Farmhouse at Quince Hall Farm, Blackmore, Hook End and Wyatts Green, Essex

Summary

Farmhouse built around the mid-C18.

Description

Farmhouse, likely to have been built around the mid-C18.

MATERIALS: timber frame with lath and plaster infill covered in render painted white, handmade red brick chimney stacks and a roof covering of red plain clay tiles.

PLAN: the south-facing farmhouse is located to the east of the farm buildings and has a rectangular plan with a mid-C20 outshot incorporating an earlier projection on the north side.

EXTERIOR: the two-storey farmhouse has a three-bay lobby entry plan with a steeply pitched roof and exposed rafter feet at the eaves. The wall plates project slightly on the gable ends. A square chimney stack with brick base and cornice projects through the south slope, slightly to the left of the front door. The projecting chimney on the east gable end has offsets and diaper work in vitrified brick. Both chimneys have circular chimney pots. The front door is located between the first and second bay under a moulded wooden canopy supported by shaped brackets. The double-leaf door has six fielded and raised panels, the upper two glazed with bull’s-eye glass. The bays are lit on both floors by C20 eight-pane timber casements which are used throughout the building. The rear (north) elevation has a rendered outshot with a corrugated asbestos roof and is lit by a horizontal, four-light, metal-framed window on the left and a timber casement on the right. There is a C20 door in the right return of the outshot. The first floor is lit by casements in the first and second bays. The east gable end has a ground-floor casement window on the right side of the chimney projection. The west gable end is lit by a casement on each floor and there is small area where the render has been removed which shows the sole plate, studs, and lath and plaster.

INTERIOR: the front door leads into the entrance lobby, behind which are back-to-back fireplaces heating the first and central bays. The openings may have been reduced from their original size. Some timber studs are apparent on the north side of the chimney breast underneath the wallpaper. The stair is positioned behind the chimney breast and has a quarter turn with winders at the turn. In the central and east bays the chamfered tie beams and joists are exposed, although some of the joists have been replaced. The ground-floor party wall between these two bays has been removed to create a large open plan room. The division is still marked by the substantial tie beam, and by a combination of new and reused timber studs resting on a new brick plinth at either end. The red brick fireplace in the east gable end appears to have been reconstructed, incorporating what may have been the original timber bressumer above the arched opening and modern tiled hearth. The west bay, which probably contained the kitchen and services, has a plank and batten door with strap hinges leading into the lobby. In the outshot, the projection shown on the 1880 Ordnance Survey (OS) map has a door with four panels which have moulded edges, of probable late-C19/early-C20 date. This is flanked by the mid-C20 bathroom and larder.

The first floor retains wide floorboards and a number of C18 and C19 four-panel doors. The west room has a plank and batten door with a latch and strap hinges hung on pintles, and the central room has a six panel cupboard door, both of C18 date. It was not possible to access the roof space although limited areas of the roof structure could be seen through holes in the ceiling of the east and west bays. The roof timbers include tie beams and rough cut rafters with bark still in place. In the west bay there is a replaced purlin and some replaced rafters.

History

The deeds for Quince Hall Farm, held at Essex Record Office, exist for the years 1751 to 1864 and show the land to have been copyhold from the Manor of Fingrith. The records suggest that a dwelling or habitation with pasture and arable fields existed from at least the mid-C18, and possibly much earlier. The extant farmhouse may have been built around the time of the 1751 deed, although its lobby entry plan form, which is quite old-fashioned for this period, could indicate a date of construction earlier in the C18. The 1777 Map of Essex by Andre and Chapman shows a cluster of buildings on the site called ‘Quinch’. At this time it appears that Quince Hall Farm was a holding or homestead that comprised a house and arable land, as a deed from 1789 records a Surrender by Helen Lane into the hands of the Lord of the Manor of Fingrith Hall ‘all that capital messuage or tenement with the orchard garden appurtenances and all that toft of land called Quinteshall…late in the occupation of Peter Bright’. In 1820 the farm was sold by Michael Mason, who had rented it to Joseph White for £50, to Christopher Preston who lived at Jericho House in the nearby village of Blackmore. The purchase contract included ‘all that messuage or tenement and Farm called Quince Hall or otherwise with the Barn, Stables, Buildings, Yards, Gardens and appurtenances…and the several closes of land (formerly copyhold but since purchased)’.

The Tithe Map of 1847 shows that Quince Hall Farm consisted of the farmhouse, a roughly L-shaped building and long range to the west, and a further range to the south-west. The Tithe Award lists Henry Tanner as the landowner and William Caton as the occupier of c.41 acres. The property was auctioned in 1864 and the sale particulars describe it as ‘a convenient timber-built and tiled house containing Parlor, Keeping Room, 3 Bed Rooms, Dairy, Pantry, Buttery, and Wash house, 2 Barns, Stable, Cow-house, and other Out-buildings, and eight enclosures of fertile arable and pasture land.’ The 1880 Ordnance Survey (OS) map shows the farmstead with a similar layout to that on the 1847 Tithe Map, except the west end of the building on the south-west of the farmhouse appears to have been truncated, and another building to the west of this has appeared. The farmhouse has a rectangular plan with a small projection slightly west of centre on the north (rear) side. Map evidence shows that between 1920 and 1963 the small projection was extended on the east and west sides to create a larger outshot.

At some point after the 1847 Tithe Award was drawn up, Quince Hall Farm belonged to Lord Petre as there is a 1936 sale catalogue for ‘outlying portions of the Ingatestone Hall estate’. Ingatestone Hall is a Grade I listed country house built in the mid-C16 and altered in the C18. In 1957 a sale took place at Quince Hall Farm of agricultural implements, tractors and dead stock, on the instructions of C. Bower Esq, which may represent the end of the mixed use farming practices on the holding.

Reasons for Listing

The farmhouse at Quince Hall Farm, likely to have been built around the mid-C18, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Architectural interest: it is a well preserved example of an C18, timber-framed farmhouse, a building type once typical in the area but now increasingly rare;

* Degree of survival: the timber frame is substantially intact and the three-bay, lobby entry plan, with back-to-back fireplaces and quarter-turn stair, remains legible;

* Historic interest: it was built during a significant period of agricultural development in England which resulted in a wealthier yeoman class whose gentrification was reflected in their farmhouses.

External Links

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