Comarques

THORPE-LE-SOKEN COLCHESTER ROAD TM 1622-1722 (south side) 8/80 Comarques 29.4.52 GV II*

House. Mid-C18, extended in C19 and C20. Red brick in Flemish bond, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. Double range plan facing SE, with 2 internal stacks in each return. Early C19 2-storey extension with hipped roof to left of front range, and C20 flat-roofed single-storey extension beyond. C20 extension to left of rear range, 2-storey and single-storey, facing NW. 2 storeys with attics. 6-window range of early C19 sashes with octagonal panes of crown glass, in original apertures with gauged flat arches, and on the first floor, central Venetian window with similar glazing, 2 panes having ogee heads, with triglyph frieze. In attic, 4 sashes of 4 lights in dormers with moulded pediments, and central Diocletian window with similar octagonal glazing, 2 panes having ogee heads, in round arch of gauged brick. Central door with 8 recessed octagonal panels, fanlight with radial glazing bars and gilt lionhead keystone, doorcase with attached Ionic columns with gilt capitals, pulvinated frieze and dentilled pediment. Rusticated brick quoins. Band of rubbed brick above first-floor window heads. Moulded pediment, moulded brick cornice, plain parapet. 5 cast iron roundels above first-floor window level. The extensions to the left have on the ground floor 3 C20 reproductions of the sashes with octagonal panes. Dogtooth eaves course on C19 extension. The rear range is hipped at the right end. The rear elevation has on the ground floor one C18 splayed bay of sashes of 12 lights, one early C19 sash of 8 + 12 lights, one C18 sash of 12 lights, and one C20 reproduction, and on the first floor 3 C18 sashes of 12 lights and 3 C20 reproductions; 6-panel door with moulded canopy on scrolled brackets. Over the door is a plaque inscribed 'Enoch Arnold Bennett, author, lived here, 1913-1921'. There is a straight joint between the central door and the splayed bay. A brick in the right return is inscribed 'W. Whatey 1755', probably the master builder and date of construction. (P. Morant, The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex, 1768, I, 482). Named after Captain Comarque who occupied the site in 1717, but Morant is wrong in reporting that this house was built by him (E.A. Wood, A History of Thorpe-le-Soken to the year 1890, 1975, 153-4). The 1962 schedule states that this was at one time the house of Earl Attlee, and is supported by Essex Review, 54 (1945, 170, the period given as 1899-1903; but it is contradicted by the official biography (K. Harris, Attlee, 1982, 2-17). A sale catalogue indicates that the house passed through the hands of Messrs. Druces and Attlee, solicitors, Clement Attlee's father's firm (Essex Record Office, B. 5083).

Listing NGR: TM1748922640