Description

TQ 64 SW PEMBURY KINGS TOLL ROAD

5/375 Romford House

II

Former farmhouse. Probably mid C17, enlarged and modernised circa 1920-1930.
The older section is timber-framed but the ground floor level is underbuilt
with later Flemish bond red brick with some burnt headers. Later section
built in the same style but the older section still shows it original
sandstone footings. Brick stacks and chimneyshafts. Peg-tile roof.

Plan: L-plan house. The main block faces north. It has a 4-room plan.
Kitchen at the left (east) end and large entrance hall containing the stair
next to it. Axial stack between serves back-to-back fireplaces. The room
right of centre is a parlour with an axial stack backing onto the entrance.
The small unheated room at the right (west) end has been united with the
parlour by removing the partition. Dining room to rear of the kitchen. The
kitchen and dining room along with the front porch were added circa 1920-30 as
part of the modernisation of a C17 3-room lobby entrance plan house.
Originally only the centre room was heated and was flanked by smaller unheated
service rooms.

2 storeys with attics in the roofspace.

Exterior: Irregular front with 7 ground floor windows and 3 first floor
windows, all C20 casements containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. The
centre 3-window section breaks forward as the entrance porch and built like a
lean-to outshot with the first floor window a large dormer with hipped roof
lighting the stair landing. Porch contains a C20 plank door and there is
another to the kitchen further left. Main roof is half-hipped both ends. On
the rear wall the timber jambs show of the original lobby entrance doorway
(now blocked). It is the only original framing exposed on the outside.

Interior: The framed structure of the C17 house survives, particularly above
first floor level, where studs and large curving tension braces are exposed.
On the ground floor the main room has a much-mended brick fireplace with a
plain oak lintel. The room has a chamfered axial beam with elongated scroll
stops (similar over the first floor). Although the partitions have been
removed from the west service end sockets in the underside of the main beams
show the original arrangement. There were 2 doorways from the main room, one
to the original stair. The service end itself was divided into buttery and
dairy with a connecting doorway between them. Plain joists in the left
service room. The rail across the original end wall is not at first floor
level and its underside is chamfered. Its purpose is not known. Roof of 4
uneven bays; jowled wall posts and tie-beam trusses with clasped side purlins
and queen struts.

Listing NGR: TQ6421140737

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26546069

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)