Romford Farmhouse

Romford Farmhouse is a former farmhouse dating to the late 16th and early 17th centuries, with possible earlier origins and a later 17th-century extension. It has undergone some 19th and 20th-century modernisations. The earlier section is largely underbuilt with Flemish bond red brick in multiple phases, while the entire structure has brick stacks and chimneyshafts. The earliest stack likely has a stone base and stands within a timber-framed smoke bay, with a peg-tile roof.

The house was originally a 4-room plan facing southeast. The two end rooms each have a stack, the right-hand one projecting. A central axial stack serves the room to the left of centre, backing onto the present entrance hall. The original 2-room section on the left-hand (southwestern) side comprises the oldest part of the house. Initially, the left end room was an unheated service room, with a hall/living room to the right, heated by a smoke bay. Blackened rafters over the hall/living room suggest potential late medieval origins as an open hall house. However, the sooting may be due to a leaking smoke bay, and detailed examination was not possible. The right-hand section appears to be from the late 19th or early 20th century, though its outer walls have mid-to-late 17th-century timber framing. There is no evidence of 17th-century flooring, suggesting it may have been a barn or agricultural building brought into domestic use in the late 19th or early 20th centuries.

The building is two storeys high, with a secondary lean-to outshot on the left end and across the rear. The original section has exposed timber framing at first-floor level, displaying three uneven bays with large curving tension braces. The addition on the right is clad with false framing. The front elevation has an irregular 4-window arrangement of various 19th and 20th-century casement windows, most with glazing bars; the most recent window has leaded rectangular panes. The front doorway is slightly right of centre and features a 20th-century part-glazed plank door behind a contemporary gabled porch. The main roof is gable-ended to the right and hipped to the left.

The interior of the original house is well-preserved. The framing of the original end wall behind the fireplace remains intact down to the sill. Structural timbers include beams with stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops. The roof is of 3-bay construction (including the smoke bay), carried on closed tie-beam trusses with clasped side purlins and queen struts. The fireplace within the smoke bay is of uncertain date; its sides are plastered and it has a plain oak lintel. The roof over the extension is also of clasped side purlin construction, though the timbers are of slender scantling and are likely from the 19th century.