The Towers Arms Inn

The Tower Arms Inn is a public house dating to 1704, situated in South Weald, Brentwood. It is constructed of red brick with chequered burnt headers, and features a hipped, peg-tiled roof with a deep, modillioned eaves cornice and prominent stacks on the end walls.

The north front elevation is five bays wide, with a string course between the ground and first floors and a chamfered plinth. The central front door is topped by a pediment, and there are dormers with casement windows (2x3 panes) above bays 2 and 4. Most other windows are 19th-century mullioned and transomed casements with 2x3 panes, featuring gauged brick voussoirs. The shaped overhanging central first-floor window has a particularly decorative treatment. The front door itself is panelled, with pilasters, a pulvinated frieze cornice, a hood supported by carved console brackets, and a lugged architrave. The door has eight panels, the lower six being fielded, and the upper two now glazed. A datestone above the doorway bears the initials “L” above “AA” and the date 1704.

The south, or rear, elevation is rendered and colourwashed. It has five bays, all with early 18th-century window frames with moulded architraves and mullions and transoms, now fitted with 20th-century casements with 4x6 panes. A doorway in the centre of the ground floor has a flat hood supported by shaped brackets, and a door with four lower flush beaded panels and two upper glazed panels. To the west is a deep 20th-century ground-floor extension. A window to the east has a lower casement now fitted with plate glass. The first floor has four symmetrical windows and a central stair window dropped to half storey height, with two gabled dormers in bays 2 and 4, each featuring a 2-light casement with 4x3 panes.

The east end elevation matches the front in terms of brickwork and roof. It features a 19th-century door with a wooden porch and a door with two lower flush, beaded panels and two upper glazed panels. Above the doorway is a 19th-century 2-light casement in an 18th-century window aperture with central glazing bars (2x2 panes). A large central stack rises above, featuring two recessed panels. The west end elevation is similarly constructed, with five symmetrical window apertures featuring gauged brick voussoirs; the outer four are blind and the inner two are blocked. The end stack is a 20th-century rebuild, being more slender and plain, and mirrors the design of the stack on the east elevation.

The interior retains an original central dogleg staircase with a close string and dado. The ground-floor stair arch features a shaped handrail and alternating turned and twisted balusters. Two ground-floor rooms at the west end retain original panelling. One room has an original fireplace with a well-moulded lugged architrave. A photograph taken around 1903 and kept at the inn shows the original casement windows with small leaded panes. The building is part of a group that includes Luptons, the Wealdcote granary, The Cottage and the Post Office.