Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 25 July 2022 to update the name and address, amend description due to change of building use and reformat the text to current standards

ST3308
756-1/4/72

CHARD
FORE STREET (North side)
No 57, Essex House

(Formerly listed as Essex House, FORE STREET)

24/03/50

GV
II*
House, now flats. Mid C18, altered early and late C19. Pebbledash, with Ham Hill stone parapet, rusticated quoins and cornice, and hipped slate roof. Double-depth plan with central entrance and stair hall.

Two storeys, symmetrical five-window range. Doorcase has Tuscan-style columns fronting rusticated pilasters to entablature. Venetian window with Tuscan-style columns and heavy cornice, possibly late C19. Extension to left has two-window range to front with similar ground-floor sash windows to main facade, ie. 2/2-pane sashes; first floor of extension has a single 8/8-pane sashes.

Rear: keyed lintels over late C19 four-pane sashes and tall sash with margin glazing bars to stair hall; early C19 two-storey bay with margin glazing bars.

INTERIOR: C18 cornicing and mid C19 cast-iron ceiling rose to hall, with paired pilasters to rear stair hall which has C18 cornicing and mid C19 coloured glass to stairlight. First-floor features include some C18 moulded wood architraves and two-panelled door to front room on left. This room has retained an early C18 wall painting on its rear wall, flanked by a doorway to right and niche to the left; painting is divided into three panels by fluted Ionic pilasters and depicts biblical scene in provincial Baroque style with Putti, etc. to outer panels and Madonna and Child to centre; quotation in panel to right above door is from Genesis, Chapter 21, verse 17, reads "And the / angel of God / called to / Hagar out / of Heaven". A particularly rare and important survival.

Listing NGR: ST3238908636

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17554654

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

• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)