The Moot Hall, also known as the Old School House, is a former market hall and school on Church Street in

Steeple Bumpstead Steeple Bumpstead is a village and civil parish south of Haverhill, Suffolk, Haverhill in Braintree (district), Braintree district, Essex, England. The parish church does not have a steeple, although the Congregational Church has a small Victor ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, England. The building, which now operates as a library and parish meeting room, is a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

The building was commissioned as a market hall by the wealthy villagers of Steeple Bumpstead in the late 16th century. It was designed in the Tudor style using

timber frame Timber framing () and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy Beam (structure), timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and Woodworking joints, joined timbers with joints secure ...

construction, and was completed in 1592. The design involved a broadly symmetrical main frontage of three bays facing northeast down Chapel Street. The first floor involved extensive use of

jettied Jettying (jetty, jutty, from Old French ''getee, jette'') is a building technique used in medieval timber framing, timber-frame buildings in which an upper floor projects beyond the dimensions of the floor below. This has the advantage of incr ...

timber framing allowing the creation of extra space for the meeting room on that floor. The ground floor was originally open but it was enclosed in the 18th century. On the first floor, there was a prominent tri-partite casement window. On the northwest side, there was an external staircase which was also encased in the 18th century. At roof level there is a

hip roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including Tented roof, tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other ve ...

surmounted, at the

apex The apex is the highest point of something. The word may also refer to: Arts and media Fictional entities * Apex (comics) A-Bomb Abomination Absorbing Man Abraxas Abyss Abyss is the name of two characters appearing in Ameri ...

, by a statue of a lion holding a shield with the Royal coat of Arms of the Tudor monarchs. In the 19th century, the building was at the centre of a dispute between the

lord of the manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

, George Gent, whose seat was at

Moyns Park Moyns Park is a Grade I Listed building, listed English country house, country house in Steeple Bumpstead, Essex. History The home of the Gent family, until the late 19th century, was once owned by Major-General Cecil Robert St John Ives, m ...

, and the villagers as to whether it was the right of the lord of the manor or the right of the villagers to appoint the headmaster of the local school which was based in the building. The matter was eventually passed to an ecclesiastical court which ruled in favour of the villagers. The building ceased to function as a school in 1848 when the new national school was completed in Church Street. The moot hall was subsequently used as a library and a meeting place for Steeple Bumpstead Parish Council. A war memorial, in the form of a simple cross, intended to commemorate the lives of local service personnel who had died in the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, was erected just behind the moot hall and unveiled by Colonel Joseph Griffiths, on 12 December 1920. Griffiths was a surgeon who had commanded the 1st Eastern General Hospital in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

during the war. In 1986, a plaque was attach to the moot hall to commemorate the passing of 900 years since Steeple Bumpstead was mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

References

{{reflist Grade II* listed buildings in Essex Steeple Bumpstead

History

See also

References