Lodge Farmhouse 140 Metres From Road

House. Dating from the 15th century or earlier, the building was reduced and altered in the mid-19th century, with extensions added around 1925. It is a T-shaped structure, with the original facing east. The house is timber-framed and plastered, and has a steep gabled roof covered in old red tiles. There is an external gable chimney on the south side, a lateral chimney on the rear wall where it meets the rear wing, and an internal gable chimney on the north side. The east front is roughcast and divided into two sections, each with three windows and a half-glazed door below the central window. The windows are 19th-century flush sashes with two panes per sash. A gabled tile hood covers the south door. The northern section of the east front is an extension built around 1925 on the site of a former medieval range which had been demolished. The south section and rear wing are medieval, representing four structural bays of a large open hall house with a narrow central bay for the cross passage. The two bays at the south end contain a cellar and a fine collar-purlin roof with tall octagonal crown posts, each featuring a moulded cap and base. The timbers are massive, well-finished, and chamfered, with heavy club-shaped jowls on the bay posts. The roof in this area is unsooted and has a closed partition on the north side, with a similar partition a little further north, which defines the cross passage. The north face of the second partition opened into the hall and both the partition and roof are heavily sooted. The close-studded partition contains a central post braced down to the tie beam and carrying the collar purlin. A splendid three-arch, segmental-arched braced tie beam of the central truss of the hall remains on the first floor, with massive double chamfered members. The octagonal crown post above is similar to that over the upper room at the south end and is braced to the collar purlin only. It has a through-splayed and tabled scarf joint (the trait-de-Jupiter) over the south wing, supported by a brace from the crown post. The rear wing is made of heavy, less-well-finished timbers, and originally adjoined the west side of the medieval hall just north of the west door of the cross passage. The north end of the medieval house was demolished as far as the north face of the central truss of the hall, and was not extended to the north again until around 1925. Evidence shows that the hall roof was once ceiled beneath the collars, with the infill panels whitened, leaving the soot-blackened timbers exposed for contrast. This is likely the house or lodge mentioned in the later 16th century as being in the park attached to the Bishop of Ely's manor of Little Hadham.