White Hart Inn

White Hart Inn

Public house of late 15th and early 20th-century date, constructed with timber-framing and brick under a slate roof. The building comprises a front block facing the street with two long ranges positioned at the rear on either side of a courtyard, accessed by a carriageway from the street.

The south front elevation presents a three-storey façade of 20th-century brick in Georgian style, colour-washed on the ground floor. It comprises ten bays divided by two moulded stone cornices and a parapet with moulded string course running between ground and first floors. The ground floor features, from east to west, two sash windows with horns, a doorway with stucco pilasters bearing cyma-moulded capitals and sunken panels, a plain frieze rising above the string course, a fanlight, and double doors with upper glazing containing glazing bars (two by three panes each) and lower fielded panels, followed by two further plain sash windows with horns. The carriageway opening is spanned by a four-centred arch with timber arch inset; though restored, the arch head retains its original roll, hollow, return, and hollow moulding. A further inner arch, partly restored, displays hollow chamfer moulding. Folding glazed shop-front doors, consisting of four folds (one fixed), feature two-paned fanlights with glazing bars (two by four panes) and lower fielded panels. The first and second floors comprise an uninterrupted range of ten horned sash windows with glazing bars (three by four panes). The west elevation is concealed, while the east elevation displays irregular fenestration of 20th-century windows.

The courtyard's western range is a two-storey jettied gallery dating to approximately 1500, featuring twenty first-floor four-centred arched openings, now either blocked or fitted with sash windows. The first eight openings from the south are of one build with sunk spandrels; the twelve openings to the north have separate framing but with plain spandrels. The jettied gallery penetrates through the 20th-century north range of the courtyard, exposing old jettied framing on the north exterior elevation. The north and east courtyard ranges, being entirely 19th or 20th-century constructions, are not included in this listing. The western gallery range is topped with a peg-tiled roof, lower at the north end with a stack towards the south end of the centre. Weatherboarding covers the lower part of the gallery openings down to the jetty. The ground floor is rendered and colour-washed with exposed jetty brackets, while the central section has a 20th-century lean-to pentice on simple timber posts. The ground floor from south to north is entirely of 20th-century features. Below the carriageway are double glazed doors (three by three panes with one lower fielded panel each). Three sash windows (four by four panes) stand under the pentice, alongside two doors with upper glazing (three by three panes) and a sash window (four by four panes) between them. Three casement windows with glazing bars (two at four by four panes and one at two by four panes) are present, together with a stair porch featuring a fully glazed door and fixed window (four by four panes), all above herring-bone brick-work. Beyond the pentice is a canted bay window on brackets with panes of two by four, five by four, and two by four, a glazed door (three by three panes) with lower fielded panel, a window (six by four panes), and a plain door with fanlight.

The north exterior elevation shows the jettied gallery range to the west and an added range to the east over the courtyard entrance, both rendered and colour-washed with flat 20th-century tiles. Weatherboarding covers the entrance; the first floor contains four sash windows and one casement window, all with glazing bars and all four by four panes. A 20th-century ground floor addition at the east end has a gabled roof.

The interior of the western galleried range's first floor preserves very complete remains of the gallery and the inner timber-framing of the original rooms with their moulded doors and windows. The earlier southern section contains two rooms, each spanned by two bays with a central open plain crown-post truss featuring two-way bracing. The south room, comprising two equal bays, has a doorway at each end and a central mullioned window. The adjoining room is similar but with unequal bays and only one door. A stack now occupies the larger northern bay; the absence of a door or window in that bay suggests a fire hood likely stood there originally. The additional northern build shows evidence of two rooms. The gallery frames are progressively disturbed towards the north end, though framing or partial framing of doorways survives, indicating a room with a door at each end and a further room with a single door, apparently copying the arrangement of the older pair of rooms. Roof structures are no longer visible as they are now ceiled over. The second phase of construction dates close to the first but is slightly less elegant in execution. The ground floor wall framing is now considerably covered, though its framing above is reflected in the bay divisions below through an arrangement of open and partitioned trusses. Open trusses feature arched braces with linking fillets on binding joists. Common joists are heavy with centre tenons. Mouldings throughout the gallery range interior and exterior are principally hollow chamfers.

At the junction of the gallery range and street block stands a ground floor doorway to the front principal room. The doorway has a four-centred arched head with sunk spandrels; traces of red colouring remain. A survey of the room by Essex County Council Planning Department during refurbishment revealed original studding bearing traces of wall painting comprising blue colouring, a bold trefoil design, and stencilled arabesques. A demonstration studded panel is now exposed above the door, while the remainder is covered.

Although timber-framing is evident in the street block, it is now too covered and cut away to be interpreted. A red brick-walled cellar below the east side of the carriageway is laid in English bond with a battered wall.

Comparison with other inn galleries in England indicates the western galleried range to be apparently the most complete and most elegantly constructed of those that survive. Drawings of the gallery dated 1891, held by Essex Record Office, show the courtyard in essentially the same form as today, with a block (now replaced) bridging the north carriageway. Six rear gallery openings remained completely open as of that record.