Brownings Farmhouse

Browings Farmhouse is a house dating from the late medieval period, with extensions built around 1800. It is timber-framed with plaster rendering, and has a roof of handmade red clay tiles. The house comprises a late medieval service crosswing to the northeast, a central section largely rebuilt in the 16th century, and a southwest crosswing of undetermined date. There are external chimneys on the northeast and southwest walls, along with small lean-to extensions on those walls.

A substantial extension, approximately 1800, is located to the northwest of the southwest crosswing, featuring double gables facing northwest and southeast, and a northeast chimney. This extension forms the present entrance elevation on the southwest side. The southeast elevation, facing Gravel Lane, displays three gable ends, with the central gable being the largest, rising two stories with an attic, and two stories elsewhere. The side wings each have a late 19th-century bay of two stories, with a tiled hipped roof and double-hung sash windows of 2-4-2 lights. The central section has casement windows on each floor. The main entrance door, at the southwest corner of the northwest wing, is of six flush panels with a rectangular light above, incorporating wood fan and garland tracery and an internal wrought iron grill with radiating spikes. It is set within a recessed porch with a shallow hood supported on consoles, with a large stone step and wrought iron shoescrapers on either side. All windows on this wing are double-hung sash windows of approximately 1800, with 12 lights and many panes of crown glass. A southwest lean-to extension features a single 17th-century wrought iron casement, with later wood alterations.

The northeast crosswing, the oldest part of the building, is lower than the rest of the house and has a queen post roof. It features edge-halved and bridled scarfs in the wallplates. The ground floor was originally divided into two service rooms, and while the partition has been removed, the posts rebated for twin service doors remain visible. The medieval cross-entry at the northeast end of the central section is still present, with an ancient, exceptionally wide door at the rear, the front of which has been blocked to create a cupboard. The extent of the surviving medieval hall structure is unclear, as this section has been rebuilt with a clasped purlin roof aligned northwest-southeast, an unusual arrangement. The floor has a plain-chamfered beam with stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops aligned northwest-southeast, alongside exposed, square section, unchamfered joists dating from the 16th century. The dating evidence is limited in the southwest wing, but it may be clapboard. The northwest wing contains a plain stair and, on the first floor, a fireplace in an Adam-derived style, and a corner cupboard, both dating from approximately 1800. A report by C. Johnson, from the Epping Rural District Council in 1970, details the documentary history of Brownings Farm and all of its occupants since 1468.