The Market House

Details

KNIGHT STREET 1. 2553 (West Side) No 42 (The Market House) TL 4837 1483:3/57 6.6.52 II* GV 2. C16. Timberframe plastered under gabled steep old red tile roof. Large, 2 storeys and attic, jettied house with jettied crosswing on N with gable to street. Jetty continues round S corner into Bell Street, with carved corner post supporting dragon beam. Smaller brackets to each end of moulded bressimer to crosswing and to middle of hall range. 3 unit plan with evidence for buttery and pantry at S end, 2 bay hall and 2½ bay parlour wing across N end of hall, shorter at W,probably for stair. Large stack built in lower end of hall backing onto cross passage. Evidence of large window to front in upper bay of hall. External lateral stack on N end serving parlour and solar. WEA report smoke blackening in roof over hall and service end and suggest upper bay of hall formerly open to roof (WEA I (1966) 21-3). S front has hipped dormer with 2 light,early C18 casement with rectangular leaded glazing. Dripboard across N gable with C19 mullioned and transomed window under. Narrow lights with leaded glazing generally; plaster cove to eaves and smaller coved cornice under jetty breaking forward over windows now removed. Varied mullioned windows to 1st floor and one on Gd floor near S end. Mullioned and transomed windows to hall and parlour on Gd floor. C19 door with heavy frame now enters lobby beside chimney. Low projecting plinth. S gable to Bell Street has dripboard across gable at eaves level, 6 light mullioned window central to 1st floor and similar window near corner on Gd floor. Large lateral stack at rear at service end does not appear in drawing by J C Buckler of 1834. This shows a long,2 storey, range along Bell Street,part weatherboarded and part plastered or brick with an octagonal kiln roof rising from a corbelled base in the centre. This range survives as part of the house with steep old tile roofs, slated eaves to most westerly part, C19 mullioned windows and chimneys with heavy coupled diagonal shafts. The kiln has been replaced by a higher plastered section gabled to the street with wide overhanging verges. WEA suggest that this house cannot have been the original market house. The 3 storey weatherboarded building with projecting sack hoist beyond the W end of the Bell Street frontage was formerly part of the curtilage, but was rebuilt in facsimile in 1980-1. A most important medieval house and the key building in the character of the town centre.

Listing NGR: TL4837614834

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

160801

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
The Story of Sawbridgeworth in From Prehistory to the Present, Vol. 1, (1966)

End of official list entry

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