Tollesbury Hall

TOLLESBURY CHURCH STREET TL 9410-9510 (east side) 8/8 No. 15 (Tollesbury Hall) 10.1.53 (formerly listed as Tollesbury Hall) GV II*

House. C13, altered in C16, extended in C15 and C17. Timber framed, plastered, roofed with concrete tiles. Hall, formerly aisled, of 2 large bays facing S, with C16 stack to right of centre. C15 crosswing of 2 bays at right end, extending forwards. C17 2-bay extension at left end. Lean-to extension at rear, on site of former aisle, but widerthan it would have been. C20 stair tower, and C20 single-storey extension with hipped roof to rear of crosswing. 2 storeys and attics. Ground floor, 2 C20 sashes and 2 C20 casements. First floor, 3 early C19 sashes of 16 lights, one C20 sash, one C20 casement. Attic, 3 C19 casements in gabled dormers. C20 glazed door. 3 octagonal shafts, rebuilt in C20. C20 wooden guttering of V section on wooden brackets. The hall has unjowled posts, double straight square bracing at the ends, dragon ties, straight square braces to the arcade plates, a moulded capital on one arcade post, oblique trenches for former passing-braces, empty matrices with secret notched lap joints in the straight central tiebeam, and in the rear arcade plate a splayed and tabled scarf with undersquinted square butts, edge-key and face-pegs (the other concealed). At the right end, empty mortices for double rising braces from the central post indicate the former existence of another bay or crosswing, replaced in the C15 by the present crosswing. The late C16 inserted floor comprises 2 chamfered transverse beams, with chamfered joists of horizontal section, having lamb's tongue stops in the left bay and roll stops in the right bay. 2 wood-burning hearths, altered in the C20. Roof above tiebeam level rebuilt in the C17 in clasped purlin form. The crosswing has jowled posts, cambered central tiebeam with one arched brace, an edge-halved and bridled scarf in the right wallplate, an original central partition on the ground floor, and a crownpost roof, complete in the rear bay, rebuilt in the front bay. The floor is constructed in 3 bays, with a chamfered transverse beam with step stops supported on a girt of the hall, and chamfered joists of horizontal section with step stops, jointed to the beams with unrefined soffit tenons. This house was built as a manor house of Barking Abbey (P. Morant, The History and Antiquities of Essex, 1768, 1, 402). Structurally, the hall bears close similarities to the wheat barn at Cressing Temple, which has been carbon-dated to 1255 + 60 years (C.A. Hewett,The Development of Carpentry 1200-1700, an Essex Stud , 1969, 40-47, 174,189). Tollesbury Hall may be slightly earlier in date, since it lacks the jowled posts and tying joints which are first recorded at the wheat barn. RCHM 5.

Listing NGR: TL9565110341