Adkins

Details

INGATESTONE AND FRYERNING TL60SW 723-1/2/330 20/02/76 BACK LANE (North West side) Adkins (Formerly Listed as: Brentwood Fryerning

II

House. Late C14, C16 and C17, renovated and extended in late C19 and C20. Timber-framed, plastered, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. 2-bay main range facing SE, originally an open hall, but extensively altered or rebuilt in the C17 and C20, retaining a late C16 stack in the left bay against the front wall. Late C14 2-bay cross-wing to right, and late C19 extension beyond. C17 2-bay cross-wing to left with external stack at left, and single-storey wing to rear. Early C20 extensions to rear of main range. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. All windows are C20 casements except one at the rear of the left cross-wing, on the first floor, which has original ovolo-moulded jambs, 2 diamond saddle bars, and an C18 wrought-iron casement with rectangular leaded panes. C20 door in late C19 gabled porch in front of right cross-wing. INTERIOR: the right cross-wing has jowled posts and heavy studding with bracing trenched to the outside. Joists of heavy square section jointed to the binding beam with unrefined central tenons. Pressure marks on the soffits indicate a former jetty at the front; in the rear bay one inserted joist of reused timber, blocks an original stair trap. The binding beam has mortices and a triangular groove for the studs and wattle and daub infill of an original partition between the bays, but this does not necessarily indicate that this was the service cross-wing of the medieval hall house. There are no rebates for twin service doors, only one peg in each side of the storey post - more likely for bracing than for doorheads - and the chamfers of the binding beam meet similar chamfers on the post at mason's mitres. Cambered central tie-beam with 2 arched braces 0.11m wide. The crownpost roof is exposed to the collars, with a square crownpost with 2 axial braces 0.05m wide. The arched braces, wallplates and storey posts are chamfered, mostly with mitred stops, but plain stops on the wallplates each side of the central truss. Wide wood-burning hearth in the hall range, all plastered, with 0.33m jambs and a seat recess in each. The hall range has been extensively altered. 2 tie-beams have been formed by sawing one original cambered tie-beam along the middle; the depth has been reduced with ogee-profiled shoulders where they meet the front wallplate and a partition about one metre from the rear wall. The left cross-wing has unjowled posts, cambered tie-beams(reused from the hall) and a clasped purlin roof with straight collars. Some of the rafters are smoke-blackened, with oblique trenches for collars, probably from the original roof of the hall. HISTORICAL NOTE: this building is well documented in the Petre archives as Hawkins alias Whites. A survey of 1556 records a house 46 feet long by 18 feet wide by 9 feet to the eaves, with tiled roof, and a kitchen 24 feet by 13 feet by 13 feet by 10 feet to the eaves, partly tiled. The former is 2 feet shorter than the pre-C19 part of the present house, the latter corresponds closely with the present kitchen wing to the rear of the left cross-wing. The Walker map of 1601 illustrates a low hall range with central door, one window to each side, a stack between the door and the left window, and a 2-storey cross-wing to the right - apparently a left-right reversal of the house of that time as indicated by the physical evidence, to which a second cross-wing was added later in the C17 on the site of the former parlour bay. As Spilfeathers (qv), immediately opposite is also reversed left to right on the map, but otherwise comprises similar elements, it seems possible that the Walkers depicted the houses correctly but reversed their positions on the map (Essex Record Office). The present name probably derives from John Atkins who owned the house until his death in 1753. The initials S I S and the date 1792 are indented in the plaster ceiling of the ground-floor room of the hall range. Historical enquiries have failed to identify the persons concerned. The First Edition large scale OS map of 1874 shows an entrance path approaching the house at the left end of the main range, and a barn immediately E of the right cross-wing. The Second edition of 1894 shows the porch and entrance path in its present position, the barn removed, and the present extension to the NW. This confirms the physical evidence that the original cross-entry was to left of the main stack, and the service bay (later cross-wing)and external kitchen were at that end. Not enough of the structure of the present kitchen wing is exposed to determine whether it is the same as that recorded in the 1556 survey, but this is a possibility which should be investigated during any future alterations. Surviving medieval kitchens are rare in Essex. (Essex Record Office: D/DP M.170: 8).

Listing NGR: TL6426600552

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

373612

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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