Mitre House Brentwood School

Mitre House, now two flats, is a house dating back to the 15th century, with alterations made in the 17th and 19th centuries. It is timber-framed and plastered, with exposed false framing, and has a roof of handmade red clay tiles. The house comprises a two-bay cross-wing on the left, with a 17th-century external stack, a wing to the rear built in 1883, and a five-bay cross-wing range to the right, extending to the rear with an originally external stack now enclosed within a later extension. A 17th-century stair tower sits in the rear angle between the hall range and the right wing. A single-storey 17th-century extension is attached to the rear of the right wing, with an axial stack at the junction. The house has two storeys and a cellar.

The front of the house has two tripartite sash windows with 2+2, 6+6, and 2+2 lights, and one window with 4+5, 6+6 and 4+4 lights on the ground floor. The first floor has four early 19th-century sash windows with 6+6 lights. A front door, dating to the 18th or early 19th century, features 15 handmade bulls-eye lights and a moulded flat canopy supported by brackets. To the right of the door is a large wrought-iron bootscraper with an inverted U-shape and a pointed-end plate.

The roof of the main range has been raised approximately one metre and rebuilt as a double range, with the front range extending over the cross-wings and abutting the left stack while enclosing the right one. The cross-wing roofs rise above this as small hips. All stacks are rendered; the hall stack features grouped diagonal shafts, partly concealed by the raised roof.

Inside, the hall range contains, on the ground floor, a wide wood-burning hearth that has been blocked and plastered over, and behind it, an early 19th-century semi-elliptical wooden arch. A 16th-century inserted floor has an axial beam with chamfered edges, and joists plastered to the soffits. The roof is of late 17th-century construction without a ridge. The left cross-wing has a similar chamfered axial beam, plastered soffit joists, close studding with "Suffolk" bracing, and a crownpost roof with axial bracing, altered to hips in the 18th century. The upper room in this wing has a blocked late 17th-century bolection-moulded fireplace, and 18th-century moulded ceiling cornices. The right cross-wing has some late 16th-century painted oak panelling in the front ground-floor room, a blocked hearth, and an original rear doorway with hollow-moulded jambs and a 4-centred arch, leading to a late 17th-century panelled door. Exposed close studding is visible in some partition walls, again with "Suffolk" bracing. On the first floor, there is a blocked original doorway with a plain chamfered head, along with an early 18th-century "borrowed" light window with ovolo-moulded glazing bars. The stair tower contains a 17th/18th-century window with a wrought-iron casement and rectangular leading, and an early 19th-century staircase with turned newels, stick balusters, and a moulded pine handrail.