23, High Street

23 High Street, Ingatestone

A house, now offices, dating from the 17th century and substantially altered and extended in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The building is timber-framed and plastered, roofed with handmade red clay tiles.

The structure has a complex plan comprising a main range facing northwest with stacks at the left end and rear right; three adjacent rear wings, the right wing enclosing the rear stack and the middle wing having a 19th-century external stack; an early 19th-century lean-to extension to the rear of the two right wings, slightly overlapping the third; an 18th-century service range extending obliquely to the rear left following the line of Stock Lane, enclosing the side stack of the main range with an axial stack at the end; an early 19th-century single-storey extension beyond with an external stack at the end; and minor lean-to single-storey extensions at the junction of the main range and service range.

The building stands two storeys high. The house has been extensively restyled around 1800, and most of the external features and some internal features date from that period, although an earlier hardwood frame, fully jointed and pegged, remains visible in places. The front elevation displays four sash windows of 6+6 lights on each floor, dating to around 1800. On the first floor, three sashes line up with those below, while one has been repositioned to accommodate internal alterations. The central entrance features a moulded 6-panel door with a fanlight displaying radial tracery, set within a Tuscan portico with two wooden columns, a moulded and dentilled cornice, panelled jambs and soffit, and a tiled step. A plaster band runs at first-floor level, extending along both returns. The hipped roof displays a moulded eaves cornice and wrought-iron gutter brackets.

The right return has plaster corner pilasters with one in the middle, covering the timber frame, and one sash of 6+6 lights on each floor dating to around 1800. The left return has one corner pilaster and a plain parapet with plaster band; the service range beyond has wrought-iron gutter brackets but no door or window apertures. The left stack is plastered.

The rear elevation features on the ground floor one early 19th-century sash of 4+8 lights and one 20th-century replica, and on the first floor one sash of 4+8 lights, one large sash of 6+6 lights lighting the stair, one sash of 3+6 lights, all early 19th century, and one of 6+6 lights from the early or mid-18th century. The three rear wings have hipped roofs with wrought-iron gutter brackets on the left rear wing. The service range and extension beyond have some weatherboarding and are roofed with machine-made red tiles. The service range features on the first floor one early 19th-century window of two casements of 3 lights each and 3 fixed lights, with wrought-iron gutter brackets; the extension beyond has a 19th-century fixed light of 6 panes.

Many of the windows retain handmade glass, together comprising an exceptional collection meriting special care.

Interior features include ground-floor windows at the front with moulded panelled folding shutters in the splays and panels below. The central entrance hall contains on each side a moulded 6-panel door with fluted doorcase and carved rosettes at the top corners dating to around 1800, and a similar doorcase inside the front door. The hall displays moulded wooden pilasters and a moulded semicircular arch, also around 1800, and at the far end a pair of early or mid-18th-century glazed doors with ovolo-moulded glazing bars, each with 8 panes of wired glass and a fielded panel below.

An early 18th-century stair of 4 straight flights to the rear right features a moulded pine handrail and closed string with turned balusters, partly beech. The ground-floor room at front right has early 19th-century moulded plaster ceiling covings and similar moulded plaster on the transverse beam; it is now divided into 2 smaller offices without affecting these features. The left room has a boxed transverse beam. The rooms above have respectively a beaded transverse beam and a chamfered transverse beam; the left room contains a blocked 18th-century fireplace with a moulded mantel shelf. The rear right wing displays above the ground floor a chamfered transverse beam with lamb's tongue stops, and some original hardwood framing is exposed in the rear left wing.

The service wing to the rear left retains early internal features including a 17th-century 3-plank door to a cupboard; an 18th-century wide boarded and ledged door at the foot of the service stair, faced with hardboard, and another to the rear extension; and an early or mid-18th-century borrowed light with ovolo-moulded glazing bars and 6 panes of handmade glass. These internal features comprise an exceptional collection meriting special care.

Historically, a building on this site, probably incorporated in the present structure, is documented as Setters or Levers from 1574, and as an inn, The Cross Keys, from 1601 to 1731. In 1823 and 1851 it was occupied by Cornelius Butler, surgeon. It became a private hotel in the 20th century before its present use as a solicitor's office from 1960.