Cow Farmhouse

Cow Farmhouse, Frog Street, Kelvedon Hatch

A timber-framed house of 15th-century origin with significant mid-16th and early 17th-century alterations. The building is plastered and colourwashed with a brick outshut and peg-tiled roof. It has an L-plan form comprising a two-storey cross-wing and a one-and-a-half storey hall.

The front elevation presents a two-window range with 19th-century sash windows fitted with glazing bars. Three windows contain 4x4 panes, while one window under the jetty to the west has 5x4 panes; all retain horns. The front door, positioned at the junction of the cross-wing and hall, is boarded. An early 17th-century stack with triple clustered shafts rises from the north-west side wall of the cross-wing. A principal stack passes through the roof to the east in front of the apex, rebuilt but using narrow bricks at the junction with the roof. The north elevation (rear) features 19th-century windows. The ground floor of the hall contains a four-light casement with glazing bars of 8x4 panes, while the cross-wing ground floor has a three-light fixed window with 4-pane glazing. The first floor of the cross-wing displays a single four-paned fixed light and one four-paned casement. A small 18th or 19th-century stack rises from the rear wall of the hall to the east.

Internally, the hall comprises two medieval bays, with a three-bayed cross-wing jettied at the front and projecting at the back. The hall demonstrates high-quality construction with heavy timber framing. A tall crown post of square section features central square-section fillets on each face with a broach stop at the base but no capital; braces with flattened perpendicular arcature rise straight from the fillets. A second, smaller crown post exists in the south-east gable wall, similar in form but lacking side fillets and lateral braces. Massive studs indicate the position of a two-metre-wide hall window on both sides, interrupting the middle rails and rising from approximately 1.5 metres from the ground to the hall top plate. Above each window site, an upper recess in the top plate contains terminal pegs, suggesting that a hood or gable may once have existed. Both hall top plates are moulded with double hollow chamfers, continuing down the principal bay posts. The high-end cross wall of the hall features a central post on the ground floor with a pair of display arched braces and bench pegs, arranged singly and in pairs on each original stud. Access to the cross-wing at the rear appears to have always existed. The low-end details are now lost. The first floor of the hall contains two heavy cambered tie-beams with hollow chamfers, with one arched brace visible. The crown post rises above the hall central tie-beam. No sooting exists in any roof member.

The cross-wing is of similar construction and contemporary date. Ceilings are now plastered over, but principal binding joists retain chamfers with lamb's tongue stops. The site of a ground-floor window remains evident. Both floors contain inserted ovolo-moulded fireplaces in pink brick with four-centred arches of slack profile. Ovolo-mullioned windows on each floor are adjacent to the stack: the ground floor has six lights (3x2), partly original but restored in the 20th century; the first floor has four lights (three mullions) with ovolo moulding and corner cavetto moulding. In the rear bay of the cross-wing first floor, square-sectioned ceiling joists are plain, with a mullioned window and shutter groove on the north-west wall. A partition of original close studding sits beneath the tie-beam, incorporating an original doorway with arched bracing and scratched carpenter's marks around the door frame. A stair, either inserted or rebuilt, occupies the north-east corner of the cross-wing. The present stair window is a 19th or 20th-century casement, replacing an earlier ovolo-mullioned window with intermediate safety bars.

In the later 16th century, the hall was divided by a floor, and a front dormer window with a façade gable was added to light the upper floor. A stack was set beside the central truss and crown post, and the tie-beam was cut to receive the upper fireplace. The ground-floor fireplace has a timber lintel moulding later cut back, but a roll in the hollow remains, suggesting that the stack and floor date to the 16th century rather than the 17th. The brickwork is laid in English bond. Evidence at the low end of the hall is obscure. The moulding on the hall top plate continues into the end wall, suggesting the hall may have been truncated. A truss of open arch-braced type exists in the end wall, probably marking the position of a cross-entry bay beyond the present south-east end of the house. Within the extant lower bay of the hall, one major stud runs through the rear wall construction and may indicate the position of a subsidiary window.

Attached to the north-west of the cross-wing is a timber-framed medieval building that has been rebuilt in medieval times. Phase 1 involved external arched bracing; Phase 2 featured internal arched bracing. A medieval window exists on each long side: the north-west window has four lights with mullions moulded with double hollow chamfers (similar to the moulding on the hall top plate). The building has a stack with brick out-shut to the north-west side. Tradition holds that this structure was a bakehouse, and it likely dates to the first phase of the house. It may originally have been an early kitchen, though no evidence of the original cooking arrangements is visible.