Potter Row Farmhouse

Details

INGATESTONE AND FRYENING TL60SW MILL GREEN COMMON 723-1/2/409 Potter Row Farmhouse 22/02/82 (Formerly Listed as: BRENTWOOD MILL GREEN COMMON, Ingatestone Potter Row Farmhouse) GV II

House, c1400. Timber-framed, weatherboarded and plastered, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. Main range of 2 bays facing N, with central st"a:ck. 2-bay cross-wing to right, with external stack at front left, and lean-to porch roofed with corrugated iron to right of it. Main range of one storey with attics, cross-wing of 2 storeys. The main range has one C19/early C20 casement, and one more in a gabled dormer; plain boarded door near left end. Panel of painted brickwork between door and window, wall plastered above a weatherboarded dado, and weatherboarded to left of brlck panel. Gablet hip at left end, the gablet abutting on the stack. The front of the cross-wing probably jettied, but completely concealed by the stack and porch. One similar casement on first floor. The porch has a half-glazed door and one C20 casement. A small area on the left of the cross-wing, above the roof of the main range, has one exposed jowled post and heavy studding; all the remainder is weatherboarded. One similar casement in the right side of the cross-wing, on the ground floor. The rear elevation has 4 similar casements on the ground floor, one more in a gable dormer, and one C20 casement on the first floor of the crosswing. The roof of the crosswing has a gablet hip to the rear. INTERIOR: the longer right bay of the hall has exposed heavy studding at 0.84m centres with curved display bracing, large diameter peg-holes for a former fixed bench, and an original parlour doorway with a mortice for a former draught screen, doorhead missing. Late C16 inserted floor comprising a chamfered axial beam with lamb's tongue stops and plain joists of horizontal section supported on pegged clamps. Cambered tie-beam with one of 2 deep arched braces to it, reaching to within 0.40m of the ground, and 4 peg-holes for the missing brace at the front end. C20 grate. The upper room over this bay is wholly plastered, to the soffits of the rafters and collars. The shorter left bay of the hall is largely occupied by the stack and an access passage, plastered. The rear wallplate is exposed, chamfered with step stops. The left (service) bay has a plasterd axial partition, probably original, and much of the original partition between it and the hall; it is unstoreyed. The roof of the hall is difficult to access; it is heavily smoke-blackened, and appears to have no evidence of crownpost structure, a simple collar-rafter structure. The cross-wing has heavy joists of square section jointed to the chamfered binding beam with unrefined central tenons; one of 2 curved solid braces to the binding beam, over 0.12m wide, is in a cupboard below the straight stair. Storey posts with sharply cut jowls. Simple collar-rafter roof with original gablet hip. Cambered central tie-beam, braces to it missing. HISTORICAL NOTE: this house is well documented in the Petre archives. A survey of 1556 records a house 36 feet long, 17 feet wide and 12 feet high to the eaves with a tiled roof, which corresponds closely with the present house, and a holding of 12 acres. The Walker map of 1601 illustrates a house comprising a single-storey hall range with a door at the right end, 2 windows and a central stack, with a 2-storey cross-wing to the right. This house is exceptional in being little altered since the C16, and in not having acquired lean-to and other extensions. It merits careful conservation. (Essex Record Office: D/DP M.170: 8).

Listing NGR: TL6425001639

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

373689

Legacy System:

LBS

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