17, South Street

No. 17 South Street, Rochford, is a hall house of exceptional historical importance, dating to around 1300 with significant later modifications. It is timber-framed and plastered, with red plain tiled roofs and features an imposing red brick chimney stack to the left crosswing with 4 attached diagonal shafts. The building has an H-plan form, with right and left crosswings flanking a central hall. It is a 2-storey structure overall, though the original hall was single-storey, now fitted with a gabled dormer containing 3 leaded casements. The crosswings are jettied with end brackets, arranged in a 1:1:1 window pattern.

The building shows multiple phases of construction and alteration. The original front and rear walls were braced in herringbone pattern between hall window and cross passage doorways. The front elevation retains small-paned vertically sliding sashes to the first floor left and ground floor right, a 19th-century 2-light casement with centre transom to the first floor right, and a 19th-century angled bay on the ground floor right with 5 lights, centre transoms, and segmental heads, serving as a shop front. Doors to the right and left of the hall include one with 2 vertical lights and one that is vertically boarded.

The interior reveals the building's medieval origins and careful development. The open hall measures approximately 6.9 metres long and originally spanned 2 bays, retaining its original cambered and arched braced tie beam with a 2-armed crown post roof. The original front and rear walls survive at the north end, braced in herringbone between window and doorway positions. Original windows survive, each with a central square post, 2 diamond mullions either side, and a transom. The hall features simple crown posts with braces that extend down the shafts as pilasters with broach stops. Roof timbers retain heavy sooting from medieval fires. Towards the south end are 2 original additional collars positioned approximately 2 feet below the common collars, their original purpose unknown. Radiocarbon dating from the hall and north crosswing (HAR 5717 and HAR 5718, 1984) produced calibrated dates of 1350±85, supporting a construction date around 1300.

The replacement service end now comprises 4 bays and is difficult to date precisely but appears to be 15th or 16th century. Nothing survives of the original service end. An extremely fine and imposing red brick chimney stack was inserted into the hall, probably between 1480 and 1530. The mantel beam, dated by radiocarbon analysis to 1440±80, is cambered and features 3 decorative brick niches with corbelled trefoiled heads, flanked by lower niches with plain arched heads. A floor was inserted in the late 16th or early 17th century but has since been removed.

The north (left) crosswing is structurally similar to the hall and was originally multi-braced to the road. A doorhead survives in the north wall of the central bay. The tie beams are flatter than in the hall; the westernmost was arch-braced. The front wall's tie beam was originally moulded externally and cambered, with splayed top plate scarfs featuring undersquinted abuttments and face pegs. An inserted chimney stack with flat stop-chamfered mantel beam, possibly contemporary with the hall stack, occupies this wing. Fragmentary evidence of wall paintings with a floral motif remains but is too deteriorated to preserve. A staircase was inserted at a later date. The north crosswing, 3 bays in extent, is of similar date to the hall but may be slightly later.

The south crosswing features a simple crown post roof with halved and bridled top plate scarves and is a 15th or 16th-century replacement. This wing contains off-centre right and rear stacks.