Broad Green Farmhouse

TL 64 SE STEEPLE BUMPSTEAD BLOIS ROAD 2/73 Broad Green Farmhouse 21/6/62 II

House, late C16, altered in C18 and C20, combined with ancillary building, C17. Timber framed, plastered with some exposed framing, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. 4 bays aligned approx. NE-SW with axial chimney stack in second bay from SW end, aspect NW. At NE end an ancillary building of unknown function of 3 bays, forming a T-plan, now linked with main house, and C19 extension to SE. NW elevation of main house has exposed timber framing with plaster infill 2 storeys. 4-panel door, 2 C19 casement windows, one early C18 window of one wrought iron casement and 2 fixed lights with rectangular leading. First floor, one C19 casement window, 2 early C18 windows as described. The ancillary building is of one storey with attics. The interior of the main house has jowled posts, close heavy studding partly exposed, plain-chamfered axial beams with lamb's tongue stops, joists plastered to the soffits, face-halved scarfs bladed at one end and housed at the other (Hewett 1982, figure 269), grooves for sliding shutters in girts and wallplates, 2 large wood-burning hearths. The ancillary building has exposed evidence which indicates that originally it was of one storey, but now has an inserted floor, with a re-used axial beam, plain- chamfered with step stops, the joists supported on pegged clamps. The 2 NW bays are each less than 2 metres long. The corner posts are jowled, the intermediate posts are not. The internal tiebeams have been severed, the stubs bridled and pegged to cruck blades which rise from the posts and are lap-jointed to the collars of the roof. This construction is rare in Essex, and in this instance represents an alteration, probably executed in the late C17, to permit the use of an upper storey in a building which originally did not have one. The original purpose of the building is uncertain, but is more likely to have been agricultural than domestic. RCHM 28.

Listing NGR: TL6942041865