Gaytons

This is a late 16th century timber-frame house, significantly remodelled in the late 17th century and later restored in the late 19th century. It is located in Much Hadham village, on the west side of the High Street. The front of the house is painted brick, with a steep, old tile roof and decorative, cusped bargeboards. A central chimneystack rises from the roof, composed of four square shafts, and a triple 17th-century stack of octagonal shafts is located on the south side. The two-and-a-half-storey street front has five window bays; it features twinned casements and sash windows on the ground and first floors, and smaller, single-light casements in the attic. A central, six-panel door is topped with an ornamental hood, and there are horizontal bands marking the levels between floors.

Inside, the house retains a very good, late 17th century newel oak staircase that runs in the original well toward the rear of the centre of the house. A large, late Tudor brick fireplace with a timber beam and chamfered arch is found in the centre of the ground floor. Two late 17th-century mullioned windows are on the north rear side.

The house extends southward, with a single-storey, 19th-century extension and a later 18th- or early 19th-century garden wall featuring sunken panels. On the north side is an early 19th-century stable block, distinguished by a symmetrical, curved brick entrance wall, and weatherboarded slate roofs to ranges that extend to the north and south.