Christmas House

Christmas House is a house and shop, now house, of 14th and 15th-century origin, much altered externally. It stands on the west side of Stoneham Street in Coggeshall.

The building is timber-framed and plastered, roofed with slate and handmade red plain tiles. It comprises a 3-bay range facing northeast with a passage through at the left end, a rear wing of one bay at the right end with a 16th-century stack at the right side, a narrower 15th-century 2-bay wing beyond with an axial stack at the rear end, and a wider 2-bay wing beyond of late medieval origin but apparently reconstructed on this site, with a 19th-century external stack at the end. Single-storey lean-to extensions with slate roofs are attached to the rear of the main range and at the end of the rear wing. The building is 2 storeys and has a cellar.

The ground floor features an early 19th-century double shopfront with 2 slightly bowed windows of 24 lights, restored in the 20th century, with 4 pilasters and scrolled brackets supporting a moulded shallow canopy. Central double doors, each with one fielded panel and glazed above with marginal lights, are set with 2 stone steps and wrought iron railing on each side comprising 3 stanchions, D-section rail, and elaborate scrolling. An entry at the left end has a shouldered semi-circular arch. The first floor has 2 early 19th-century sashes of 16 lights with crown glass. The roof is low-pitched slate.

At the rear of the main range, above the lean-to extension, is an early 19th-century sash of 16 lights; another appears in the left return of the first rear wing. In the right return of the third rear wing, on the ground floor, is a re-set 18th-century window of 2 wrought iron casements and one fixed light with rectangular leaded glazing, and a reconstructed window with 4 ovolo mullions and rectangular leaded glazing.

The main range originally comprised a 2-bay hall and a service bay to the left, the left part of which appears to have been a shop. The present passage occupies the left side of the former shop, with a non-structural partition faced internally with re-used rebated hardwood floorboards of 16th or 17th-century origin, and externally with a weatherboarded dado and plaster above. A re-used window sill carries a 17th-century carved inscription. The original partition walls have been removed.

In the left bay is an original chamfered beam and plain joists of horizontal section. In the hall is an early 16th-century inserted floor comprising an axial beam with elaborate spiral-leaf carving and joists with clustered roll-mouldings. Similar spiral-leaf carving is nailed on at the ends. There is an underbuilt jetty at the front. Original studding is exposed in the right wall.

In the first rear wing is a wide wood-burning hearth with 0.33 metre jambs; the chamfered mantel beam with lamb's tongue stops was originally for an even wider hearth. The plain joists have been enclosed by 20th-century carved firrings.

On the first floor, in the right rear corner of the main range is an 18th-century hearth with rounded interior. Both main posts at the right end are scarfed with a splayed and undersquinted joint, with a tapering key driven in a central aperture of parallelogram section, a rare type. A 17th-century inserted ceiling has a chamfered beam with lamb's tongue stops. The roof is early 19th-century.

The narrow rear wing has an underbuilt jetty to the left, transverse plain joists of horizontal section, a rounded 18th-century hearth on each floor, and diamond mortices and shutter grooves for 2 unglazed windows in the left wallplate. Each wallplate has an edge-halved scarf with sallied and bridled abutments and 2 edge-pegs, an uncommon type as documented in C.A. Hewett's English Historic Carpentry (1980, figure 265). The crownpost roof has its central tiebeam, crownpost, braces and collar-purlin restored in the 20th century.

The wider rear range has a chamfered binding beam, a central left post with a groove for a vertically sliding shutter, a rebuilt late 16th-century window beside it, an edge-halved and bridled scarf in the right wallplate, and a crownpost roof.

The property was reported in the 18th century to have been named Lemons.