Ancillary Building 5 Metres South East Of Bridgefoot Farmhouse

This building, located 5 metres south-east of Bridgefoot Farmhouse, is a manorial court-house dating from around 1500, which has been altered in the 20th century. It is timber framed and weatherboarded, with a roof made of corrugated asbestos. The structure consists of 4 bays aligned north-west to south-east and is connected to Bridgefoot Farmhouse by a 20th-century single-storey extension with a flat roof. The building has two storeys and features 20th-century casements and doors.

The jowled posts are morticed and ledged for binding beams, and there are chamfered arched braces to the tiebeams. The crownpost roof includes near-straight axial braces. Notably, the tiebeam one bay from the south-east end is steeply cambered, suggesting that this was originally the more significant end, likely the front of the court. The scarf joints in the wallplates are of a rare type, also noted in a similar building on Church Street in Bocking, as documented in measured drawings by B.A. Watkin at the Essex Record Office and the National Monuments Record.

Internally, the walls and roof are boarded, hiding the studding and all original openings. The building was originally floored throughout, but only one binding beam of the floor structure remains. This beam is deeply chamfered with step stops, morticed for joists with unrefined soffit tenons, and has been relocated from the middle truss to the truss next to the north-west end. There is a 20th-century gallery and dais at the south-east end.