Church Hill House

TL 7031-7131 WETHERSFIELD HIGH STREET (north side)

5/171 Church Hill House, (formerly listed as 21.12.67 Church View and Hill Cottage)

GV II

Wrongly shown on OS map as Church View. House. C.1500, altered in later C16 and C20. Timber framed, plastered, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. Main range of 3 bays facing approx. SE, with late C16 external stack at left end, and rear wing of 3 bays from left end, with late C16 axial stack in middle bay, forming an obtuse-angled L-plan. Lean-to behind main range. 2 storeys. Ground floor, C20 bow window, 6-panel door, and double garage doors, all under tiled hipped canopy. First floor, 3 C20 casements. Left end of roof hipped. One diagonal shaft on external stack, rebuilt. Jowled posts, close studding with curved braces trenched to the outside. The front range has a jetty, underbuilt at an early date, and a large wood-burning hearth. On the ground floor the partition between the left and middle bays has been removed, and the right bay lined for use as a garage. Chamfered arched braces to cambered tiebeam, crownpost roof without access. Unglazed window with 2 diamond mullions in the rear lean-to. The rear range originally extended further to the NW, now truncated at an open truss. Shutter groove for unglazed window in left side, edge-halved and bridled scarf in right wallplate. Large woodburning hearth facing to rear, C20 hearth back to back with it, both probably on the site of an earlier timber framed chimney. Evidence of a former bread oven to left of stack. In rear bay, chamfered axial beam and plain joists of horizontal section jointed to it with unrefined soffit tenons. In front bay, axial and transverse beams, joists of horizontal section, all moulded with lamb's tongue stops. Crownpost roof with axial braces, the structure terminated originally on each side of the chimney bay. No smoke-blackening in roof. RCHM 9.

Listing NGR: TL7120031297