Newhouse Farm Stanford Rivers Essex Heritage Statement
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Newhouse Farm Stanford Rivers Essex Heritage Statement June 2015 Built Heritage Consultancy Outline statement Newhouse Farm Stanford Rivers Essex Heritage Statement May 2015 Contents 1.0 Introduction 5 2.0 Understanding 6 3.0 Significance 18 4.0 Policies 22 5.0 Assessment of Proposals 25 6.0 Conclusion 28 7.0 Sources 29 © Built Heritage Consultancy 2015 This report is for the sole use of the person/organisation to whom it is addressed. It may not be used or referred to in whole or in part by anyone else without the express agreement of the Built Heritage Consultancy. The Built Heritage Consultancy does not accept liability for any loss or damage arising from any unauthorised use of this report. The Built Heritage Consultancy Limited is registered in England, number 7314300. Registered office: 5 The Chambers, Vineyard, Abingdon, OX14 3PX. 1.0 Introduction The Built Heritage Consultancy has been commissioned to produce an assessment of Newhouse Farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings to support applications for listed building consent and planning permission by the owners. Pre-application discussions have already been initiated with officers from Epping Forest District Council. The proposals consist of the replacement of the existing canopy adjoining the outbuilding immediately to the west of the farmhouse with a new structure similar in dimensions with a glazed wall to create a sitting and dining area. One of the outbuildings is to be converted to a kitchen. The existing passageway between the outbuildings and end wall of the farmhouse is to be enclosed to provide a covered link. This Heritage Statement summarises our research and sets out the historic development of Newhouse Farm. It then assesses the significance of the listed and curtilage-listed buildings. Finally the Statement sets out the applicable heritage planning policies, describes the proposed scheme, and evaluates the appropriateness of the proposals in heritage terms. This Statement will provide the Local Authority with sufficient information to determine the application, in accordance with paragraph 129 of the National Planning Policy Framework. This Statement has been written by Edmund Harris and James Weeks, based on a site visit and archival research in May 2015. Relevant designations Newhouse Farmhouse is a single Grade II-listed building (List Entry Number: 1337505). The adjacent outbuildings are not mentioned in the list description but, given their age and historical association with the farmhouse, qualify as curtilage listed. The site lies within the setting of a listed barn to the north (List Entry Number: 1168884). The site does not have any archaeological designation. Built Heritage Newhouse Farm, Stanford Rivers - Heritage Statement Consultancy 5 2.0 Understanding 2.1 Historic development of Stanford Rivers Recorded in the Domesday Book, the village of Stanford Rivers is located due east of Epping and northwest of Brentwood in southwest Essex. The village is denucleated and made up of several settlements and farmsteads scattered widely over the large, roughly triangular-shaped parish. The most populous of these settlements is the hamlet of Toot Hill. To its southeast is a smaller centre – the settlement that actually bears the name of the parish – where the medieval church of St Margaret of Antioch and Stanford Hall, one of the former manors in the village, is located. Despite its proximity to outer suburban London and major transport arteries such as the M25 and M11 the parish is still rural and consists mainly of agricultural land. Newhouse Farm stands about three quarters of a mile away from the church on the west side of Mutton Row, a lane leading north from Stanford Rivers to Greensted Road, which connects Chipping Ongar with Greensted-juxta-Ongar and Greensted Green. The location of Newhouse Farm (indicated by orange arrow) relative to neighbouring settlements (Streetmap) Built Heritage Newhouse Farm, Stanford Rivers - Heritage Statement Consultancy 6 2.2 Historic development of Newhouse Farm The south front of Newhouse Farm facing the garden: the outshot wrapping round the west and north side of the house is the black, weatherboarded section to the left; the area of closely spaced vertical studs corresponds approximately to the rebuilt hall and service wing of the late 16th/early 17th century; beyond is the late medieval former high end and the later outshot facing onto Mutton Row. Newhouse Farm is at least late medieval in origin as testified by the most ancient parts of the fabric, described below. The farmhouse stands on the south side of the old farmyard and it is possible that the timber-framed barn on the opposite side was originally built at about the same time and not, as stated in the list description, in the 18th century. For much of its history the farm was held partly in copyhold to the manors of Stanford Rivers, Traceys and Bellhouse. In 1623 the manor of Stanford Rivers was acquired by William, 2nd Baron Petre of Ingatestone Hall, whose family by 1628 came to own six out of the seven manors in the parish. It may have been they who instituted the major rebuild of the existing farmhouse carried out around this time. In 1726 Newhouse Farm was occupied by William Keepe, a local churchwarden, and at the time of the enclosure award, dated 1st March 1842, it was held and occupied by a Mr John Mott. According to a sales notice of 1859 the farm consisted of 62 acres and 28 perches of arable and grazing land. Some time after that it was held by the Millbank family and into the 1970s the land was farmed by them for dairy cattle. Between 1933 and 1970 the house was occupied by Miss Lucy Millbank who let a portion of the building as a separate cottage. It seems, however, from the 1873 and 1896 OS maps that the house had been divided into two separate dwellings of approximately equal size prior to Miss Milbank’s occupancy before being reconfigured as a large dwelling and smaller cottage by the time of the resurvey for the 1920 map. In the late 20th century Newhouse Farm ceased to be used for agriculture. The garden was enlarged by annexing land from the surrounding field and the barn was converted into a separate private residence. Built Heritage Newhouse Farm, Stanford Rivers - Heritage Statement Consultancy 7 Newhouse Farm on the Stanford Rivers tithe map of 1839 (Essex Record Office) The evolution of the farm 15th/16th centuries The oldest part of the surviving fabric is the eastern end of the house, i.e. the section of the two-storey portion nearest to Mutton Row. This originally formed part of a medieval hall and cross wing house, a common type encountered in the residences of yeoman farmers and gentry which is well attested in Essex. The following comments are necessarily somewhat hypothetical because of the fragmentary nature of the remains of this phase but the paradigm is fairly consistent and therefore these claims can be made with a reasonable degree of confidence. At the centre of the house would have been the hall, a large room aligned with the main axis of the building open internally to the roofspace. This would have been the main living and dining area, used by its occupants and their servants, and would have had a central open hearth with a vent in the roof to let out the smoke. At the east end there was a two-storey wing aligned at a right angle to the hall. It would probably have accommodated a parlour (i.e. a private living area) on the ground floor and a staircase to provide access to sleeping quarters on the first floor. This wing was occupied by the master of the house and his family and tended to have the most elaborate architectural treatment lavished on it, for which reason it was known as the high end. The opposite end of the house accommodated the kitchen, pantry, buttery and other service quarters, for which reason it was known as the low end. Sometimes this consisted of another cross wing, although what architectural form it took in this particular instance is now impossible to say. The original hall and low end of the house have disappeared and been completely replaced. It seems that the house was originally entered from the north since on this side of the former cross wing there Built Heritage Newhouse Farm, Stanford Rivers - Heritage Statement Consultancy 8 are clear traces of a jetty, a feature that tended to be used for display on the principal aspect. Without a dendrochronological and an archaeological survey it is difficult to date precisely this part of the building or to establish whether the hall and cross wing house had any predecessors. All that can be said is that certain constructional features such as joists that are laid flat and the crown post roof (which survives in very fragmentary form in the attic of the former high end) imply a date range beginning in the late 14th or early 15th century and terminating around the middle of the 16th century. Probably the medieval Newhouse Farm was erected towards the end of this period. Sketch plan showing the two main phases of construction of Newhouse Farm: the plans are aligned with the north elevation so west is to the right and east is to the left (Essex Historic Buildings Group) Built Heritage Newhouse Farm, Stanford Rivers - Heritage Statement Consultancy 9 17th century The historian W.G. Hoskins identified a major campaign of rebuilding of houses by almost all social classes both in urban and rural areas between about 1570 and 1640. This was driven by greater economic prosperity, a desire to improve living standards and changing fashions in architecture and design.