Dovecote at Hedingham Castle is a Grade II listed building in the Braintree local planning authority area, England. First listed on 21 June 1962. Dovecote.
Dovecote at Hedingham Castle
- WRENN ID
- twelfth-mullion-khaki
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Braintree
- Constituency
- Braintree MP: Sir James Cleverly (Con)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 21 June 1962
- Type
- Dovecote
- Address
- Dovecote at Hedingham Castle, Essex, CO0 3DJ
- OS grid reference
- TL 788 357
- Coordinates
- 51.99182, 0.6037
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The dovecote at Hedingham Castle was built in 1720. It is constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond and has a red plain tile roof. The dovecote features an octagonal plan and is designed as a tower with buttressed corners. It has an eight-sided hipped roof with a moulded brick eaves cornice and a concave leaded apex topped with a square, glazed lantern and a finial. The initials RA, representing Robert Ashurst, and the date 1720 are displayed in vitrified brick on six of the eight faces, with one letter or number on each face. The doorway has a plain timber surround and a door made of three vertical planks with diamond-shaped ventilation holes. To the right of the door, the second face is illuminated by a small two-light 20th-century window.
Inside, the dovecote is lined on all but three sides with nesting boxes made of clunch, positioned about five feet from the ground to the eaves and supported by low brick walls. The base of the central timber potence, a tall revolving axle with a projecting arm for resting a ladder, remains intact. The roof structure was updated in the late 20th century.
Local climate
Dovecote at Hedingham Castle sits in one of the driest parts of the UK, with an average of 690 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 95% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 73% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 30 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 66% of listed buildings. Of these, 15 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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