Description

TQ 64 NW CAPEL FIVE OAK GREEN ROAD
(north side)
1/254 Hoppers Hospital

II

Originally a farmhouse, built in more than one phase in the C17; it was used
as an ale house in the C19 and in the late C19 was bought up by a Roman
Catholic charity for use as a hospital for the hop-pickers; the front
courtyard was added circa 1940. The place is now used to provide holiday
accommodation for deprived people from the East End of London. The main house
is timber-framed but the ground floor level is underbuilt with painted C19
brick and the first floor is hung with peg-tile; brick stacks and
chimneyshafts; peg-tile roof. The courtyard buildings are brick with a
pantile roof.

Plan: Main house is set back from the road and faces south. It has a 4-room
plan. The 2 larger central rooms are heated by a stack between them with
back-to-back fireplaces. A stair rises from the centre left room in front of
the stack. Smaller end rooms each heated by a projecting end stack. Centre
stack and stair is C17 but the end stacks were added in the C19. Although the
main block is C17 evidence from the roof suggests that it was built in more
than one phase, the left (west) half before the right half.

2 storeys with attics and secondary or rebuilt lean-to outshots across the
rear. Front courtyard is enclosed by a circa 1940 cloister-like shelter with
central front archway and a fireplace and stack in the west wall.

Exterior: House has an irregular 4-window front of late C19/early C20
casements with glazing bars. 3 contemporary front doorways, all containing
plain plank doors, 2 of which have plain narrow flat hoods over. Plain eaves
and roof is half-hipped both ends.

Interior: The exposed carpentry suggests that the C17 structure is well-
preserved, although the partition between the two left ground floor rooms has
been removed. The left end room has plain joists and all the other rooms have
chamfered axial beams, and the beam over the first floor chamber left of
centre is chamfered with scroll stops. All the fireplaces are blocked. Some
plain but good (and probably C19) plank doors. The roof structure indicates 3
C17 phases. The 2-bay section over the left (west) half appears to be the
earliest. It was somewhat altered in the C19 but there is the remains of a
clasped side purlin construction. Narrow central bay (about the central
stack) is also of clasped side purlin construction but the purlins are set at
a different height. The next bay to right has an uncollared tie-beam truss
with raking struts and butt purlins and the right end truss is an A-frame
truss on a tie-beam with butt purlins.

The front courtyard shelter is open with the pitched roof carried on a series
of brick piers. 5-bay front with central entrance. Roof raised over bellcote
with pyramid roof. A pole at the apex is thought to be the shaft of a former
cross. Front and back of bellcote is panelled. central plaque inscribed:
"In happy memory of Old Friends who loved
hopping and who loved this place very
dearly who gave their lives for Old England
and for us, 1914-18. Lord all pitying,
Jesu blest grant them Thine Eternal rest."

Below is a brass plaque in memory of Alexander Forsythe Asher, an Augustine
priest (died 1946) and Helen Chalk (died 1938) and each side are symbols of
the old Rose and Crown.

The area around Capel is the centre of the Kent hop industry and this building
is an important monument to its more labour-intensive heyday.

Listing NGR: TQ6382645009

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26543292

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.

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