Romford House

Details

TQ 64 SW PEMBURY KINGS TOLL ROAD

5/375 Romford House

II

Former farmhouse. Probably mid C17, enlarged and modernised circa 1920-1930. The older section is timber-framed but the ground floor level is underbuilt with later Flemish bond red brick with some burnt headers. Later section built in the same style but the older section still shows it original sandstone footings. Brick stacks and chimneyshafts. Peg-tile roof.

Plan: L-plan house. The main block faces north. It has a 4-room plan. Kitchen at the left (east) end and large entrance hall containing the stair next to it. Axial stack between serves back-to-back fireplaces. The room right of centre is a parlour with an axial stack backing onto the entrance. The small unheated room at the right (west) end has been united with the parlour by removing the partition. Dining room to rear of the kitchen. The kitchen and dining room along with the front porch were added circa 1920-30 as part of the modernisation of a C17 3-room lobby entrance plan house. Originally only the centre room was heated and was flanked by smaller unheated service rooms.

2 storeys with attics in the roofspace.

Exterior: Irregular front with 7 ground floor windows and 3 first floor windows, all C20 casements containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. The centre 3-window section breaks forward as the entrance porch and built like a lean-to outshot with the first floor window a large dormer with hipped roof lighting the stair landing. Porch contains a C20 plank door and there is another to the kitchen further left. Main roof is half-hipped both ends. On the rear wall the timber jambs show of the original lobby entrance doorway (now blocked). It is the only original framing exposed on the outside.

Interior: The framed structure of the C17 house survives, particularly above first floor level, where studs and large curving tension braces are exposed. On the ground floor the main room has a much-mended brick fireplace with a plain oak lintel. The room has a chamfered axial beam with elongated scroll stops (similar over the first floor). Although the partitions have been removed from the west service end sockets in the underside of the main beams show the original arrangement. There were 2 doorways from the main room, one to the original stair. The service end itself was divided into buttery and dairy with a connecting doorway between them. Plain joists in the left service room. The rail across the original end wall is not at first floor level and its underside is chamfered. Its purpose is not known. Roof of 4 uneven bays; jowled wall posts and tie-beam trusses with clasped side purlins and queen struts.

Listing NGR: TQ6421140737

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

437892

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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