Description

TQ 56 43 / TQ 54 S BIDBOROUGH PENSHURST ROAD (south side)

11/22 and 4/22 Bidborough Court

GV II

Country house, converted to school boarding house. Circa 1860s in origin with
later C19 and early C20 alterations. Squared sandstone rubble, brought to
course with sandstone ashlar dressings; clay tile roof with ornamental
banding; stone stacks with stone shafts. Gothic style.

Plan: Asymmetrical plan, an irregular rectangle with the main entrance on the
north elevation, the south and west elevations overlooking the garden, service
rooms to the east. The north entrance leads into a 2-storey stair hall, the
principal rooms opening off this. A corridor on a west east axis leads from
the stair hall to the service rooms to the east, with a service stair in a
south east tower. An early C20 billiard room was added to the south of the
service wing, probably contemporary with a programme of internal
refurbishment.

Exterior: 2 storeys and attic with a 4-stage entrance tower. Gabled roofs;
stacks with tall clustered octagonal shafts with moulded cornices. Stone and
timber mullioned windows, mostly transomed, with plate glass casements.
Ruggedly asymmetrical 13 window north elevation, dominated by the entrance
tower to right of centre. This has a pyramidal spire, a parapet with
gargoyles, a 5-sided north west stair turret, angle buttresses and a first
floor corbelled oriel window with a battered pyramidal stone roof and trefoil-
headed one-light windows. The tower has a moulded Tudor arched doorway, one-
light windows to the second stage and 3-light windows to the top stage. To
the left of the tower a 3-window block is gabled to the front with a square
bay with a parapet to the ground floor. The bay has a 4-light transomed
window with round-headed lights, similar first floor window above. To the
right of the tower a crosswing with a hipped roof has a separately-roofed
rectangular bay angled across the outer corner of the range. The service wing
is slightly set back to the far left and gabled to the front at the left with
a lower-roofed gabled block alongside it at the left end. The south elevation
is also irregular, the main range 4 windows with the gable end of the west
crosswing to the left with a 2-storey canted bay. To the right of this the 5-
light transomed stair window with a frieze of glazed quatrefoils in the head
and a gable above it. The other windows are mullioned and transomed, matching
those in the north side. The billiard room, to the right of the main block,
is top-lit with a hipped roof and a large bay window on the south side. The
service stair tower rises behind it to the right with a pyramidal roof, a
stack and a 2-light plate traceried window on the south side. The west end
crosswing is of 3 irregular bays with transomed windows, French windows to the
ground floor. 3 gabled dormers with bargeboards with pierced trefoils at the
apex.

Interior: Mixture of 1860s and early C20 features. The stair hall is 1860s
with a 2 tier triple arcade with Early English capitals. The stair has
pierced splat stick balusters. Stair window with decorative leading. The
stair hall has a neo-Jacobean chimney-piece. The other principal rooms retain
C19 or early C20 joinery, chimney-pieces and some elaborate plaster cornices
and friezes. The present institutional use has involved very little change to
the interior.

The house was originally called Elm Court, the architect is unknown to date.

An ambitious Victorian country house.

Listing NGR: TQ5598743372

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26567064

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

• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)