Sheepcotes

This is a house built around 1800. It is constructed of stock brick with a roof composed of slates and handmade red clay tiles. Originally, the main front of the house faced southeast, but the current entrance is on the northeast elevation. It has a square plan with canted bays on each return. A blocked internal chimney stack forms a lobby-entrance. A two-story service wing extends to the northwest, with a slate roof on its northeast side and a catslide roof of red tiles on the southwest side, along with an end chimney stack. A single-story lean-to extension, roofed with red clay pantiles, projects beyond the service wing.

The southeast elevation features double doors consisting of three panels each, topped by a cast iron fanlight with radiating tracery, set within a plain doorcase and a shallow hood. There are double-hung sash windows with 12 lights and flat brick arches; two on the ground floor and three on the first floor. A plastered band runs along the first floor. The second floor has three double-hung sash windows with 6 lights and flat brick arches, above which is a parapet with stone coping and a hipped slated roof. The canted bays on either side are two stories high, and each has double-hung sash windows of 12 lights, flat brick arches, and blind recesses. This creates a symmetrical composition for the southeast elevation.

The northeast elevation incorporates a four-panel door with a cast iron fanlight in a round brick arch, along with a porch featuring two Ionic columns and pilasters, a dentil cornice, and four stone steps with plain wrought iron handrails on each side. The northwest side of the porch is glazed with twentieth-century additions. The northwest side has tripartite double-hung sash windows of 4-12-4 lights on the ground and first floors, and a double-hung sash window of 12 lights above the door. Again, the second floor features three double-hung sash windows of six lights and a parapet.

The service wing displays a brick wall of a darker colour, featuring one plain boarded door and two double-hung sash windows of 12 lights. Inside, a plain stair leads from the northeast entrance. The service wing’s timber frame is from the 18th and 19th centuries, exhibiting primary straight bracing and stop-chamfered beams with run-out stops. A cellar is present.

The house was illustrated on 22 September 1810 in Dr. Hughson’s ‘Description of London and its Environs,’ drawn by Schnebbelie and engraved by Davenport, and depicted as ‘The Villa of John Elsee, Esq., at Chigwell Row.’ The illustration shows the house as it stands today, except for a pedimented Ionic porch on the southeast elevation, which may correspond to the porch now on the northeast elevation, although the pediment is now missing.