White Hart Inn

Details

BRENTWOOD

TQ5993 HIGH STREET 723-1/12/78 (North side) 21/10/58 White Hart Inn (Formerly Listed as: HIGH STREET (North side) White Hart Hotel Inn)

II*

Public house. Late C15, early C20. Timber-framing and brick, slate roof. Front block to street with 2 long ranges at rear, each side of courtyard, reached by carriageway from street. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys. S front elevation, C20 brick facade in Georgian style colour washed on ground floor. 10 bays, 2 moulded stone cornices and parapet with moulded string course between ground and first floors. Ground floor, E-W, 2 sash windows with horns, doorway with stucco pilasters with cyma moulded capitals and sunken panels, plain frieze rises above string course, plain fanlight and double doors with upper glazing with glazing bars, each door, 2x3 panes, lower fielded panel, 2 plain sash windows with horns. Carriageway with 4-centred arch, timber arch inset, restored but head original with roll, hollow, return, hollow moulding, also further inner arch partly restored with hollow chamfer moulding. Folding, glazed shop-front doors, 4 folds, one fixed, each with 2 paned fanlight, glazing bars, 2x4 panes and lower fielded panel. First and second floors, uninterrupted 10 window range, all windows horned sashes with glazing bars, 3x4 panes. W elevation concealed. E elevation has irregular fenestration of C20 windows. Courtyard, range to W has a 2-storeyed, jettied gallery c1500 with 20 first-floor 4-centred arched openings - now either blocked or with sash windows. From S, first 8 are of one build with sunk spandrels, to N separate framing of 12 similar openings except that spandrels are plain. Galleried range penetrates through C20 N range of court (in imitation of gallery style) as old jettied framing is exposed on N exterior elevation. Neither the N or E courtyard ranges are of special interest, being entirely C19 or C20 builds and are therefore not included in this listing. W gallery range has peg-tiled roof, lower to N end and stack towards S end of centre, weatherboarding over lower part of gallery openings down to jetty, ground floor rendered and colourwashed with jetty brackets exposed, central section has C20 lean-to pentice on simple timber posts. S-N, ground floor, all C20 features. Under carriageway, double doors each door glazed, 3x3 panes, one lower fielded panel. 3 sash windows, 4x4 panes, under pentice - 2 doors with upper glazing, 3x3 panes and between them a sash window 4x4 panes, 3 casement windows with glazing bars, two 4x4 and one 2x4 panes, also stair porch with fully glazed door and fixed window 4x4 panes, herring-bone brick work below. Beyond pentice, canted bay window on brackets, 2x4, 5x4, 2x4 panes, door glazed, 3x3 panes, lower fielded panel, window, 6x4 panes, plain door with fan-light. N exterior elevation, jettied gallery range to W, added range to E over courtyard entrance, all rendered and colourwashed with flat C20 tiles, weatherboarding over entrance, first floor, 4 sash windows and one casement window all with glazing bars and all 4x4 panes. C20 ground floor addition at E end with gabled roof. INTERIOR: the W galleried range first floor has the very complete remains of the gallery and the inner timber-framing of the original rooms with their moulded doors and windows. Earlier section, to S, has two 2-bayed rooms each with a central open plain crown-post truss, with 2-way bracing. S room of 2 equal bays has 2 doorways, one at each end and a central mullioned window. Second room similar but bays unequal and one door only. Stack now through larger, N end bay and absence of door or window in that bay suggests a fire hood probably there originally. Additional build to N - evidence of 2 rooms remains. Gallery frames progressively disturbed to N end but framing or part framing of doorways remain comprising a room with a door at each end and a further room with a single door, the arrangement apparently copying the older pair of rooms. Roof structures not visible as now ceiled in. Date of second phase is close to the first but work is slightly less elegant. Ground floor wall framing is now considerably covered but framing above reflected in bay divisions below in arrangement of open and partitioned trusses - open trusses had arched braces with linking fillets on binding joists. Common joists heavy, centre tenoned. Mouldings in the gallery range interior and exterior principally of hollow chamfers. Junction of gallery range and street block has ground floor doorway to front principal room. Doorway has a 4-centred arched head with sunk spandrels, traces of red colouring remain. Survey of the room by Essex County Council Planning Dept. during refurbishment has revealed original studding with traces of wall painting, comprising blue colouring, a bold trefoil design and stencilled arabesques. A demonstration studded panel is now exposed above the door, the rest now covered up. Although timber-framing evident in street block it is now too covered and cut away to interpret. Red brick walled cellar below E side of carriageway has English bond and wall battered. Comparison of the W galleried range with other inn galleries in England show it to be apparently the most complete and the most elegantly constructed of those that survive. Drawings of the gallery dated 1891 held by Essex Record Office show the courtyard essentially of the same form as today with a block, now replaced, bridging the N carriageway. 6 rear gallery openings remained completely open. (Central and SW Essex : Monument 2: 36; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Essex: 1965-: 102).

Listing NGR: TQ5933493750

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

373469

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
An Inventory of Essex Central and South West, (1921), 36
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Essex, (1965), 102

End of official list entry

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