Cow Farmhouse

Details

KELVEDON HATCH

TQ59NE FROG STREET 723-1/5/432 (North side) 20/02/76 Cow Farmhouse (Formerly Listed as: BRENTWOOD FROG LANE, Doddinghurst Cow Farmhouse)

II

House. C15, mid-C16 and early C17. Timber-framed, plastered and colourwashed with brick outshut, peg-tiled roof. L-plan with 2-storey cross-wing and one and a half storey hall. 2 window range, C19 sashes with glazing bars, 3 windows have 4x4 panes and one under jetty to W has 5x4 panes, all with horns. Front door at junction of cross-wing and hall, boarded. Exterior early C17 stack to NW side wall of cross-wing with triple clustered shafts. Principal stack through roof to E in front of apex, rebuilt but in narrow bricks at junction with roof. Rear, N elevation, has C19 windows. Hall, ground floor has casement of 4 lights with glazing bars, 8x4 panes. Cross-wing, ground floor, fixed light 3x4 panes. Cross-wing first floor, single 4-paned fixed light and one casement of 4 panes. A small C18/19 stack rises from the rear wall of the hall to E. INTERIOR: 2 bays of medieval hall and 3 bayed cross-wing jettied at front and projecting at back. Hall has high level of construction with heavy timbering, tall crown post of square section with central square section fillets to each face and broach stop at base but no capital, braces with flattened perpendicular arcature rising straight off fillets. Second minor crown post in SE gable wall, similar version but no side fillets and no lateral braces. Massive studs indicate site of hall window 2m (6 feet) wide on both sides of the hall, interrupting the middle rails, rising from about 1.5m from ground to hall top plate. Over each window site an upper recess in the top plate with terminal pegs, possible hood or gable once existed. Both hall top plates moulded with double hollow chamfers, continuing down prncipal bay posts. High end cross wall of hall has central post on ground floor with a pair of display arched braces and bench pegs, singly and in pairs on each original stud. Way through to cross-wing at rear must have always been so. Evidence of low end details now gone. First floor of hall, 2 heavy cambered tie-beams with hollow chamfers, one arched brace visible. Crown post rises above hall central tie-beam. No sooting exists in any roof member. Cross-wing of similar construction and contemporary. Ceilings plastered over but principal binding joists have chamfers with lamb's tongue stops. Site of ground-floor window evident. On both floors inserted ovolo-moulded fireplaces in pink brick with 4 centred arches of slack profile . Ovolo mullioned windows on each floor adjacent to stack - ground floor, 6 lights, 3x2, partly original but restored C20, - first floor not restored 4 lights (3 mullions) ovolo with corner cavetto moulding. Cross wing rear bay first floor - square sectioned ceiling joists, plain mullioned window and shutter groove on NW wall, partition of original close studding under tie-beam with original doorway and arched bracing with scratched carpenter's marks round door frame. Stair inserted or re-built in NE corner of cross-wing. Present stair window C19/C20 casement replaces earlier ovolo mullioned one with intermediate safety bars. In the later C16 the hall was divided by a floor and a front dormer window with facade gable lit upper floor. Stack set next to the central truss and crown post. Tie-beam cut to receive upper fireplace. Ground-floor fireplace has a timber lintel moulding later cut back but roll in a hollow remains suggesting stack and floor C16 rather than C17 in date. Brickwork in English bond. Evidence at low end of hall obscure. Moulding on hall top plate continues into end wall suggesting hall truncated. Also truss in end wall of open arch braced type, probably the cross entry bay beyond the present SE end of the house. Within the extant lower bay of the hall one major stud runs through the construction in the rear wall and may mark the site of a subsidiary window. The timber-framed building attached to the NW of the cross-wing is medieval and it has been rebuilt in medieval times. Phase 1 - external arched bracing, Phase 2 internal arched bracing. A medieval window exists in each long side, NW one has 4 lights with mullions moulded with double hollow chamfers (similar to the moulding on the hall top plate). The building has a stack with brick out-shut to NW side. It is said to be a bakehouse and it may well date to the first phase of the house and could be an early kitchen although no evidence of the original cooking arrangements can be seen. (RCHM: Central and SW Essex : Monument 12: 58).

Listing NGR: TQ5746397894

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

373712

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
An Inventory of Essex Central and South West, (1921), 58

End of official list entry

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