Wardropers Farmhouse

Wardropers Farmhouse is a timber-framed house dating from the early to mid-16th century and earlier, with 20th-century renovation and extensions. It is plastered and roofed with handmade and machine-made red clay tiles.

The building comprises a main range of three bays facing north, dating to the early to mid-16th century, with a continuous jetty at the front and a stair-tower with a lean-to roof to the rear of the middle bay. A rear stack sits to the left of the tower, and a 20th-century external stack stands at the right end. At the left end, one bay remains of an earlier, narrower building standing lower, with an external stack to its left. A single-storey wing extends to the rear of this earlier part, with a single-storey lean-to extension running across the rear of the left and middle bays of the main range. A 20th-century two-storey wing extends to the rear of the right bay, and a 20th-century conservatory has been added to the rear of the lean-to. The house rises to two storeys with an unlit attic. All windows are 20th-century casements, and the door is 20th-century.

The long jetty features seven original plain brackets, an empty mortice for an eighth bracket, and a full-length moulded fascia. Four of these brackets sit below main transverse timbers at bay intervals; the remaining brackets are positioned below short stub beams supporting the jetty but not extending into the house. The single bay at the left end features a gablet hip.

Internally, the building displays jowled posts and close studding with curved tension braces trenched outside the studs. The main range is originally divided into a one-bay room on each floor at the right end and a two-bay room to the left; a partition has been inserted in the open truss on the first floor. Original doorways with four-centred doorheads are found at the front and rear of the right end of the middle bay, with a plain original doorway to the rear on the first floor from the stair tower, positioned on the same line. Shutter grooves and diamond mortices at the right end indicate formerly unglazed windows towards the road on each floor, with similar evidence on the first floor above the original front door, including the presence of one diamond mullion.

The joists are of horizontal section, arranged longitudinally and jointed to transverse beams with soffit tenons with diminished haunches. Arched braces support a cambered tie-beam of the formerly open truss, measuring 0.10 metres wide. Wallplates and main posts are chamfered with plain stops. The rear wallplate features edge-halved and bridled scarf joinery.

A 17th-century inserted floor sits above the first-floor rooms, with a chamfered axial beam displaying lamb's tongue stops and exposed plain joists of vertical section in the right bay, finished with butt-edged hardwood boards.

The roof is a complete crownpost type. The cross-quadrate central crownpost of the open truss carries four-way rising braces of unusual profile, arched below and cranked above, similar to those found at No.51 High Street, Ingatestone. Arched axial braces support the collar-purlin elsewhere. Original sprockets have been enclosed by the 20th-century wing.

The single bay at the left end may represent a reconstructed element of an earlier building, possibly part of a hall range formerly located to the south of the present main range, as there is no evidence of original access to the main range at this end; a stud has been removed to create present access. The studding of the main range remains unweathered within this bay, suggesting the single bay was present at an early date and possibly rebuilt as an ancillary structure with separate outside access. Plain horizontal joists are lodged at both ends, with two chamfered braces supporting a severed tie-beam.