George And Dragon

George and Dragon Inn

This is a house, now a public house and restaurant, located in Mountnessing on Roman Road. It dates from the 15th century and late 17th century, with alterations and extensions made during the 19th and 20th centuries.

The building is timber-framed, plastered and weatherboarded, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. The main range faces south-east and dates to the 15th century. It was extended to the left in the late 17th century, with a 17th or 18th-century external stack at the left end and a 19th-century external stack at the right end. A late 17th-century two-bay wing stands to the rear left, with a 19th-century external stack to its left. There are complex series of 19th and 20th-century extensions to the rear and rear right. The building has two storeys and a cellar.

The ground floor features two splayed bays of 20th-century sash windows with rectangular leading. The first floor has three 20th-century casements with diamond leading. Two 20th-century half-glazed doors with flat canopies on arched brackets provide entrance.

Internally, the ground floor has undergone substantial alteration, with all original internal walls removed and reused timber introduced as decoration. The floor structure shows chamfered transverse and axial beams across four bays. In the three left bays, joists are exposed; in the front half of the right bay joists are plastered to the soffits; in the rear half, joists have been removed and the rear half of one transverse beam has been removed, with the floor now suspended on an iron tie. The joists vary in character: in the left bay they are plain with vertical section; in the next bay they are plain with horizontal section, jointed to the axial beam with central tenons and housed soffits, representing the original floor of the storeyed end of the medieval house; in the third bay, the joists are chamfered with lamb's tongue stops, representing a late 16th-century inserted floor in the hall. The girts are boxed above the bay windows. All three ground-floor hearths are 20th-century. At the right end, removal of a section of floor and ceiling above opens a void to the rafters, now filled with introduced timber, brick nogging and random stone infill used as decoration.

The first floor is less altered, with walls and ceilings mainly plastered. In the two left bays of the main range, unjowled posts and some light studding with primary straight bracing are exposed. A jowled post is exposed at the front right corner. There is an 18th-century hearth at the left end with curved rear splays.

Most of the roof is original and intact, of butt-purlin construction in the two left bays and crownpost construction in the bay to the right, with axial braces, all smoke-blackened. The right bay is inaccessible. The rear left wing has one chamfered transverse beam with lamb's tongue stops above the ground floor. On the first floor, one straight brace outside the studding is exposed, and a chamfered wallplate with mitred stops. The butt-purlin roof is complete.

The ground floor has been so extensively altered that little remains to conserve except the outside walls. The introduction of materials from diverse sources has diminished the historic value of what survives. However, the greater part of the first floor remains intact, and the first floor and upper parts of the building retain historic value and merit appropriate conservation. The void at the rear right of the main range probably represents the removal of a post-medieval stack and associated structures.