4 And 5, Birch Road

Pair of houses of the late 17th century, converted to one house around 1990, located in Layer de la Haye.

The buildings are constructed with a timber frame, rendered and pebble-dashed exterior, a brick chimneystack, and roofs clad with plain tiles. Originally built as mirror-image cottages, each consisted of one room either side of the entrance door, with two rooms in the attic reached by straight staircases.

The south elevation is symmetrical, featuring a doorway to the right and left, each flanked by a single top-hung casement window. The door to No. 5 (to the west) is a half-glazed early 20th-century door, but the remaining woodwork dates from the 1960s and 1970s. Areas of the brick plinth course were rebuilt in the 1990s. The elevation is uniformly rendered and pebble-dashed, with small gabled porches constructed in front of the two entrance doors in the early 1980s. Two small gabled dormers in the gabled roof are fitted with 1960s top-hung casements. A central brick chimneystack sits in the rear roof slope.

The east return is rendered and pebble-dashed, lit by a mid-20th-century top-hung single-light casement to the ground floor and a mid-19th-century 3/3 horizontal sliding sash window to the attic. The west return and rear north elevation are rendered and painted rather than pebble-dashed. The gable end has a single-light late-20th-century top-hung attic window; the ground floor is obscured by an attached workshop. The rear elevation features a single-storey hipped extension of 1995 to No. 4 (east) and a flat-roofed extension of 1956 to No. 5 (west), both with late-20th-century fenestration. Neither extension is of special interest. Above the west extension is weatherboarding to the main elevation of No. 5 and one single-light late-20th-century casement.

Internally, the houses are now connected via rear extensions. Originally, both front doors opened directly into the principal heated room, but No. 4 was altered in the mid-20th century to create a passageway from the front door. A heavy timber frame is apparent throughout both houses.

No. 4: A 20th-century passageway from the south entrance door gives access to the principal room to the west, which contains a small mid-20th-century brick fire opening set in a blocked inglenook, the line of the covered bressumer being visible. A chamfered east-west bridging beam continues into the entrance passage. A mid-18th-century corner cupboard features double moulded lower doors on HL hinges and double glazed upper cupboard doors also on HL hinges, though with late-20th-century leaded glass. The eastern room has a chamfered east-west bridging beam, exposed timber frame in places, and chamfered mid rails. The straight-flight staircase against the north outer wall has the heavy timber frame exposed, with a mid rail and diagonal bracing. The eastern first-floor room has arched braces to the frame and two cambered tie beams without mouldings. The western room has a flat tie beam and a late-17th-century three-plank door leading into No. 5, on strap pin hinges.

No. 5: The east ground-floor room has a wide fire opening of mixed-bond brick under a chamfered bressumer and a brick apron splay for the fire opening in the room above. An east-west bridging beam with tongue stops has been reused and is embedded in the brickwork of the chimney breast. The studwork of the north wall is exposed, with one stud removed to allow for the opening into the kitchen in the 1956 rear extension. The western ground-floor room has late 19th-century matchboarding to the walls and a chamfered east-west bridging beam. The staircase opens from the west wall of the east room and is closed by a three-plank 17th-century door on strap pintle hinges with a Suffolk latch. It rises to an early-20th-century balustraded landing from which opens two rooms. The eastern room has a wide brick fire opening under a plain bressumer. Wide chestnut floorboards date from the late 17th century. The west wall has a cambered tie beam with a roll- and hollow-moulded lower edge, with a piece removed to heighten the entrance. To the east is a straight plain tie beam, and the timber frame of the side walls has straight braces to the corners.

An attached single-storey outbuilding of around 1830, currently used as a private workshop, stands to the west gable of No. 5 and runs to the south. Built of rendered and painted brick under a hipped slate roof, it has an early-20th-century double metal doorway in the north return with 8 glazed upper panes. The east and west flanks each have one 6-over-6 mid-19th-century horizontally sliding sash window. The south return has a plank door within a plain frame with upper console brackets. The interior contains plain tie beams and a boarded ceiling.

Nos. 4 and 5 were built in the late 17th century as a pair of one-room deep cottages with mirror-image plans, probably for tenant farmers. Alterations include the construction of a single-storey building at the west gable end around 1830 and 20th-century extensions, but the cottages remain largely intact.