Sumners Farmhouse

Sumners Farmhouse, Doddinghurst

A timber-framed farmhouse with rendered and brick infill, peg-tiled roof, and rectangular plan with rear stair tower. The building spans from the 16th century to the 20th century, with major phases of construction and alteration documented across c1600, the early 17th century, the later 17th century, c1700, and the 20th century.

The house comprises two units. The south end, the highest point, is two storeys with a two-window range, featuring 20th-century wooden casements and colour-washed walls. A 17th-century stack with three shafts in 'concertina' form sits at this end. The north end displays exposed timber-frame and brick infill, rises two storeys, and has a three-window range with 20th-century casements. A central door and porch of timber and brick construction with a simple hood and peg tiles stands here, with the upper part glazed. The door is framed, boarded, with a glazed panel and side glazing. A double stack runs in line with the door. Four dormers with 20th-century casements and peg tiles are positioned on the roof. The north end wall is weatherboarded. A 20th-century lean-to extension occupies the south end, and a 17th or 18th-century extension extends from the north end.

The interior is complex and reveals multiple timber-framed phases of construction:

Phase 1, dated to the earlier 16th century, comprises a medieval hall house with a two-bayed high end cross-wing featuring a front jetty and a two-storeyed service bay. The framing includes internal arched bracing and tension bracing in the cross-wing. Evidence exists for two oriel windows to the hall and probably beneath the jetty. The crown post roof has a central hall post, square in section with step stopped chamfers and four-way bracing, with no sooting. A possible timber-framed chimney may originally have backed onto the cross passage. The service end contained mullioned windows with sliding shutters on both ground and first floors. Floor joists feature soffit tenons. Although the cross-wing is now cut back, edge halved and bridled scarfs in both top plates are evident. Floor joists with diminished haunched soffit tenons suggest a possible second phase (1B), though other evidence points to the hall and cross-wing being built as one.

Phase 2, c1600, saw the insertion of a chimney into the upper bay of the hall facing the low end and the insertion of doorways next to the cross-wing to create a second cross passage at the high end behind the stack. A floor was inserted into the hall using deep-sectioned joists with diminished haunched tenons and pendant soffits, finished with lamb's tongue chamfer stops.

Phase 3, early 17th century, involved adding a two-bayed taller block to the high end with an integral stack and fireplaces on ground and first floors. The roof is a clasped side purlin. The rear wall on the ground floor contains a window with an ovolo mullion bearing minor hollow mouldings, intermediate minor iron mullions, and shutter rebates.

Phase 4, later 17th century, saw the jetty removed and the roof re-aligned to the principal range using joggled butt purlins. A lobby entrance door was cut through in front of the stack, and the ground floor partition between the hall and cross-wing was removed, creating one large room.

Phase 5, spanning the later 17th and 18th centuries, introduced a linking stair tower between the two principal blocks and a narrower chimney added to the side of the hall stack to heat the parlour end. A single-storey timber-framed extension of rudimentary construction was added to the rear of the service end. Several sets of carpenters' marks are visible on the studding throughout the house.

The rear of the house is rendered and colour-washed with irregular 20th-century casement windows. The early block to the north has one dormer and one gable, each with one window and glazing bars. Between the blocks sits a stair tower with a gabled roof, and adjacent is a second gabled block with one 20th-century casement window. A 20th-century lean-to outshut extends from the end of this block, with a casement window.

The house demonstrates a continuous series of alterations throughout its history, with evidence that occupants constantly updated the building to contemporary standards. A collapsed barn to the east of the house was noted to contain a 13th-century scarf joint, documented by C.A. Hewett (although misprinted as Summers Farm in his work). The adjacent house, Abreys, is also an old timber-framed farmhouse, but recent alterations have removed it from listing category.