Town House Cottages

This is a house, originally two cottages, dating to around 1500 with 19th-century additions and alterations in 1984. It is timber-framed, with plaster infill and a roof of handmade red clay tiles. The left-hand cottage represents the service bay and the two lower bays of a three-bay hall house built around 1500, facing southeast. An internal stack was inserted at the left end, against the rear wall. The adjoining cottage to the right was built in the 19th century, with a central stack that is not visible above the roofline. There are two single-storey rear lean-to extensions from the 19th century. The house has one storey with a cellar and attic space.

The windows include 20th-century casements, one 19th-century horizontally sliding sash window with 24 lights, and four 20th-century casements in gabled dormers featuring 19th-century fretted and pierced bargeboards and finials. A four-panel door with glazed upper panels, a boarded door with a small glazed pane, and double doors to a garage are also present. The stack at the left end is set back behind the ridge and has four octagonal shafts. A dormer on the left side bears the date 1609, painted on the plaster. The left door sits on the site of the original medieval house entrance, and the back door occupies the original back door location.

Inside, to the right of the entrance, much of the low-end partition of the hall remains, with twin doorways showing moulded jambs and four-centred heads, and original heavy studding. One bay retains the original lodged floor of longitudinal, horizontally-sectioned joists, with the axial partition removed. The partition between the screens passage and the hall has been removed. A late 16th-century inserted floor with longitudinal, horizontally-sectioned joists and original boards is also present. A large wood-burning hearth is included. On the first floor, a rebate for hall window shutters remains in the front wallplate, and there is a crownpost with axial bracing above the service doors. Above ceiling level, the hall’s collars and rafters are smoke-blackened. The 'high end' bay of the hall is now part of a neighbouring property and a rear wing of around 1600, also part of that property, overlaps the left end of this house and formerly shared the same stack. The date 1609 likely refers to the insertion of the dormer in the upper part of the hall, as maps in the Essex Record Office show dormers appearing after 1600.