Home > Essex > Maldon > Kings Head Kings Head
Date of photo: 1905	Picture source: Hania Franek
The Kings Head was situated at 38 High Street. The building is now used as a coffee shop and jewellers. It dates from the 15th century and is grade-II listed.
Listed building details:
Hotel. C15, C16, C18 and later. Substantially timber-framed, part rendered, part painted brick and part weatherboarded. Variety of roofs with plain tiles. PLAN: complex plan form with range to frontage and a series of extensions to the rear. EXTERIOR: front of painted brick is substantially 2-storeyed with a 3-storey wing to the east. The 2-storeyed part has a roof parallel to the street which is hipped to the west and abutts the 3-storey wing to the east. A substantial stack of T-plan form, but with a curious rendered recess, rises from the junction of the blocks. A plain parapet to the lower block is slightly stepped and locates a projecting, flat roofed dormer with 9-pane sash. The western part of the facade is slightly recessed and has 2 segmental-headed 12-pane sashes on the 1st floor. The ground floor here has a slightly bowed oriel with flat roof and 16-pane sash. The 1st floor of the projecting part has a segmental-headed blind recess and two 12-pane sashes. The ground floor has a similar, vertically aligned, blind recess, a square oriel bow with 16-pane sash window and a projecting Tuscan porch with thin painted timber Tuscan columns and pilaster responds; door with 6 raised-and-fielded panels and rectangular Gothick fanlight. Elaborate hanging sign with wrought-iron bracket on 1st floor. The 3-storeyed part projects slightly and has a roof hipped to the front behind a plain parapet. The 2nd floor has a central segmental-headed 9-pane sash window; a canted bay rises through the lower 2 storeys and has a flat roof with at 1st floor a small paned, asymmetrical, tripartite sash and on the ground floor a pair of linked 12-pane sashes. The east flank, of 3 storeys, is of painted weatherboarding and the roof returns to a hip at the rear. On the second floor is a 12-pane sash window. The ground floor, here, has 2 door openings and one sash with margin glazing and one sash with central vertical glazing bars. The rear of the 3-storeyed wing has a French window at 2nd-floor level leading to a C20 metal fire escape. The 1st floor has a tripartite sash with single vertical glazing bars. To the rear of this block is a C20 flat-roofed extension with canted faces, linking to a rendered 2-storey block placed parallel, but to the rear, of the main range; this has a plain tile roof and a substantial stack through its northern roof slope. A long rear extension range runs down the western boundary of the site and links with the above block; the northernmost part of this is of 2 low storeys of C19 red brick with C20 windows. The plain tile roof has 2 differing ridgelines, the southernmost part having been altered. To the rear of this is a C20 single-storey block of red brick with machine-made plain tile roof. INTERIOR: the oldest surviving part is the frontage range which has remnants of timber-framing of a pair of semi-detached Wealden-type houses, each formerly consisting of a floored bay and a single-bay hall. The hall and westernmost part of one cross-wing are missing and their site is now part of the adjoining building. The nature of the development and relatively poor quality timber suggests a speculative development of the early to mid C15. An early C17 inglenook stack now backs onto the former intruded cross-passage of the eastern unit and this has an upper part with moulded corbel course of the late C17. The frontage range was raised in the early C19 and some of the C15 rafters reused. The superimposed eastern wing is of early C19 softwood framing. The 2-storeyed range fronting the western boundary contains a 2-bay structure of the late C16 with central, deep collared A-frame truss and a mixture of internal and external wall bracing. To the rear of this is a probable mid C17 two-bay block. At right angles is an early C19 block incorporating reused material from the old rear walls of the Wealden range. The eastern first-floor chamber of the frontage range has late C16 wall-painting consisting of an arcade of blue/grey paint over studs and infill. In the main range, a late C18 staircase survives with column newels, barleysugar-twist balusters and hardwood handrail. This is continued to the attics by an early C19 stair with stick balusters. On the 1st floor of the main range are some C18 panelled partitions and contemporary doors and architraves. A 1st-floor room has an early C19 corner cupboard with doors, arch-headed recess on pilasters and serpentine shelves. A room in the 3-storeyed wing has a fireplace with shouldered architrave.
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Other Photos
Picture source: Darkstar
Picture source: Hania Franek