Glebe House

Glebe House is a house dating from 1839. It is constructed of plastered brick with a slate roof. The building is rectangular and faces southeast, with its garden to the southwest. There are two chimney stacks in the north wall, one located near the southwest end of the northwest side. A service wing extends to the northeast, and a late 19th-century square bay is present at the northeast end of the northwest wall. A 20th-century conservatory has been added to the southwest end. The main southeast elevation has a three-bay design with a range of original sash windows, each with 12 panes. The central entrance features a six-panel door (with the top two panels glazed) within a moulded plaster architrave, topped by a shallow canopy supported by scrolled brackets. A moulded cornice runs along the top, and a plain parapet rises to a central chimney stack, which is either dummy or disused, with quadrant details on each side. The service wing has a single six-pane sash window on the ground floor and a twelve-pane sash window on the first floor. There is a parapet gable on the right return. The southwest elevation features two full-height splayed bays, each with twelve-pane sash windows to the front and glazed margins within the splays. A central window aperture is blocked with a semi-circular head on the ground floor, and a twelve-pane sash window is located above it on the first floor. A moulded cornice is present, topped by a plain parapet. Much crown glass is used in both the southeast and southwest elevations. Original folding shutters are fitted to the ground-floor windows on the southwest elevation. Inside, there are moulded ceiling cornices, and an original staircase with a wreathed handrail, turned newel posts, and stick balusters. In the kitchen wall are three inscribed blocks, commemorating Henry Thornton Forster, John Jebb Forster, and Charles Thornton Forster, all dated 18 October 1839. The house was built as a rectory following the commutation of tithes in 1839, as documented by W. White in the Directory of Essex (1863). The earlier rectory, visible on the tithe map of 1839, was approximately 70 metres to the north.