Nag's Head Inn

The Nag's Head Inn is a public house, dated to the 17th century with early 18th, 19th, and 1961 additions. It is located in Brook Street, South Weald, Brentwood, and a 1961 extension to the west, which is lower in height and in a matching style, is not considered to be of special interest and is excluded from this listing.

The building is constructed of red brick with a machine-made tile roof. It has a rectangular footprint with 2 storeys and an attic, featuring gable end chimneys. The north front elevation is a five-bay range. The centre bay has a front door but no window above it. The ground floor has a 19th-century 3-light sash window with glazing bars, arranged as 1x4, 3x4, 1x4 panes, with segment heads on either side of the central front door. The 20th-century front door has upper glazing with glazing bars, in a 2x3 pane arrangement, and two lower panels. A simple 20th-century gabled porch with decorative gable bracing and a full-length 20th-century lean-to canopy, bracketed to the front wall roofed with 20th-century flat tiles, is also present. The first floor has four closely-spaced sash windows, in flush frames, with glazing bars, arranged as 3x4 panes. The roof features a moulded eaves board and two hip-roofed dormers with 2-light casements and glazing bars, in a 2x2 pane arrangement. Gable ends have brick parapets and brick kneelers. The south-facing rear elevation is largely hidden by extensions due to the rising ground. A small mansard roof extension projects at the east end, featuring a weatherboarded west gable end with a single-light casement window. The west end elevation is obscured by a 20th-century addition, while the east end is rendered and colourwashed, with an exterior gable end stack and single windows on both the ground and first floors. The ground floor window is a sash with segment-headed glazing bars, in a 4x4 pane arrangement, while the first-floor window is a 20th-century 2-light casement.

The interior reveals 17th-century timber framing, exposed on the ground and first floors of the original back wall, which is primarily braced and bears carpenters’ marks. A winding stair with 19th-century woodwork rises at the rear, curving around a stack that has since been removed. 19th-century boarded partitioning is present for the upper rooms, and the rooms have been reorganized, revealing what appear to be three original cells. The grouping of first-floor windows and the central rise in the roof ridge indicate the original form was a 17th-century lobby entrance house with a large central stack and a room on each side. This form likely persisted into the 18th century when the brick front was added, and into the 19th century when the stair was rebuilt. The removal of the central stack probably coincided with the 19th-century fireplaces that remain in the gable end positions.