Pheasant House

Phesant House is a house of mixed origins, with an east wing dating to the 15th century, a hall range built in the 16th century, and 17th-century alterations to the roof and rear of the east wing. An 18th-century internal chimney and a 1982 single-storey studio extension, designed as a three-bay open hall with an entrance link, complete the building.

The house is timber-framed, with brick or flint sills, and is L-shaped. The north front has three casement windows on each floor. The east wing internally reveals the structure of a fine close-studded crosswing, originally of two or more bays, with jetties on the north and east sides. It was formerly gabled to the north but now has a roof that matches the hall range, truncated on the south end. The crosswing features massive timbers, a lofty ground floor, and deep-chamfered floor joists with run-out stops. A dragon beam and corner post survive, with mortices indicating a former five-light central diamond-mullioned window with a shutter groove on the north side. Double-curved tension braces support the bay post on the west side of the first floor. A blocked mullioned window, with a shutter groove below, is visible on the first floor, suggesting a similar original window on the ground floor. The west wall of the crosswing is carefully close-studded, implying the upper end of an open hall, although no doorway is apparent. The roof is a later clasped-purlin construction with straight wind-braces, squint wind braces and an inserted diagonal corner fireplace.

The two-bay hall range is irregularly set against the west wing. It has jowled posts and curved braces to the central open truss, with a cranked tie-beam; signs of cut-out braces and tie-beams are visible in the upper chamber at the east end. Chamfered and stopped cross- and axial-floorbeams divide the bays. The roof is a clasped purlin design with wind-braces, and tension braces are present in the north and west walls. Mortices and shutter grooves for a four-light diamond-mullioned window on the south side of the west bay, next to the central bay post, and a matching groove on the north wall at first-floor level, suggest that a floor originally existed in this bay, and probably in both bays of this section. An edge-halved scarf joint with bridled butts is found in the north wallplate near the west corner. The weathering of timbers on the west wall provides no indication of the location of the original service rooms. The building was formerly known as Little Heath Great Farm Cottage. The site was transferred from Northchurch parish on 1st April 1985.