Brickhouse Farmhouse

TL 61 SW MARGARET RODING Brickhouse Farmhouse 6/12

II

House, c.1680-1700, altered and extended in C19. Timber-framed with original brick facade, rear and side walls plastered, main roof tiled. Rear extension of brick with slate roofs. 5 bays, facing NW, with internal chimney stacks at each gable, 1680-1700, with C19 extensions behind the SW end, forming an L-plan. The facade is in red brick, Flemish bond with blue flared headers with flat arches of gauged brickwork over all windows, a string course at first- floor level, and plain wooden modillions under the cornice. At ground floor, 4 sash windows each of 6 upper lights and 2 lower lights, C19, central porch with square pillars and pediment, C19. Flat-arched recesses at each end, one on each floor, express in elevation the chimney stacks behind them. The whole forms a balanced composition. This house, of a type otherwise unknown or rate in rural Essex, closely follows in style and construction superior houses being built in the City of London, 1670-90. It differs from them mainly in having a facade only of brickwork, with timber-framed construction elsewhere. The roof too is of a construction unknown elsewhere in Essex, with 2 closed and 4 open upper cruck trusses (or trusses with curved principal rafters) with butt purlins, similar to St. Paul's Deanery, City of London. It was described in a sale catalogue of 1797 as 'A Gentlemanlike Farm House, Brick Built' (Essex Record Office B.768). The name expresses the fact that it was uncommon in its own time. It was re-fenestrated, and a porch was added, in mid-Victorian times, and rear extensions added. Part of the original external wall, now inside, exhibits whitewashed plaster with a combed zig-zag design.

Listing NGR: TL6056611243