Bloors Place

Bloors Place, Lower Rainham

Hall house, now house. Built 1470–1510 for Christopher Bloor, with a rear wing added in the early 16th century, truncated and rebuilt in the late 17th century, and partly destroyed by an 18th-century fire.

The building is timber-framed, clad in red brick to the ground floor and tile-hung above. The rear wing is constructed of galleated limestone rubble, extended in English bond brick, with the right side in Flemish bond brick. External stacks are of brick; a tall octagonal stack with a crenellated cap serves the rear wing extension. The roof is hipped with a left-hand gable.

This is a Wealden-type three-room hall house, though the left-hand section was destroyed in an 18th-century fire. The building was extended to the rear in the 16th century.

The front elevation is two storeys and attic with a four-window range. The former hall, recessed at the left-hand end, features chamfered curved brackets from the sides and a projecting lateral beam under the overhanging eaves. There is a right-hand four-centre arched moulded doorway with a ribbed door and rectangular overlight with margin panes. A late 19th-century left-hand casement and first-floor casement are positioned over the entrance. The long right-hand bay was refaced in the late 19th century and has 20th-century fenestration with a left-hand canted bay with mullion, and mullion-and-transom casements. Hipped dormers occupy the middle and left-hand return. A deep 20th-century weatherboarded eaves band extends along the front.

The rear of the hall and rear wing have 16th-century Perpendicular moulded stone mullion windows with shallow pointed heads and small panes. The hall rear features a rubble wall with a large external stack having a 19th-century star-shaped shaft, and a wide two-storey bay in the outer corner with a hipped roof, three ground-floor lights and five first-floor leaded casements. Single two-light windows occupy each floor on the inner side of the stack. The left-hand return has a one-window range with a 19th-century doorway with four-pane overlight, an 18th-century eight-over-eight-pane first-floor sash, and a 20th-century attic casement. The rear wing displays a weathered stone plat band, with five irregularly spaced windows to the east, an off-centre four-centre arched door with moulded surround and boarded door, and arched lights. A 19th-century doorway sits at the end of the hall. The west side has two paired windows, the left higher to a possible stairwell, a single paired first-floor window, and a hipped dormer. A flat-headed door occupies the window-less rear section. A 20th-century lower porch and probable stairwell sit in the south-west re-entrant.

The interior was not inspected during listing but was recorded by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England as containing much evidence of timber-framing, including heavy jowled posts in the front range. Original 16th-century four-centre arched doorways are found at the south end of the former screen passage and in the first-floor stairwell, the latter with enriched spandrels and moulded stops. The front range has a crown post collar purlin roof with octagonal crown posts bearing bases and capitals, and arched braces. The rear wing first-floor chamber has clustered roll-moulded ceiling beams. Eighteenth-century panelling appears in the front right-hand drawing room.

The building presents an unusual plan with a very long west service bay, formerly jettied though the floor was later altered. The roof shows no evidence of smoke blackening and is believed to be a rare example of a hall with an original rear stack. Bloors Place forms a fine and unusual complex with group value alongside the rear walled garden walls, cart lodge, and outbuildings.