Details
TL 8422-8522 COGGESHALL BRIDGE STREET
(east side)
9/27 Nos. 2 and 3,
31.10.66 Riverside Maltings
(formerly listed as
No. 33 (Rood House),
Birdge Street)
GV II
Wrongly shown on OS map as no. 33, Bridge Street. House, now 2 houses. Late
C16, renovated in 1982. Timber framed, plastered, roofed with handmade red
plain tiles. 4-bay main range facing W, 2 storeys. To rear right, 2-bay wing
of 2 storeys with attics, with stack at the junction, and 2-bay 2-storey
extension beyond, jettied to the right. To rear left, 2-bay wing of 3 storeys.
Between the 2 rear wings a small extension bridges over the upper storey.
Ground floor, one early C19 sash of 16 lights, and one original unglazed window
with modern glazing outside. First floor, 2 similar sashes. No. 2, C20 plain
door. No. 3, C20 half-glazed door. The stack to rear right has 5 octagonal
shafts, truncated. 3 gables of different sizes stand above the ridge of the
main range. The left 2 bays of the main range are structurally separate from
the remainder. Jowled posts. Girts and wallplates are chamfered with lamb's
tongue stops, indicating a date after c.1565; the combination of these features
with an unglazed window indicates that it cannot be much later. The unglazed
window has been renovated; one diamond mullion of machine-sawn timber has been
inserted; others have been reversed, so that they are now weathered on the
inside. Chamfered axial beams with lamb's tongue stops; plain joists of
horizontal section in left bay, raised. The right bays have chamfered joists of
square section, with lamb's tongue stops. In no. 2, early C19 straight stair
with turned newels, moulded handrail of pine, stick balusters, sand-blasted. In
the wallplates of both parts, edge-halved and bridled scarfs and grooves for
sliding shutters. In front of right stack, wood-burning hearth with chamfered
depressed arch, re-pointed; to rear of it, large wood-burning hearth, disused;
and above, smaller hearth with ovolo-moulded depressed arch, disused. On a wall
of this room, mutilated wall painting with poppies, c.1600. Both rear wings
have jowled posts, curved braces trenched inside the studding, and in the upper
storey unglazed windows with diamond mortices; in no. 2, modern diamond mullions
have been inserted. In the lower right wall of no. 2 is a window of early
glazed type, with ovolo-moulded surround and unrefined ovolo mullion. The
combination of these features indicates that the whole house was built between
1565 and 1600, although probably in 3 or 4 successive phases. Shown as a main
range with 2 rear wings in a map of 1639 (Essex Record Office, D/DOp P.1).
Illustrated by J. Greig in Excursions through Essex with the rear wings
thatched, the main range tiled and partly ashlared. Birthplace of Dr. John
Gardner (1804-80), physician and co-founder of the General Apothecaries' Company
and of the Royal College of Chemistry. (J.S. Gardner (ed.), Coggeshall, Essex,
1951, 32). The name derives from Roode's Land (G.F. Beaumont, A History of
Coggeshall in Essex, 1890, 235-6). RCHM (Little Coggeshall) 6.
Listing NGR: TL8495622371
