Abridge Motor Spares Robert Chappell, Butcher

Details

TQ 4696-4796 LAMBOURNE MARKET PLACE, ABRIDGE, 7/11 Abridge Motor Spares and Robert Chappell, butcher GV II*

Hall house, C14, extended in C20, now 2 shops and a house. Timber framed, plaster and painted brick, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. 2-bay hall aligned approx. N-S, aspect W, with cross-entry at N (service end missing) and 2-bay parlour/solar crosswing, also C14, at S end, jettied to W. Inserted chimney stack at S end of hall, serving crosswing also, late C16. Inserted floor and dormer in hall, early C17. Shop with accommodation over added to N of hall, on site of original service end, c.1910, jettied to W but roof aligned N- S. Rear wing from this end, contemporary or later. Single-storey extension to rear of hall and S crosswing, flat roof treated as a terrace, C20. Rear pitch of hall roof removed C20, replaced by glazed doors to terrace. Small lean-to extension at N end, C20. 2 storeys. Ground floor: shop front of glazed tiles (Robert Chappell, butcher), front of hall of painted brick with dentils below eaves, plain door and C20 casement window, and shopfront of painted brickwork (Abridge Motor Spares) with 2 plain brackets and plastered jetty. First floor, hung red clay tiles on N wing, gabled dormer in roof of hall with C20 casement window, C20 casement window in S crosswing. Eaves of hall at jetty level, rafters of W pitch heavily smoke-blackened. Axial beam plain-chamfered with lamb's tongue stops at both ends, early C17, joists plastered to soffits, lodged on outer walls. Studs exposed between cross-entry (still in use) and rest of hall. No other wall,framing or floor framing exposed, but believed to be substantially present within plaster (doorheads probably missing owing to raised floor levels). N ground floor hearth reduced for C20 grate but mantel beam exposed, moulded and carved with shallow foliate design, snake at one end and cross at the other. The roll-moulding turns downwards at each end, showing that before the brick stack there was a timber framed chimney in the same position, the moulding continued down the side posts. Hole for spit mechanism at E end. Splayed and undersquinted scarf in S wallplate of crosswing. Crownpost roof of crosswing intact, hipped at rear, gabled at front, plain crownpost with wide axial braces only. Cl9 cast iron grate reported on first floor of crosswing, concealed by plaster. This building is of exceptional interest because: (1) it is one of the few survivors of a type of house formerly common, and frequently illustrated in the Walker maps, 1584-1615, at Essex Record Office, in which the walls of the hall were no higher than the lower storey of the crosswing; most were raised when a chimney and floor were inserted in the C16 (2) it is the oldest secular building in the parish (3) the frame seems to be largely intact, except the rear pitch of the hall roof (4) of the unusual carved mantel beam (5) the positions of the chamfer stops on the axial beam show that the cross-entry has never passed out of use. Below jetty of S crosswing, a wooden rack with iron hooks and brackets, associated with a C19 open shopfront for the display of game, etc, an unusual survival. RCHM 7.

Listing NGR: TQ4663196799

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

118672

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
An Inventory of Essex Central and South West, (1921)

End of official list entry

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