has one bracket of the underbuilt jetty and, on the first floor, one long curved tension brace and a blocked unglazed window, plus a projecting gable with short straight braces below the tiebeam. The right return of block 5 has straight tension braces trenched outside the studding, a blocked unglazed window below a jetty with two plain brackets, and a gablet hip.

All timber structures are of parallelogram plan to conform with the shape of the site.