Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 9 May 2022 to update the name, address and description and to reformat the text to current standards

TQ 8538
16/51

BIDDENDEN
HIGH STREET (south side)
No 3, 5 (Ye Ancient House), Nos 7, 9 and 11 (The Maydes Restaurant), (New Biddenden Stores), 15 and 17

4.6.52.

GV
I

This timber-framed range, with a slightly curved front is reputed to have been one of the workshops of the weavers who were numerous in Biddenden in the Middle Ages. The first floor was one continuous workroom where the looms were fixed. C16 or earlier. Two storeys and attics timber framed with painted brick infilling. Tiled roof. Thirteen windows and nine hipped dormers in all. Casement windows with diamond-shaped or small square leaded panes.

No 3 has two small bays on the ground floor and a continuous tiled canopy over them.

Nos 5 and 7 each have one oriel window on the first floor of two tiers of seven lights with wooden mullions and transoms and three brackets below each. Two obtusely-pointed doorways below with 'Tate Door' inscribed over these and above this a plaster cast and painted head of a bearded man, previously claimed to have been taken from a wrecked ship of the Spanish Armada but now known to be a popular urban myth, the whole now covered by a tiled canopy.

Nos 11 and 13 have similar oriel windows of eight lights each.

Nos 9 and 15 have slightly projecting windows of four lights without brackets. Two-thirds of No 15 is stuccoed with a good modern shop window on the ground floor complete with glazing bars and one sash window with glazing bars above, also an iron bracket supporting a lantern.

No 17 has two oriel windows, one of seven lights and one of six lights, and two modern shop windows with a continuous tiled canopy above these.

Contemporary paving of Bethersden marble forms footpath in front and extending to south east about 12 yards.

Listing NGR: TQ8508938380

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17529334

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

• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)