Lincolns Cottage

Lincolns Cottage

House built in phases from the early 16th century through the 20th century. The building is timber-framed with a peg-tiled roof and rectangular plan, featuring a centrally placed stack offset to the northwest. It stands two storeys with an attic.

The front elevation is a long continuous range. A 20th-century lean-to brick and timber-framed porch with catslide roof sits at the north end, fitted with a boarded door. All windows are 20th-century casements with glazing bars. On the ground floor from north to south are a porch window of 2 lights with 4x3 panes, followed by a pair of 3-light windows with 6x3 panes each and two 2-light windows with 4x3 panes, alternating. Either side of the stack position are two studs with shoring notches. At the south end is a pair of boarded garage doors. The first floor has three 2-light windows with 4x3 panes and one 3-light window with 6x3 panes. The rear east elevation is rendered throughout. Ground floor windows comprise one 2-light window with 4x3 panes, one 3-light window with 6x3 panes, and one fully glazed door with 3x5 panes per leaf, alongside a French window with 3x5 panes per leaf. The first floor has two 3-light windows with 6x3 panes, two 2-light windows with 4x3 and 4x2 panes, and two single lights with 3x2 and 2x2 panes. The south gable end features mixed studding on the ground floor (original and imitation), with a 2-light first-floor window of 4x3 panes. The north gable has a 2-light ground-floor window with 4x2 panes, a first-floor single light of 2x2 panes, and an attic single light of 2x2 panes. The principal ground-floor studding is exposed, with additional imitation studding added. The first floor is rendered.

Interior evidence reveals a medieval hall house of early 16th-century date. The principal posts and transverse members are considerably decorated with singular design. The service bay to the north contains internal arched bracing. A cross entry undershot beneath the upper service chamber has a richly moulded head-beam to the hall featuring cyma, roll and hollow mouldings. The hall principal truss has a similarly decorated tie-beam with roll mouldings. The roof trusses are of queen post, clasped side purlin type spanning three bayed hall. The principal tie-beam shows evidence of deep board-like arched braces between queen posts and collar, creating a Gothic arch with many pegs. Collars are thinned in their centres away from joints to vertical board-like sections. Side purlins throughout the roof have a shallow inner chamfer, with rafters pegged through. The roof over the hall is sooted. The high end to the south is storeyed across two long bays. Its central truss features open arched braces on the first floor with two queen posts above having inward curves to the collar—a simpler version of the hall treatment. A roll-moulded binding joist runs off-centre half a bay toward the hall, probably denoting a passageway direct to high-end rooms from outside. At the rear of the stack, inserted into the upper two bays of the hall, is a solid partition frame with cambered tie-beam and lower cross-beam with principal truss above; its purpose is unclear but most likely represents the back framing of a timber chimney or hood set within the two-bayed high end of the hall.

A brick stack was inserted around 1600, abutting this partition toward the hall's low end. A floor contemporary with the stack insertion has deep section joists with diminished haunched tenons. The binding joist and common joists feature chamfers finished with very long lamb's tongue stops. At the service end in the northwest corner is a stairwell constructed at the same time, with an octagonal-sectioned newel post and a second exterior door alongside the cross-passage door at the foot of the stair.

The house must date to the earlier 16th century based on the decoration and sooting evidence predating the brick stack insertion. The queen post roofs are unusual for Essex, normally appearing a century or more later, but here they are contemporary with the medieval hall. The posts with wide board-like bracing display Western characteristics. The cross entry set beneath an internally jettied upper chamber is not a normal Essex feature. The confinement of hearth smoke within a timber hood probably dates to the later 16th century, with the brick stack and floors following soon after. Extensive restoration has concealed much of the studding, though the primary structural evidence remains.