Lodge Farmhouse

1. 5213 GOAT HALL LANE Lodge Farmhouse TL 60 SE 8/157

II*

1. Circa 1280-circa 1330 house. Timber framed and plastered except south wall which is clad with black weather-boards. Of 2-storeys and 4 bays with front (west) elevation re-styled about 1900. Central front door with casements either side. Range of 3 matching casements on the lst storey. Roof steeply pitched and ridged with hipped southern and gabletted northern ends. Two red brick chimney stacks against the rear (east) wall, from which a single storeyed extension projects with gabled and tiled roof. Containing the complete frame of the 4 bay medieval house with storeyed end-bays retaining their lodged floors of exceptionally big joists. The 2 central bays were the open hall and its tall diagonally mullioned side windows are visible on the existing 1st floor. The storey-posts have jowls of the earliest type (of Priory Place, Little Dunmow) and the arch-braces of the open frame spanning the hall were evidently of great size and steeply pitched arcature. The top-plates are prominently scarfed with the stop-splayed and tabled joint having under-squinted butts and lateral wedges that is known only between the dates cited. The roof is entirely original and has 2 crown-posts that are boldly down-braced to their tie-beams and a gabletted smoke vent survives at the north end. The side walls of the hall are remarkable in that the cross-entry doorways to east and west are framed into the side-girts and storey-posts whilst the remaining bay of the hall is similarly 'arcaded' beneath the girt - on both sides, the bay lengths are unusual in that from south to north they measure approximately 15 ft. Service, 6 ft cross-entry, 9 ft. Hall and 15 ft. Solar. This house is a remarkable survival in an urban area and in an almost complete and unaltered state.

Listing NGR: TL6936802736