Stow Hall

STOW MARIES THE STREET TQ 89 NW (north-west side) 4/119 Stow Hall ­ II House. Early C17, extended in C19. Timber framed and plastered, roofed with handmade red clay tiles; C19 additions in red brick in Flemish bond, roofed with slate. 6 bays facing SE with axial stack in third bay from right end, forming a lobby-entrance, and internal stack at left end. Large late C19 extension to front, with 2 internal stacks symmetrically arranged, and late C19 wing to rear. 2 storeys. 5-window range of late C19 sashes of 4 lights. Central 4-panel door in late C19 gabled porch. The front elevation has a small gable between 2 large gables. In the original building jowled posts, curved tension braces trenched inside heavy studs, face-halved and bladed scarfs in the wallplates, butt-purlin roof with cranked collars. Chamfered transverse and axial beams with broach stops, plain joists of vertical section orginally plastered to the soffits, now exposed. Each ground floor room is of 2 bays, of unusual height. The partition between the left and middle rooms has been removed and rebuilt in the C20. 2 large wood-burning hearths on the ground floor, both altered, and another blocked. In the N corner of the right ground-floor room a small area of original wall-painting, the design of black lines on white, with red and orange. In the front of the main stack a C17/18 battened door with cockshead hinges, removed from the upper floor, and in the stack a cupboard with butterfly hinges. The upper storey also is of unusual height. Wood-burning hearth with chamfered jambs and mantel beam with lamb's tongue stops, originally plastered, now stripped, reduced and containing a cast iron ducknest grate, c.1800. The attic floor is original, constructed similarly to the first floor, but the attic is not now lit or occupied. The whole timber structure is unusually massive for its date. A conveyance of 1623 describes the house, then called Potters, as 'lately built' (Essex Record Office, D/Dc 27/741). RCHM 2.

Listing NGR: TQ8327499542