Dovecote/Granary 10 Metres North West Of Fryerning Hall

This is a timber-framed dovecote, dating to the 16th century, which was later converted into a granary in the 18th century and extended in the late 19th century. It stands 10 metres north-west of Fryerning Hall. The building is timber-framed, clad in weatherboard, and has a roof of handmade red clay tiles and slate. Originally a single-storey structure, it was converted to two storeys in the 18th century. A late 19th-century vehicle house extends to the north-east and north-west, forming a lean-to and built of stock bricks in Flemish bond, partly rendered, and roofed with slate. The main building has a plain boarded door and a similar loading door on the upper storey. The extension has double vehicle doors to the south-east. The southwest slope of the roof is tiled, while the northeast slope is continuous with the extension’s roof at a lower pitch and covered in slate. The timber frame features heavy studs, approximately 0.18 metres apart, with fixings for former wattle and daub infill, and some later brick infill. Interior features include unjowled posts. A front tie-beam was severed and splinted above to accommodate a loading door. Horizontal lines of peg-holes on the studs reveal the former presence of wooden nesting boxes, removed during the conversion to a granary. The 18th-century inserted floor consists of a transverse beam, plain vertical-section joists with soffit tenons and diminished haunches, and original boards. A further 18th-century partition was inserted in the upper storey. The roof was rebuilt in the 18th century in a clasped purlin form with butted rafters and no ridge piece; older rafters remain beneath the later slate roof. Historically, dovecotes were usually further from a manor house than this building currently is; however, before the house's northward extension from the 17th century onwards, it was approximately 25 metres away, likely the optimum distance for security and minimal disturbance to the pigeons. The original roof likely had a pyramidal or gablet-hip shape with access for the pigeons, similar to contemporary timber-framed dovecotes at Pimp Hall, Chingford, and Great Yeldham Hall, Church Road Yeldham.