Toll Bar Cottage

Toll Bar Cottage is an early 18th-century toll house, extended in the 19th and 20th centuries. The building is timber-framed and faced with red brick in a Flemish bond pattern, with a roof of handmade red clay tiles. It has a C-plan layout, with wings extending to the southwest and northwest. An original stack is located to the southeast, and is enclosed within a lean-to extension, followed by a 20th-century gabled porch. Further extensions were added to the northeast in the 20th century. It is a single-story building. All windows are 20th-century casements, and there is a 20th-century plain boarded door. Some weatherboarding is present on the southwest gable. A diamond shaft is visible, and the inscription “A.D. 1700” is displayed in applied letters and numerals on the southwest elevation. This section of the Great Essex Road, running from Shenfield to Ingatestone Town, was the first in Essex to be turnpiked by the Essex Trust in 1695. The turnpike is documented on Chapman and Andre’s road map of 1777 and in J Cary’s Survey of the High Roads from London.