The Marriage Feast Room

Details

TL 51 SW MATCHING CHURCH GREEN 3/54 The Marriage Feast Room 22.2.52

GV II*

Public hall, C15/16, with later alterations. Timber framed, plastered, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. 4 equal bays aligned approximately NW-SE, aspect SW. Inserted chimney stack inside NE wall in second bay from NW end, C19. Lean-to extensions at NW end, C19 and C20. 2 storeys. SW elevation jettied, brackets missing. 2 plain boarded doors, 4 windows with horizontally sliding sashes of 16 lights each, late C19, on each floor, and one C20 casement window on first floor. NE elevation (towards parish church), ground floor, 2 small C20 casement windows, first floor 4 C19 Gothick cast iron casement windows. Roof hipped at SE end. Tiled pentice on NW gable. Some framing exposed internally. On ground floor, at the NW end a stair rises from one external door to the first floor, C19. At the SE end an original studded partition separates one bay from the remainder; a later partition divides it into 2 service rooms; the rest is open. Tranverse and axial beans plain chamfered except in service end (axial beam missing in second bay from NW), joists lathed and plastered to soffits. Grooves for sliding shutters. First floor is open from end to end and to collars. Jowled posts, cambered tiebeams with arched braces. Plain crownposts with axial braces, much restored. Grooves below wallplates for sliding shutters on both sides of each bay, but varying in length.. Edge halved and bridled scarfs in wallplates. This building was built as 2 halls, entirely open on the first floor, open except for partitioned service room on the.ground floor. It has been used as a school and as an almshouse, with inserted partitions and chimneys; most of these have been removed later. In the course of relaying the ground floor evidence was found of an early inserted chimney stack, C16/17, in an axial position immediately SE of the middle, later removed. (Information from Jonathan Howarth, April 1983). This would account for the missing axial beam in this bay, and alterations to the central crownpost. A notice displayed at the entrance states that the building was built by William Chimney in 1480, but the source of this information has not been traced. Morant wrote in 1768: 'A house, close to the church yard, said to be built by one - Chimney, was designed for the entertainment of poor people on their wedding day. It seems to be very ancient, but ruinous', without supplying a Christian name or date (II, 499). The design is plain, consistent with construction in the late C15 or early C16. The fact that the jetty faces away from the church tends to confirm this secular intention, for buildings of similar form designed as the meeting places of religious guilds are usually jettied towards the church. A guild is recorded at Matching (Calendar of Letters Patent, 12 Elizabeth 268). In the tithe award of 1843 this building was described as 2 tenements with gardens, belonging to the parish of Matching, both unoccupied (Essex Record Office D/CT 236).

Listing NGR: TL5249111951

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

118144

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
An Inventory of Essex Central and South West, (1921), 499
Morant, P, The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex, (1768), 499

End of official list entry

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