Shen Place Almshouses And Pump

Shen Place Almshouses and Pump, Shenfield Road, Brentwood

A row of six almshouses built in 1910, constructed in red brick with prominent timber-framed gables and roofed in flat clay tiles. The building is arranged in an E-plan shape viewed from both front and rear, with tall chimney stacks in Tudor-style moulded red brick marking the composition.

The front elevation, facing north, presents a completely symmetrical design built around a central court with projecting end wings. The original structure featured an interrupted verandah on timber posts carried down from the roof pitch, now partly enclosed by glazed timber porches added in 1988 to each dwelling unit in an appropriate style.

The outer wings have projecting gables displaying carved tie-beams and barge boards in Elizabethan and Jacobean style, complete with decorative pendants and finials. The gable ends feature vertical studding with pargeted roses and central inscriptions promoting the virtues of work on the east gable and charity on the west. Each outer wing has a single gable-end window projecting slightly as a corbelled oriel with four lights and leaded panes incorporating marginal green stained glass.

The central section projects slightly and follows a similar style, but its gable displays all-over herringbone studding with two 3-light windows in the same leaded style. The principal range on either side of the centre contains two boarded doors (one opening into the side of the central projection) and a single-light window matching those on the projecting wings, set flush to the wall. These doors and windows are now partially obscured by the 1988 porches.

The inner side elevations of the outer wings, facing east and west, each feature a large mullioned and transomed window of 3 by 2 lights similar to those on the gable fronts. These are flat-roofed and cut through the roof eave as semi-dormers. The verandah stops below these windows and the wall is brought forward. Adjacent to each is a 20th-century glazed porch screening a boarded door, with an original verandah and original single-light leaded flush window to the north.

Eight chimney stacks rise from the roof apices. The rear elevation, facing south, mirrors the front in symmetrical style but is simplified in treatment. The outer wings have plain vertical studding in their gables, below which are single segment-headed windows with three casement lights each, featuring glazing bars in a 6 by 3 pane arrangement. The inner faces now have 20th-century lean-to additions with casement windows of 2 by 3 panes with glazing bars.

The principal range on the rear has two segment-headed casement windows with glazing bars to each side of the centre: one of four lights (8 by 3 panes) and one of three lights (6 by 3 panes), plus a flat-headed double casement window with glazing bars of 4 by 3 panes. The central unit comprises a tile-hung gable rising from the roof pitch, surmounted by an ornamental weather vane set upon a wooden base carved as an Ionic volute with a caryatid emerging from an acanthus-leaf base. In front of this is a small gabled projection with two simple casement windows, both gables having moulded barge-boards.

The inner edges of this projection, facing east and west, have 20th-century doors with upper glazing (2 by 3 panes with glazing bars) and double casement windows with glazing bars (4 by 3 panes). The outer east and west flank walls of the end cross-wings show considerable disturbance from 20th-century modernisation, with gable ends of the principal range projecting through the roof. These gables feature moulded tie-beams, barge-boards, collars, and vertical studs. The walls contain a boarded utility-room door, two single-light casement windows, one 20th-century double casement window, two 20th-century doors with upper glazing (2 by 3 panes with glazing bars), and one 20th-century double casement window with glazing bars (4 by 3 panes).

The interior is now essentially plain, though exposed ceiling joists remain visible.

A cast-iron pump with fluted decoration stands centrally in the rear yard, approximately 3.2 metres from the central wing. The almshouses and the wall to Shenfield Road form a group.