Ringers Farmhouse

Details

TL 71 SE TERLING

5/103 Ringers Farmhouse 2.5.53 GV I

House. Late C13, altered in C16 and C20. Timber framed, plastered, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. 2-bay hall facing S, with C20 stack in right bay against front wall. Early C16 2-bay crosswing to left, with late C16 external stack at rear. C16 2-bay crosswing to right. 2 storeys. 3-window range of C20 casements. C19/C20 boarded door with 2-centred head, in original doorway, with moulded jambs and 2-centred arch in moulded straight head, the spandrels carved with quatrefoils in circles. Left crosswing jettied, with 2 exposed plain brackets. Grouped diagonal shafts on each stack, rebuilt in C19/C20. The hall has unjowled posts, close studding, the frame of a deep transomed unglazed window on each side and a wide rear doorway with chamfered jambs and 4-centred arch. 2 cranked tiebeams, with 2 arched braces to the right tiebeam, and one (of 2) arched braces to the left tiebeam. The braces and tiebeams are moulded below in 3 concave facets, and in addition there are quadrant mouldings on the right tiebeam. Mortices for former spandrel struts in right truss. Crownpost roof, with collars at half-height, short octagonal crownposts with moulded caps and axial braces of square section, no bases, all heavily smoke-blackened. Each rafter has 2 mortices for former scissor-braces, and each collar has 2 inclined trenches, but the irregular positions indicate some re-setting of the rafters since the scissor-braces were removed. An early C16 inserted stack in the right bay of the hall, with blind arcading but much damaged, was demolished in November 1984; at the time of re-survey a replica was under construction. An early C16 inserted floor in the hall had been removed at the same time. The posts of the right open truss are hollow-moulded, and with long mortices in them, filled with oak plugs. The left crosswing is immediately beyond the left open truss, and occupies the position of a former 'nigh end' bay of the hall, probably as long as or longer than the present long bay. A mortice for a brace in the crownpost above indicates that the roof continued in the same form. This crosswing is of early C16 construction, with jowled posts, close studding trenched to the outside, and edge-halved and bridled scarfs in the wallplates. Large peg-holes in the right side indicate the fixings of a former 'high end' bench, showing that the hall was shortened but not basically re-arranged when this crosswing was constructed. Chamfered binding beam, plain joists of horizontal section, diamond mortices and shutter grooves for unglazed windows at tile front. At the rear, the external stack is in English bond, with hearths at both floors. The large ground floor hearth has chamfered jambs and depressed arch with original plaster, but the crown of the arch is broken, leaving a higher plain lintel. The first floor hearth is similar but smaller, in good order, with a late C18 cast iron ducknest grate. The roof is of crownpost construction, with a cambered tiebeam, plain crownpost and axial bracing. The right crosswing was wholly plastered at the time of survey, February 1985, revealing little evidence of the frame except that it has a collar-rafter roof of re-used smoke-blackened rafters. There are a number of discrepancies in this building which indicate that although it was constructed on its present site in the early C16, and has been little altered since, it existed in another form on another site over 2 centuries earlier. The hall has been reduced in length, span and height; 2 tiebeams have been re-erected in reversed positions; the crownposts have been shortened, so that they now have capitals but no bases; and some of the mortices and trenches for scissor-braces are now displaced. In the Middle Ages Ringers was not an important manor; the size of this building, even in its present reduced form, and the very high quality of the front doorway and other ornament, is incompatible with such status. The available evidence indicates that this was formerly the palace of the Bishop of Norwich, south of Terling parish church, which was demolished in the early Tudor period to be replaced by a large mansion (illustrated in the Walker map of 1597), which in 1772 was replaced by the present Terling Place. The frame removed from that site in the early C16 was re-erected in reduced form at Ringers, retaining the front doorway but building a new 4-centred rear doorway. The scissor-braces and spandrel-struts were removed and not replaced. The trusses were reversed so that the most elaborately moulded tiebeam, formerly across the middle of the hall, became part of a 'low-end' spere truss. The tiebeams were reduced in length and re-jointed, and the braces to them re-jointed higher in the posts, leaving the filled mortices noted earlier. The absence of jowls indicates that the posts were reduced in height. The rafters of the former 'high end' bay were re-used in the roof of the service crosswing. The parlour/solar crosswing was a new construction of the time. (P. Morant, The History and Antiquities of Essex, 1768, II, 125, and C.H. Reaney, Place-Names of Essex, 197). RCHM 6.

Listing NGR: TL7617113334

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

115451

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Reaney, PH, Place names of Essex, (1935), 197
Morant, P, The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex, (1768), 125

End of official list entry

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