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Coxes Farm (Pre-Repairs)

(Text as at 04/04/2020 00:14:24)

*** THIS IS NOT THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS NOTE ***

• This page provides a time-series of photos of our house – Coxes Farm, Billericay, Essex – prior to the discovery of a crack at the front in December 2017.
• Photos associated with the recent repairs appear on this further page¹. Those of the garden appear here².
• The important sections of this page are:-
  1. Conversion of the Outbuildings (October, November & December 2012).
  2. Conversion of the 'Wonky Room' (April 2012).
  3. Conversion of the Utilities Room into a Shower Room (April 2012).
  4. Photos from the Estate Agent's Website (January 2012).
  5. Photos from the pre-purchase Survey (January 2012).
  6. The photo from the Images of England website (October 1999).
• At the moment, these photos are rather random. Many have been collated from my iPhone, though in general they were not taken on it. The rest were stashed away on my PC hard-drive. Some had no date embedded in the JPEG header - or recorded against the directory - and appear at the end. I'll try to sort these out in due course.
• For my developing thoughts on the maintenance of such properties, see my Note "Tottering Towers & Listing Buildings³". In due course I'll complete the narrative section there that describes my own experiences with Coxes Farm, though I've already made some progress.
• Click here₄ for a couple of technical remarks on the webpage.

Click on the links below to jump to the photos for a particular month, or scroll down. Mouse-over the date pops-up a summary of the situation that month.
2017-12	2016-09	2016-06	2014-11	2014-07	2013-07	2013-06	2013-01	2012-12	2012-11	2012-10	2012-04
2012-03	2012-02	1999-10	Unknown Date

 

2017 - December - Snow Coxes Farm in the snow - before the crack appeared.

 

2016 - September - Wonky Wall The 'wonky wall' - that juts out to the side of the house, to the side of the dining room and supports the 'wonky room' (the spare bedroom). This has always looked the least stable, though structural engineers haven't been worried by it. The central post is compromised, as are several struts, and there's most likely no surviving sole plate. The bressumer and corner posts seem sound, however. The electrics enter through this wall, on the inside of which are three fuse-boards. It has been known to let water in. A plate to the right of the bedroom window has moved out from its place somewhat. Note that there's no sign of the subsequent gaps appearing in the brick infill at this stage.
The (probably modern, and supportive) brick infill seems sound, but the patio is too high and has covered the sole plate.	The timbers around the central 'chevron' are in poor condition.	The 'wonky wall' in profile, showing the bulge.

 

2016 - June - Wonky Wall More photos of the 'wonky wall' and the adjacent kitchen - a 1980's addition to the 15th / 16th century original.
Henry the dog and unknown guests in front of the 'wonky wall'.	Naomi & Leandro. 'Wonky wall' and kitchen in the background.

 

2014 - November - Lounge Chimney Lining Photos taken the first time we were trying to get the lounge chimney lined. For a later attempt, follow this link5.

 

2014 - November - Lych Gate The lych gate after Julie had shunted the left-hand column six inches with the car. Turned out the post was rotten as well, and the ironwork was rusted, but insurance paid out for the accident. Fixed by a chap with an impressive-sounding name, but who knew nothig about lime mortar. Still, the post and the ironwork were replaced fine, but the lime morter was frost-damaged.

 

2014 - July Random photos of the house and garden. Nothing much happening.

 

2013 - July Random photos of the house and garden. Much as the previous year - Nothing much happening. Shows my desk and a portion of the library.

 

2013 - June Random photos of the house and garden. Shows the four-poster in the guest room.

 

2013 - January - Attic The attic sometime after being made habitable. I used it as a study while the outbuildings were being converted. Photos show the struts and beams that support the tiled roof. Of particular interest are the joints, one of which is compound and unusual. Note the wood stain used at the base of the struts and wall posts. This was added quickly prior to the carpet being laid to make it easier to paint the beams fully later without spoiling the carpet. However, I was then advised by one of the team at Cressing Temple Barns that it's best to leave the wood unpainted - as in the barns - if it had not yet been painted, so I held fire, leaving the rather silly situation as photographed. Until just before I bought the property, the attic wasn't insulated. Terry Selway - the vendor who still lives next door - made a half-hearted attempt to insulate the attic with glass fibre, which kept falling down. I tried to get the builders to board the ceiling, but it was too difficult given the curvilinear layout. So, I bought a load of hessian and a staple gun and lined it myself, quite acceptably, I think. The floor of the attic was strengthened with pine beams and boarded over (leaving the old flooring – such as it was – in situ). The small window in the back wall was replaced as the original had to be removed to allow entry of the beams. The attic was divided into two – that over the front of the house having too low a ceiling. It contains the water tank and is only accessible via a hatch, though the tank controls are accessible by a small door in the plasterboard partition.

 

2012 - December Sundry photos of the house - inside and out - at the end of the first year of ownership. Shows the new back door, amongst much else.

 

2012 - December - Outbuildings Conversion Shows the outbuildings nearing completion - externals only outstanding, I think. Note the drains! We had a lot of discussion as to whether the slope was sufficient to allow gravity drainage without a macerator. Our builder insisted it was fine to use gravity, and it seems (as of February 2019) that he was right!
Not quite sure when this photo was taken, but it's included here to show the finished job!	Not quite sure when this photo was taken, but it's included here to show the finished job!

 

2012 - November This month saw the focus on the outbuildings conversion. But we start with a couple of random photos.

 

2012 - November - Outbuildings Conversion The outbuildings conversion. Errecting the interior partitions, stud-work and the library ceiling joists. Looks like the last two photos were taken in October or before ... to be investigated.

 

2012 - October Random photos of the house and garden. Two 'lit' fires. The lounge fire-lighting was pretty much a one-off as the chimney is unlined, so fumes leak into the bedrooms. Includes a photo of me, for some reason.

 

2012 - October - Outbuildings Conversion The joists in the side of the stables roof facing the house were in poor condition, so we decided to renew this side of the roof. Another item not picked up by the surveyor! The old stable doors were also in poor condition and unsuitable for use as library or guest-room doors, so they went in the skip, being replaced by hand-made doors in a fairly similar style. The conservation officer seemed happy enough.

 

2012 - April - Pre-Occupancy Random Photos yet to be fully categorised. Shows the old front door and the ivy room after a short back and sides. Otherwise, various rooms are being tidied before we'd actually moved in. The focus at the time was on the wonky room and the shower room (which feature below) and the attic (which features above, though I don't seem to have any photos of it actually being repaired, presumably because it was inaccessible until the floor was strengthened). The outbuildings are unconverted, and the lounge end-wall and the wall supporting the 'staircase to nowhere' are still unplastered.

 

2012 - April - The Wonky Room Conversion of the 'wonky room', including the staircase from the dining room thereto.

 

2012 - April - Shower Room Conversion of the shower room. This had been a utilities room, presumably created in the 1980s during the kitchen extension.

 

2012 - March - Staircase to Nowhere The 'staircase to nowhere', prior to plastering its wall. The staircase was removed in November 2018 as part of the repairs to the back wall.

 

2012 - February A couple of photos taken in the snow round about the time we exchanged contracts. I raised the question of why the snow had melted at the front, but not at the back. The explanation was that the insulation is on the ceiling at the rear, but on the floor at the front, so warmer air got through to the front loft. We now have a partition between the attic at the back and the loft at the front, so this problem is now fixed.

 

2012 - February - Light Fittings Various dreadful light-fittings that we replaced as soon as we'd purchased the property.

 

2012 - January - Estate Agent I think these must have come from an estate agent's website, as they match those from the glossy brochure. They are very professionally done, and certainly make the property look a lot more impressive than it then did. Some of the photos muust have been very tiny on-screen, and don't expand well in the grid below. See Zoe Napier (which no longer contains the photos, I don't suppose!).

 

2012 - January - Survey Photos taken by the surveyor as part of the pre-purchase Survey. Presumably this selection shows what he thought was important. As such, some - eg. those of Terry Selway's retained property - are rather eccentric. There are a few gaps in the sequence of photo names - there are 51 photos while 57 might be expected - but I've not knowingly omitted any. I've rotated the photos without cropping them, so you can view them without holding the screen sideways. Many of them are rather fuzzy, especially when clicked to view expanded, but this fuzziness isn't down to me. It's a shame as it makes some of the information rather vague. I've added comments against each photo. Note that they are in reverse time-sequence. The timestamp of each photo, and the time intervals between them, can be seen my howering the mouse over the photos.
View towards dining room from modern kitchen, showing the breakfast bar	Modern (1980s) kitchen	Modern (1980s) kitchen	View from far end of rear lounge through stud wall	Far end of rear lounge; view towards modern brick wall (subsequently plastered). This wall seems to have rising damp.

Oriel window at the end of the rear lounge. The glass has had to be re-housed at the window-frame was rotten.

View of the "staircase to nowhere" that once went up to the attic. It was demolished when the back wall was rebuilt.

Rear lounge: view towards side windows

View from near end of rear lounge through stud wall

Sink in downstairs loo

View of side door from front lounge

Wood-burning stove in front lounge

Floor-boards in front bedroom. Apart from one patch, these were sound and didn't need overlaying with ply as in the rear bedroom

Shower in front bedroom en suite. This leaked and had to be re-built

Sink & loo in front bedroom en suite.

View from front bedroom to stair-well

Rear bedroom; view towards front of house

Rear dressing-room; side window and door to attic

Loft - Rear of front gable-end. An important photo. Presumably the timbers are unsound, though they look OK from the inside. For the other side, see this set of photos6. Cold-water tank to LHS.

Another view of the front gable-end from the loft space. Cold-water tank to LHS.

Attic - view towards rear gable end; stair-well below

Attic - showing a supporting strut

Attic - view towards the loft space over the front bedroom, showing the cold water tank and the complete lack of insulation

Attic - view from the rear, showing soon-to-be applied glass-fibre insulation. The structure in the foreground - since removed - was for supporting a now-redundant cold-water tank - also since removed (with difficulty)

Dining-room window: view towards the front

Underside of the stair-case to the bedroom over the dining-room, that used to just project from the wall, showing electrics-cupboard door. This has now been strengthened and boxed in

View down next-door's drive towards Coxes Farm Road, What is now Coxes Farm Studio to the right, and bungalow ("Melbourne") over the road

Next door's gazebo, now vastly "improved"

Next door; Coxes Farm Lodge, the weather-boarded side of which adjoins the end of our drive.

View towards that was then the cart lodge (now my library) with one of next-door's outbuildings attached

Roof of the cart-lodge (now library)

As left, showing the supporting girder

Cart-lodge, showing modern (electric) clock

Roof-space over stables; looking towards the "wood store"; converted to shower-room

Stables (described as "wood store"); converted to bedroom

Interior of stables (or "wood store"; not sure which)

View (R to L) of "wood store", stables and cart lodge; the rather decrepit stable-door had to be replaced.

Cart lodge and stables

Stables and "wood store"

Back door (naff Georgian style, now replaced with a medieval-style door); Ivy House to the right

View of rear of the main house, Ivy House & outbuilding beyond; Coxes Farm Lodge to the right

View over the pond towards Coxes Farm Road and Slices Gate Nursery

View of the rear of the house, with the 1980s kitchen extension to the left

Back garden towards the side-road to Coxes Farm Yard. Current location of garage.

View of the modern kitchen (right) and the side wall of the dining-room with bedroom above

View of the roof; the upper courses of the main chimney-stack had to be re-built

View of the side of the house, with the vendor making some repairs

The dining room, with bedroom above and the modern kitchen beyond. The wall really is that bowed!

Front of the house, showing - inter alia - where the crack would appear in the render-covered right-hand corner post. No sign of the crack at the time. For the crack, when it appeared, see this set of photos7.

Front of the house, showing the chimney stack at the side leaning outwards slightly. I'm sure that when I first viewed the house, there was a crack between the chimney and the dormer-style projection which had been cemented over by the time of the survey.

The other side of the lateral chimney stack, showing further recent cement-work. Thankfully, there has been no cracking in this area since we moved in.

 

1999 - October - Images of England This photo shows the house in 1999, and is taken from the - soon to be retired, it seems - Images of England website. The Ivy Room to the left is as wild as ever. You'd take it to be a tree if you didn't know otherwise. The privet hedge to the right has now been grubbed up and replaced with a rockery. The now erased eucalyptus tree and the holm oak next the drive are visible peeping over the hedge. The house itself is unchanged, though the ivy creeping up the side was removed before the house was put on the market in 2011 (or maybe earlier).

 

Unknown Date Random Photos yet to be categorised.

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In-Page Footnotes

Footnote 4:

• If you're using a mouse, you can hover over the image to see the date / time the photo was taken, the photo filename and the source of the photo. More useful narrative commentary is added where I've got round to entering it, but now appears additionally - and more usefully - below the photos.
• The JPEGs immediately displayed on this page are 'medium size'. Click on the image to display a full-sized full-page photo (or sometimes just the same medium-sized one displayed full-page).

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Live Version of this Archived Note

Date	Length	Title
04/04/2020 00:14:24	126297	Coxes Farm (Pre-Repairs)

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Earlier Version of this Note

Date	Length	Title
05/04/2019 10:36:29	119685	Coxes Farm (Pre-Repairs)

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This version updated	Reference for this Topic	Parent Topic
04/04/2020 00:14:24	1282 (Coxes Farm (Pre-Repairs))	Theo Todman's Blog

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Summary of Notes Links from this Page

Coxes Farm (Gardens)

Coxes Farm (Repairs) (4)

Tottering Towers & Listing Buildings

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above (if any).

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Summary of Note Links to this Page

Coxes Farm, 2, 3	Coxes Farm (Gardens)	Coxes Farm (Repairs)	Theo Todman's Blog, 2, 3	Website Generator Documentation - Backups, 2
Website Generator Documentation - Functors, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above (if any).

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Text Colour Conventions

1. Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026

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