Jacques Court

A farmhouse, now a house, dating from the 17th century, with later 18th and 19th century facade alterations and subsequent modifications. The house is timber-framed and constructed with a ground floor of red and grey brick in Flemish bond, a pebbledashed first floor with applied studding, and a tile-hung rear wing. The roof is tiled with hips returning to the rear. The layout is an L-shape, with a three-bay timber-framed front range, the central bay being shorter, and three bays to the rear wing. A 20th century single-bay addition, matching the style, extends to the right end and returns along the rear. The house has two storeys, attic space, and a cellar. It features a shallow, continuous jetty and a hipped roof. Brick stacks are present at the junction of the front range and left wing, and along the ridge towards the right end of the front range. Dormers with two-light casements are gabled. The fenestration is irregular, with four leaded casements to the front – one three-light to the left, a pair of two-light to the centre, one three-light to the right, and a small four-light to the right end. Three small two-light casements are located on the left return. A panelled door is positioned to the left of the centre, within a brick porch with a gabled tile roof, leading into the left end of the central bay of the 17th century front range. The interior of the front range retains chamfered axial beams on each floor, featuring ogee chamfer stops with cut-back detailing to the beams, principal posts, and wall-plates. The rear wall of the central and right bays on the first floor is framed with broadly-spaced studding, featuring two panels per storey with brick infilling and herringbone top courses. It also includes a tension-braced stud partition, gunstock-jowled posts, and a partly-ceiled clasped-purlin roof. A brick fireplace with an angled back and cambered bressumer is located at the right end of the right 17th century bay. A scratched date “DR 1637” is visible on a beam that has been re-used (in the 20th century) as the bressumer of a left ground-floor fireplace. The rear wing has more plainly chamfered axial beams, a large fireplace with a wooden bressumer to the stack adjoining the front range on the ground floor, and a roof incorporating aligned butt purlins and some re-used timber. Evidence suggests former doorways existed in the 17th century front range, located to the rear of the central bay on both floors and to the rear of the right bay on the first floor, possibly indicating a former stair turret in the angle between the front range and wing. An edge-halved wall-plate scarf joint is also present.