Fairstead

Fairstead is a house designed by the architect J L Pearson, dated 1889. It stands on Great Warley Street in Great Warley, Brentwood.

The building is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and a handmade tiled roof. It adopts a rectangular plan formed by four interlocking wings of contrived irregularity, rising to two storeys with attics.

The principal front faces west, presenting a long range of Elizabethan character with protruding bays and a central hall area. The composition is deliberately asymmetrical, with a high end to the south and a low end to the north. All windows throughout are of mullioned and transomed type with rectangular leaded panes. A string course links ground floor features across this elevation.

The hall area features a two-centred arched doorway with boarded door, flanked by a three-cant ground-floor bay window with hipped roof and a three-light window above, breaking the eaves with a Dutch gabled window of three lights. The southern high end contains a block with its own hipped roof sitting in front of the principal roof, with two tall stacks rising from its north end. A tall oriel stair window of two cants occupies the inner angle, with five tall diminishing lights on each face, set at 45 degrees to the front. The principal two-storeyed porch has a deep round-headed entrance doorway with two-centred moulded arch, framed with simplified linen fold panels and decorated iron strap hinges. A first-floor three-light Dutch gabled window sits above. A two-bayed lean-to loggia with three-light window sits within a two-storeyed bay window with ground and first-floor four-light windows and hipped roof. The northern low end displays ground-floor timber studding with pebble-dash rendered infilling and a half-hipped gable roof, with a three-cant bay window and similar central window below, and a four-light first-floor window with Dutch gable above.

The south or garden elevation presents a subsidiary high end with hipped roof set back at the west end behind the principal hip. The range has two-storeyed bay windows at its east and west ends—the west canted with parapet, the east with projecting timber-framed half-hipped gable bearing blind Gothic arched decoration and a small central light. Between these projecting ends is a timber-framed facade gable. Tall stacks of four conjoined shafts rise from the roof pitch at the west end and similarly from the east end. Windows on this elevation follow the character of the west front, with openings ranging from five lights down to single lights in the canted ends. Ground and first floors both incorporate the string course seen on the west elevation.

The rear or east elevation maintains the high and low end conception seen on the west front, with a central hall area containing a large first-floor mullioned and transomed window of four by three lights, with an undercroft two-light window below. To the north is a two-centred arched doorway with a door matching the principal front entrance, in a wall broken forward with a small window, stepped up to a slightly projecting cross-wing gable. The hall area has three tall single lights, two to the north and one to the south of the principal window, with two small fanlights above and behind the projecting doorway. A cross-wing above features timber studding with pebble-dash infilling and five-light windows on ground and first floors, with a small two-light window on the first floor and a four-light window in the gable framing above. To the north is a lesser parallel cross-wing gable similarly treated, with a four-light ground-floor window linked by hood mould to a larger adjacent window to the south, and a three-light first-floor window. A cruciform stack rises from the link roof between the parallel gables. Adjoining to the north is a contiguous simple ground-floor gable unit with two two-light windows. The southern high end has a large external stack continuous with a stepped wall, bearing four conjoined shafts, with a four-light ground-floor window in an extension and a slender single light on the first floor through the rear of the stack body, beneath a projecting half-hipped roof.

The north or service elevation features a plain ground-floor range round an inner court on the lower level. On the first floor, the principal range to the west shows a gable end of timber-framing with hip and gablet, containing two two-light windows, with timber and pebble-dash framing continuing eastward. A central cruciform stack rises from the roof apex.

The interior contains high-quality woodwork and plasterwork. The hall is fitted with an Ionic arcade and ceiling with moulded beams. The stair has twisted balusters and newel posts of seventeenth-century style. The principal rooms feature elaborate plaster ceilings and frieze decoration employing natural plant forms.

J L Pearson was a scholarly architect best known for designing Truro Cathedral and St Augustine's Church, Kilburn. Secular commissions from his practice are quite rare, making Fairstead a notable example of his domestic work.