Stow Hall

Stow Hall is a house dating from the early 17th century, with extensions added in the 19th century. The original core is timber-framed and plastered, with a roof of handmade red clay tiles. Later additions are in red brick, in a Flemish bond, and have a slate roof. The house has six bays facing southeast, with an axial stack in the third bay from the right, creating a lobby entrance, and an internal stack at the left end. A large late 19th-century extension has been added to the front, featuring two symmetrically arranged internal stacks, and a late 19th-century wing extends to the rear. The front elevation incorporates a small gable positioned between two larger gables.

The original building exhibits jowled posts, curved tension braces trenched inside heavy studs, face-halved and bladed scarfs in the wallplates, and a butt-purlin roof with cranked collars. Inside, there are chamfered transverse and axial beams with broach stops, and plain joists of vertical section, originally plastered to the soffits but now exposed. Each ground floor room is of unusual height. A partition between the left and middle ground floor rooms was removed and rebuilt in the 20th century. There are two large wood-burning hearths on the ground floor, both altered, and one blocked. A small area of original wall-painting exists in the north corner of the right ground-floor room; it consists of black lines on a white background, accented with red and orange. A 17th/18th-century battened door with cockshead hinges, originally from the upper floor, is positioned in front of the main stack, alongside a cupboard with butterfly hinges within the stack. The upper storey is also of unusual height. A wood-burning hearth on the upper storey features chamfered jambs and a mantel beam with lamb's tongue stops, originally plastered but now stripped and reduced, and containing a cast iron ducknest grate dating from around 1800. The attic floor retains its original construction, similar to the first floor, though it is currently unlit and unoccupied. The entire timber structure is unusually massive for its period. A 1623 conveyance, referring to the house then called Potters as 'lately built', is held at the Essex Record Office (D/Dc 27/741).