Badwell Ash Hall

TM 06 NW BADWELL ASH

5/1 Badwell Ash Hall

15/11/54 II*

Former farmhouse, called 'High House' on OS map. Early and later C16; c17; C19 extensions. The oldest surviving part of the complex is a 3-storey block, aligned north-south: Tudor red brick, laid in English Bond; plaintiles. Crenellations along the east side, crow-stepping to the north and south gables; 2 moulded stone string-courses; tall polygonal buttresses with stone onion tops to all corners. The north gable-end wall is in C19 brick, and the range appears to have been truncated at that end. On the east side a plain external chimney-stack with 3 very fine shafts of ornate moulded brick, each different, with shaped and moulded bases and crenellated tops. Projecting from the north end of the east side is an original stair wing: an ovolo- moulded mullion-and-transome window to each half landing, cutting through the string-courses, the lower of 4 lights, the upper of 3, both with triangular stone pediments and rusticated plaster surrounds. Between the stair wing and the chimney-stack, an unpretentious and probably secondary entrance has a plain plank door with a 3-light mullioned window above. The south gable end has an ovolo-moulded mullion-and-transome window to each floor, 6 lights to the ground floor, 5 lights to the first floor and 3 lights at the top, which is pedimented. Panelled dadoes on the ground floor inside; flooring of entrance hall in large pamments, alternately red and white with black dots between; heavy staircase in Edwardian Jacobean style. Adjoining the brick range on the west is a 2-storey C17 timber-framed range, rendered and plaintiled. This is in 2 structural sections separated by an internal chimney-stack: to the east of the stack, next to the brick range, the framing is of better quality, but there are indications of reused timber throughout, and it seems likely that parts of the framing were taken from an earlier building which antedated the brick range itself. Large C19 red brick extensions to north and south in an imitative Tudor style obscure parts of the timber-framing and have created very complex roof-lines.

Listing NGR: TM0054269074