Swan Hotel

Details

MALDON

TL8507SW HIGH STREET 574-1/7/91 (North East side) 02/10/51 No.73 Swan Hotel

GV II*

Public house and hotel. Late C14 with late C16 inserted floor and early C19 rear extension. Timber-framed and pebbledashed with gabled plain tile roofs. Complex plan form, basically a hall house with 2 cross-wings and rear extensions on both wings. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys with cellar; 3-storey rear extension. Front has 2 gables with hall range of original ridge height but with narrow-span parallel front roof providing 2-storey eaves height on frontage. The gables are of early C20 construction with barge-boards and applied timber-framing, the roof of the north-west wing having machine-made tiles. The 1st floor of this north-west wing has a 3-light early C20 casement with square top light with square leaded panes. The 1st floor of the south-east gable is a similar 4-light casement and centre has pair of semicircular-headed French windows and side lights of similar design. Painted timber balcony front in centre of elevation, mounted on substantial timber posts. The ground floor of both wings has early C19 three-light casement as others. Canted bay under balcony with leaded upper lights and all ground floor windows have etched glass. 2 similar entrance doors, one with 2 and one with 3 stone steps and with wrought-iron handrails with boot scrapers. Stack on rear wall of main range appears above ridgeline. The exposed north-west flank has two 1st-floor sash windows with moulded surrounds, each with a single vertical glazing bar. Ground floor has 2 similar windows and 2 recessed windows with moulded architraves and a 2-light casement as front elevation. The rear extension here is rendered with gabled roof. This has one 2-light casement on 2nd floor and 2 sash windows of 16 and 12 panes with moulded surrounds on 1st floor. Ground floor is of rendered brick and has door with 2 steps and tripartite, recessed, small-paned sash. Rear of this block has one sash with moulded surround on 3rd floor and C20 French windows to ground floor. Courtyard elevation of this building has 8-paned fixed window to 3rd floor and 2 sashes on 1st floor, one with 12 panes and one with central vertical glazing bar. Between the 2 original wings, the rear of the hall range has a C17 gable at right-angles to main roof. Flat-roofed C20 extension to rear

of hall and 2-storey rendered part-painted brick extension to rear of south-west wing with gabled roof. INTERIOR: the front range represents late C14 timber-framed building of some quality, clearly designed to occupy a restricted urban site. The use of unjowled posts, double pegging of floor joists and adorsed ogee mouldings is very similar to front block of the Blue Boar Hotel, Silver Street (qv), perhaps by the same carpenter. The hall is of 2 bays with very narrow low-end bay and is substantially complete above the inserted late C16 floor. The latter is supported on a moulded impost and has chamfered spine beam. In the rear (north-east) wall is a fireplace, one flank of which has mixture of brick and reused C12 rubble. Also in rear is door with 4-centred head which leads under a 'gallery' to the parlour in north-west wing. The south-east cross-wing has an intruded cross-passage with speres to the hall and formerly with contemporary hood over front door. It is of 4 bays, the front 2 having original service-door heads and much repaired studwork and wall bracing. The front room for originally a shop and its original arrangement of shop door, and large 'window' with low sill and 2 arch brackets at the head was revealed at recent renovation. The 3rd bay from the front contained 2 staircases, one giving access to a solar over the front 2 bays, and the other to a 1st-floor room at the rear which has a garderobe door opening, with arched head, in its rear wall. The cross-passage continued to the rear of this wing and its north-west flank seems to have been open to a yard. The north-west wing is of 3 bays and its southernmost bay appears to have formed another shop. The parlour to its rear had a pair of service-room-like spaces to the north. The south-east flank, to the courtyard, incorporated a purpose-built gallery, the tiny gabled roof of which survives within a later roof. This seems to have provided a 1st-floor access between a pre-existing building to the north and a large chamber in the front 2 bays of this wing. This chamber had a continuous band of windows on its front elevation and a coupled arch-headed window on the exposed north-west flank. A hole in the framing here also indicates the former presence of a contemporary stack. Crown-post roofs survive substantially complete over both wings; that to the solar of cross-quadrate form. The cross-quadrate hall roof can now only be deduced from the surviving mortice holes. Both important 1st-floor chambers have moulded tie beams on substantial braces with additional moulding orders pegged to their soffits. HISTORY: in the early C19 a brick parapeted front was attached to the building and the gables were removed in favour of hips. An early C20 restoration replaced these features, in general

form rather than in particular detail. (RCHME: Essex Central and South-west: London: 1921-: 176:2).

Listing NGR: TL8517807020

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

464479

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
An Inventory of Essex Central and South West, (1921), 176

End of official list entry

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