The Ship and Anchor Public House

The Ship and Anchor is a public house with origins in the 16th century and possibly earlier. It is located on the High Street in Maldon. The building is timber-framed with a painted brick front and a plain tile roof, hipped with a large gablet to the north-west and dropping to a lower ridgeline to the hipped return on the south-east. A central stack rises from the roof.

The exterior is two storeys with an attic, featuring a four-window front. Modillioned eaves are present. The first floor has two segmental-headed six-pane sash windows, one two-light casement with central horizontal glazing bars, and a combined window under a wide segmental head with an eight-pane sash and a smaller sash. The ground floor has two early 19th-century doorcases, each with pilasters, recessed 19th-century doors, and moulded flat hoods. Two flat-roofed canted bay windows contain sash windows with one vertical glazing bar each. There is a pair of unsubdivided sashes under a single arched head and a segmental-headed entrance with a 19th-century door, featuring six panes in the upper part. A single-storey gabled 19th-century extension in red brick is located on the south-east flank, matching the adjoining window of the main block with a painted front. The north-west flank elevation has a brick return with a wall of render over black weatherboarding. An asbestos slate roof covers the return roof slope, and a tall, black weatherboarded tower with a gabled plain tile roof abuts the west corner. The rear elevation includes a 19th-century two-storey extension of red Flemish-bond brickwork with a pantiled roof, a ridge stack, and a sash window with small panes and margin glazing to the first floor. Connecting to this is a single-storey gabled extension of red brick (partly painted) with a Welsh slate roof. A rendered rear stair tower, dating to the early 17th century, has a gabled plain tile roof and a single-light casement to the attic level. The north-western cross-wing has a gable to the rear. An adjoining single-storey extension has a machine-made plain tile roof, red brick to the north, and white weatherboarding to the yard. The yard side includes a sash window with a central vertical glazing bar and a 20th-century flat-roofed lobby extension. A 20th-century conservatory extension with a gabled glazed roof is also present.

The interior preserves much of the former open-hall house, particularly the 16th-century parlour cross-wing at the north-west end. This features jowled posts, evidence for a former parlour door in the rear part of a partition (now removed), and a former front jetty. The roof has crown posts with thin longitudinal bracing and was formerly hipped with a gablet to the rear. Evidence suggests a pair of ground-floor windows and an earlier first-floor window on the north-west flank. A service-end cross-wing, possibly dating to an even earlier period, survives with a deep cambered tie beam visible on the front elevation. The hall range was rebuilt as two storeys in the early to mid-17th century. It contains a long central spine beam and a joggled side-purlin roof with one purlin arched to form access to the attic from the rear timber-framed stair tower. Some 17th-century doors remain.