Broomhills

This is an 18th-century house with alterations and additions from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is constructed of red brick with red plain tiled roofs, and has end chimney stacks to the front range, and an off-centre rear range stack. There is a parapet with parapet verges. The house is two storeys and has attics. To the right is a two-storey extension with a left chimney stack, and a single-storey extension to the far right with a right chimney stack, along with a flat-roofed extension to the rear right. The original part of the house has a three-window front with three segmental-headed dormers; a ground-floor bay is on the left. The windows are a mix of small-paned casements and vertically sliding sashes, some tripartite. A central flat-headed porch has a panelled door, a fanlight above, and windows to the side walls. A single first-floor casement is present on the right range, and a large ground-floor bay features central French windows with vertically sliding sashes to the right and left. A smaller window is located in the far right extension. The house is largely obscured by creeper.

The house was once the home of John Harriot, who founded the Thames River Police. Born in Stambridge in 1745, he served in the Royal Navy and merchant service before living with an American Indian tribe. He later obtained a military appointment with the East India Company, was wounded, and returned to Essex around 1781. He embanked Rushley Island and received a gold medal from the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts and Sciences for this project. During the early 1790s, Harriot developed a scheme for a river police force for the Port of London. In 1798, along with Sir Patrick Colquhoun, he received permission to test the scheme, which was officially adopted two years later and Harriot was appointed one of three special justices at the Police Office in Wapping. He published his autobiography "Struggles through Life" in 1808.