Description

TQ 64 SW PEMBURY TONBRIDGE ROAD

5/427 Fairthorne Cottage
19.6.86
II

Former farmhouse. Early C17 with C19 and C20 extensions. Timber-framed.
Ground floor is underbuilt with C19 Flemish bond red brick with some burnt
headers, particularly on the south side. Brick stacks and chimneyshafts.
peg-tile roof.

Plan: House faces west. It is 2-rooms wide and 2-rooms deep. Central
passage back to main stair. Right front room is the main parlour with a rear
stack backing onto a small unheated larder behind. Left front room has an end
stack,and kitchen behind has an axial stack.

Most of the house appears to be C19 and C20. C17 work is confined to the
front right parlour which is complete right up to the roof. It seems unlikely
from the quality of the craftsmanship that this was originally a one-room plan
house but no evidence is exposed to suggest where the rest of the C17 would
have been.

The C17 section is 2 storeys with an attic, the rest is 2 storeys.

Exterior: All 4 sides have irregular 2-window fronts of various C19 and C20
casements with glazing bars, some of them iron-framed. Front doorway in the
centre of the west front contains a C19 plank door behind a C20 gabled porch.
The right (south) range roof is at right angles to the front and taller than
the other roofs. The front gable, the attic storey, is carried on a C17
moulded oak bressummer carved with bands of dentils, oval beads and billets.
The roof over the entrance hall and left front room is parallel to the front
with 2 crossroofs to rear, all gable-ended.

Interior: The C17 part is well-preserved although the wall framing is
plastered over. Both floors have chamfered crossbeams with step stops and the
plain joists are mostly original. The firepalces are blocked by C20 grates.
2-bay roof of tie-beam trusses with side purlins clasped by raking struts and
with small windbraces. Around the rest of the house there is no exposed
carpentry and all the features are C20.

Listing NGR: TQ6137243030

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26337556

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

• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6