Essex House

Essex House is a mid-16th century house located on The Endway, Great Easton. It is a timber-framed building, originally plastered, and now with a gabled peg tile roof. The house is an example of a "long-wall-jetty" design, where the upper floors project beyond the ground floor. The original layout comprised a solar and a large first-floor chamber above service rooms, a cross-passage, a fire bay, a hall, and a parlour. The external timber frame is largely exposed and has been restored. The front of the house now has 20th-century metal casements with leaded lights. There is a canted bay window to the hall and a V-shaped bay to the parlour, both with coved soffits. A later brick stack is situated in the fire bay, rising above the roof line and slightly forward of the ridge. The rear features a hipped open porch on the north-east end and a gabled roof dormer. The interior retains features such as an inglenook fireplace with chamfered arch bracing, a surviving crown post roof, and evidence of halved and bladed scarf joints.