Shenfield Hall

Shenfield Hall is a house with a medieval origin, substantially altered in the 16th century, and extended during the 18th and 19th centuries. The house is timber-framed, with plaster render and a roof covered in handmade red clay tiles. Originally, the house comprised a three-bay hall, a service bay to the left, and a parlour/solar bay to the right, all facing south. A substantial external stack was added to the rear of the hall. Late in the 16th century, the hall/parlour partition was rebuilt to the left, and the service bay was converted into a cross-wing. A two-storey porch was added to the front, also in the late 16th century. A single-storey brewhouse/kitchen, originally separate, with a wide hearth at the rear of the hall, was later connected and raised to two storeys. A 19th-century cross-wing extends from the left, with an external stack and a wider range to the rear, featuring its own rear stack. Further 18th and 19th-century single-storey extensions appear to the rear right. The front façade now incorporates a 20th-century door and flanking windows, with a 19th-century splayed bay window to the left, and 20th-century windows in the left cross-wing. Most other windows are 19th-century casements. At the rear right, on the ground floor, two 18th-century oeil-de-boeuf windows are set within moulded plaster architraves, each featuring four radial keystones. The two-storey porch juts out to the front and both sides, and has plaster coving below the jetties; the internal doorway has been blocked up. Internally, most of the timber structure is plastered below roof level, with the exception of one transverse and one axial chamfered beam from the late 16th century, which support the inserted floor of the hall. A chamfered axial beam in the right bay is faced with plaster. A 19th-century folding three-part shutter is present in a ground-floor window at the rear right. The ground-floor hearth of the stack to the rear of the hall has been rebuilt in the 20th century. Two 19th-century cast-iron grates are on the first floor, one with high-relief scrolls. Surviving elements of a crownpost roof include the collar-purlin, rafters, and collars – heavily smoke-blackened above the former hall. Above the former service end, only the collar-purlin remains, lightly smoke-blackened. Some medieval tile laths remain in situ above the former open truss of the hall, a rare feature requiring special care. The 18th-century rebuilt roof above the former service end incorporates, on one side, a pine purlin measuring 0.10m x 0.10m, featuring a splayed and tabled scarf with undersquinted butts, a side key, and iron spikes.