Hill Cottage

KELVEDON HATCH

TQ59NE WARREN LANE 723-1/5/450 (North side) 17/06/92 Hill Cottage

II

House. c1400, early C17 and early C19. Timber-framed, weatherboarded with peg-tiled roof. 2-celled. One storey and attic 2 window range of C19 casements with glazing bars 4x3 panes. Door to E of centre with simple sunk panels, C20 simple pillared porch with lean-to sloping roof. Principal stack, red brick, to rear at E enclosed by a C19 brick lean-to also minor C19 red brick stack on W gable end. INTERIOR comprises the 2 bays of the open hall of a medieval house, each 12 feet (3.6m) long by 18 feet (5.4m) wide separated by a massive cambered tie-beam with lower fillet 10 inches (0.25m) deep with a crown post and 2 surviving curved braces above. The crown post has a base shaped to a semicircular form, flat face downwards and the shaft is square sectioned with square fillets to each face. The braces rise straight from these with no capital. The visible presence of a considerable length of the collar purlin and also a section of the original hall wall plate, with a very accurately cut step stopped chamfer, implies that the truss has not simply been reused from elsewhere but is still in situ even though the arched braces to the tie-beam have been removed - however the appropriate peg holes remain as evidence of their former presence. Soot remains under later layers of varnish. A horizontal joint in a stud at the W end of the N wall may be part of a cross entry framing for a spere. In the early C17, ceilings were inserted into the 2 bays and the roof was reconstructed to a clasped side purlin form and the central crown post truss filled in with timbers that appear to come from the original house, thus creating 2 rooms in the ground floor and 2 in the attic. Early C17 panelling with moulded muntins and rails (splayed on their upper surfaces) has been used to make 3 doors and a boarded area. Butterfly and H hinges remain. The lateral fireplace, set to the back of the E bay but within the house frame is probably C17 in origin but the core is obscured by later C19 and C20 work. The house is of particular interest as a fragment of a small hall house that has presumably lost its storeyed ends but without any exterior evidence of this transformation.

Listing NGR: TQ5796197800