Granary 130m north-west of Ingatestone Hall

Summary

A 16th century brick-built granary associated with Ingatestone Hall. The granary has distinctive crow-stepped gables that match the hall and a queen-strut roof structure.

Reasons for Designation

The C16 Granary 130m north-west of Ingatestone Hall is listed at Grade II* and of more than special interest for the following principal reasons:
Architectural Interest:
* it is contemporary with the Grade I listed Ingatestone Hall, and has similar distinctive crow-stepped gables;
* the building retains a substantial amount of original fabric including its early Queen-post roof with clasped purlins;

* it contains early hand-made bricks, dating from the C16.

Historic Interest:
* as a building built originally in the early to mid-C16;
* it is a good surviving example of a granary.

Group Value:
* with nearby Ingatestone Hall (NHLE 1187315, listed at Grade I).

History

Ingatestone Hall was built by William Petre in the mid-C16 as a display of social standing as he rose through the royal court. The Granary is likely to have been built at a similar time, as a plan of 1566 shows a barn yard and mill house in this area with ‘garner’ – a C16 term for granary. The Granary’s timber roof structure with its clasped side purlin roof and wind braces suggests a late-C16 or very early-C17 date but the documentary evidence places the building earlier, and it is therefore an early example of this roof structure.

The original plan of the house and surrounding garden wall can be seen on a detailed map of 1605, on which the house is named ‘Inge Petre Hall’. The Granary is depicted, with a central doorway and three apertures to the first floor – although this may be a stylised depiction, as other buildings are shown with a similar arrangement of openings.

Early in the building’s history: in the late C16 or early C17, a two-storey brick porch was added, with its upper storey used as a dovecote.

Around the 1930s two full-height, sloped buttresses were added to the south gable end (although the RCHME dates them to the late C17). It was designated as a scheduled monument in 1932. In 1952, the Granary also became a listed building, listed at Grade II*.

In the 1950s, the stair to the upper floor of the porch was removed to accommodate machinery. Historic photographs show that there was a weather-boarded barn, of uncertain date, attached to the north of the Granary. This was demolished in the mid-C20 and in the late-C20 a metal-framed and clad workshop was built on roughly the same footprint.

In the mid-C20, large silo bins were fitted inside the Granary. It is likely that the floor was excavated to accommodate these, and the rest of the floor covered with concrete at this time.

The List entry prepared in 1994 included the following footnote: “this building has been described by the RCHM and in the 1976 list as a barn, but the absence of any doorway wider than 1.20m indicates that it has never been accessible to waggons; nor could it have been used for threshing. The size is not impossible for a large manorial dovecote, but there is no evidence of original pigeon ports or nesting boxes. The division into two storeys, the barred windows, and the unusual entrance porch, indicate that it can only have been a granary originally. The absence of windows to rear right implies the former presence of another building in this position, demolished since the granary was built. A timber-framed barn to the north-east has been demolished since the RCHM illustration. This granary is of exceptional size and quality, perhaps the finest in the country, and merits special care and conservation.”

Details

MATERIALS

Hand made bricks, with some later brick repairs, a timber roof structure and clay peg-tiled roofs.

PLAN

The building is rectangular, orientated roughly north to south, with a porch extension in the centre of the main elevation facing east.

EXTERIOR

The Granary is a two-storey building with gabled roofs and a two-storey, gabled porch. The roof is of double-pitch form with distinct crow-stepped gable ends, matching those on the surviving ranges of the main house.

Most of the building is constructed with handmade bricks, but there are various areas of repair and replacement in later brick. The brick bond is largely indeterminate but in places can be described as Flemish stretcher bond. Windows, where they are present, are of two-light form with arched heads; these are all blocked internally. Some lights retain iron bars.

Around the ground level of the building are a series of blocked arches, visible on the south and west elevations. A similar feature is found on the main house, to the south front. The purpose of these is unknown.
The east elevation faces the farmyard and is fairly plain, pierced only by four windows symmetrically spaced with two to the ground floor, and two above. A porch sits off-centre between them. The plinth does not run continuously across the elevation and there is much later reconstruction and repair.

The main doorway is wide with steps up to the threshold. There is a blocked aperture above the doorway – possibly the entrance to the upper part of the porch when it was used as a dovecote.

The west elevation is largely featureless apart from a pair of windows towards the south end. To the first floor at the north end are a set of regularly spaced blocked holes, possibly relating to the location of another structure abutting this elevation previously.

The south gable end has two full-height, sloped buttresses. The elevation retains four single-light arch-headed apertures, blocked internally with brick. There is a timber louvre below the crow-stepped gable. The opposing gable end to the north is partly subsumed within a late-C20 workshop.

IINTERIOR

The interior is accessed via a doorway in the north gable wall. The roof structure is of five bays and comprises a clasped side purlin roof with slightly cambered wind braces to each bay. The trusses are of a queen-strut form with a pegged central strut. Some of the tie beams also have a slight camber.

The eastern half of the building is filled with large metal silo bins obscuring the interior (the silo bins had been disused for some years at the date of survey: 2025). The western section is open to the roof with a concrete floor and a large gully between the two halves of the floor. Two blocked arches sitting below the probable ground-floor level are visible in the west and south walls, similar to the examples seen on the exterior, although those visible internally do not correspond to the external openings. The upper-level internal brickwork is white-washed. The windows are blocked internally.

The interior of the porch is only partially visible and was occupied by machinery at the time of survey. The aperture between the main building and the porch has a three-centred arched head in brick with moulded jambs.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

373646

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Edwards, A C, Newton, K C, The Walkers of Hanningfield, (1984)
Walker, J, The English Medieval Roof: Crownpost to Kingpost (Report of the Essex Historic Buildings Group Day School, 2008), (2011)
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Essex, (1965)

Websites
Royal Commission on Historical Monuments of England 1921, accessed 3 April 2025 from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/essex/vol2
Bindoff, S. (ed.) 1982 ‘Petre, William (1505/6-72), of Ingatestone, Essex and Aldersgate Street, London’, The History of Parliament, accessed 3 April 2025 from https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/petre-william-15056-72
Historic England Archive: Granary 130m north-west of Ingatestone Hall, Hall Lane, Ingatestone And Fryerning, Brentwood, Essex, CM4 9NS, IOE01/00195/01, 25 Oct 1999, accessed 3 April 2025 from Granary 130 Metres North West Of Ingatestone Hall / Barn With Dovecote At Ingatestone Hall (IOE01/00195/01) Archive Item - Images Of England Collection | Historic England
HIstoric England Archive: Ingatestone Hall (Granary), the barn, Essex II p.144, CC81/54, RCHM, accessed 3 April 2025 from Ingatestone and Fryerning | Card 1337177 | England's Places | Historic England

Other
Thomas Larke ‘Plan of Ingatestone Hall’, 1566
Walker and Walker ‘Trew and perfect platt’, 1605
Chapman and Andre ‘Atlas of Essex’, 1777
Tithe award map, 1839
Anon. 1972 Introduction to Ingatestone Hall (Essex Record Office Publications, No. 20).

End of official list entry

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