The Marriage Feast Room

The Marriage Feast Room is a public hall of the 15th or 16th century, constructed in timber frame with plaster and a roof of handmade red clay tiles. It comprises four equal bays aligned approximately north-west to south-east, with a south-west aspect. The building stands two storeys tall.

The south-west elevation is jettied, though the brackets are now missing. It features two plain boarded doors and, on each floor, four windows with horizontally sliding sashes of 16 lights each, dating from the late 19th century. The north-east elevation faces the parish church and has, on the ground floor, two small 20th-century casement windows. The first floor of this elevation has four 19th-century Gothic cast iron casement windows. The roof is hipped at the south-east end, and a tiled pentice sits on the north-west gable.

A 19th-century chimney stack was inserted inside the north-east wall in the second bay from the north-west end. Lean-to extensions were added at the north-west end in the 19th and 20th centuries. One 20th-century casement window appears on the first floor of the south-west elevation.

Internally, some framing is exposed. The ground floor contains a north-west staircase (19th-century) rising from an external door to the first floor. At the south-east end, an original studded partition separates one bay from the remainder; a later partition divides this into two service rooms. The rest of the ground floor is open. Transverse and axial beams are plain chamfered except in the service end, where the axial beam is missing in the second bay from the north-west. Joists are lathed and plastered to their soffits. Grooves for sliding shutters run along the walls. The first floor is open from end to end up to the collar ties. The timber frame includes jowled posts, cambered tiebeams with arched braces, and plain crownposts with axial braces, much of which has been restored. Grooves below the wallplates on both sides of each bay accommodated sliding shutters, varying in length. The wallplates show edge-halved and bridled scarfs.

The building was originally constructed as two halls, entirely open on the first floor. The ground floor was open except for a partitioned service room. It has subsequently served as a school and as an almshouse, with inserted partitions and chimneys; most of these have since been removed. During relaying of the ground floor, evidence was found of an early inserted chimney stack of the 16th or 17th century in an axial position immediately south-east of the middle, later removed. This accounts for the missing axial beam in this bay and alterations to the central crownpost.

A notice at the entrance states the building was constructed by William Chimney in 1480, though the source of this information has not been traced. The Essex historian Morant wrote in 1768: "A house, close to the church yard, said to be built by one Chimney, was designed for the entertainment of poor people on their wedding day. It seems to be very ancient, but ruinous", without providing a Christian name or date. The plain design is consistent with construction in the late 15th or early 16th century. The fact that the jetty faces away from the church supports its secular, charitable purpose; buildings of similar form designed as meeting places for religious guilds are typically jettied towards the church. A guild is recorded at Matching in the Calendar of Letters Patent, 12 Elizabeth. In the tithe award of 1843, this building was described as two tenements with gardens belonging to the parish of Matching, both unoccupied.