High House

BLACKMORE

TL60SW FINGRITH HALL LANE 723-1/2/21 High House 27/11/91

II

House. C17, extended in C20. Timber-framed, weatherboarded, roofed with axial stack at left end. C17 stair outshut to rear of left bay, and later outshut to rear of right bay, both forming catslides with the main roof. C20 lean-to porch to right of rear right outshut. 2 storeys. One C20 casement on ground floor, 2 on first floor. C20 door in C20 gabled porch in front of stack. The left side is faced with C19 red brickwork in English bond up to first-floor level, with a large cement-rendered panel in the middle, apparently covering a former hearth to the left of the present stack, and the associated C17 brickwork. Large C20 dormer in catslide roof of rear right outshut. INTERIOR: chamfered transverse beam with lamb's tongue stops, plain joists of vertical section; inserted trap in floor near front right corner, with some C19 studding and nailed bracing to left of it. Unjowled posts, heavy studding with primary straight bracing, all jointed and pegged. C19 brick nogging has replaced the ground-floor studding of the right wall. Straight central tie-beam, with inserted partition below. The framed doorway at the head of the stair outshut is original, and implies that the stair outshut is original also. The stack has on the ground floor a large wood-burning hearth with 0.33m jambs and a seat recess in each; the left jamb has been repaired with C20 handmade bricks, and the remainder has been repaired and repointed. Blocked rectangular aperture at rear, with iron lintel, for former bread oven. The first-floor hearth has chamfered jambs and segmental arch, originally plastered, now stripped, but retaining traces of original painted plaster and inscribed course lines inside. Early C19 cast-iron grate for coal with embossed design in side panels. Rectangular recessed panel above. Both hearths are original. These, and the unusually high storeys, indicate the house is the remaining part of a C17 lobby-entrance house which formerly extended one bay to left of the stack. The left bay has been demolished, the stack rendered on the outside, and the spaces in front of and to the rear of it have been closed with C19 brickwork. The tithe map of 1846 appears to show the full length of the original house, but the First Edition OS map of 1873 shows it truncated to its present plan. (Essex Record Office: Tithe map: 1846-: D/CT 37).

Listing NGR: TL6054102637