The Victoria

The Victoria is a house located on Tollesbury High Street, dating back to the 15th century, with alterations made in the 17th and 20th centuries. It features a timber frame, some brickwork, and is plastered, topped with handmade red clay tiles. The house has a two-bay hall oriented north-south, which includes an early 17th-century axial stack in the southern bay. There is a two-bay extension to the south that replaced the original service bay, dating from the 17th or 18th century. The northern parlour/solar bay is now part of Victoria Cottage. A passage along the eastern side has been covered and incorporated into the house, and there is a 20th-century single-storey extension at the eastern end.

The building is one storey high with attics. On the southern elevation facing the High Street, the ground floor features two early 19th-century casement windows with 18 lights each, a blocked doorway that has simple pilasters and a canopy on profiled brackets, which has been converted into two windows. The first floor has one 19th-century sash window and a 20th-century half-glazed door with a plain fanlight.

Inside, the original structure displays jowled posts, widely spaced heavy studding, and truncated arched braces that rise from the middle posts of the hall, although the middle tie beam has been removed to accommodate the inserted stack. There is an edge-halved and bridled scarf joint in the western wall plate, and rebates for shutters of the hall windows can be found in both wall plates. The hall has an inserted floor with a chamfered transverse beam featuring lamb's tongue stops, plastered joists, and original rebated hardwood floorboards. The crown post roof is plastered to the soffits of the collars, with axial braces removed. In the southern extension, there is a chamfered transverse beam with lamb's tongue stops and plain square-section joists. The building also has a large wood-burning hearth made of 0.33 metre brickwork facing north, which has been reduced for a 20th-century grate, and a smaller wood-burning hearth facing south. The Victoria was formerly a public house.