Listing Text

TR 0446 0546 WYE BRIDGE STREET
(south side)

8/187 Nos. 134-140
(even) Old
27.11.57 Swan House)

GV II*

House, now cottage row. C15 origin, altered and extended C16-C18. Timber
framed on red brick base with some flint and rubble, part exposed with
plaster infill and weatherboarded, mostly rendered. Tile hung rear range.
Plain tiled roof. Hall house plan in origin, since C18 4 cottages. Two
storeys on plinth, with continuous jetty (underbuilt to centre right) on
brackets carved as grotesques and gryphons, and cherubs bearing Coat of
Arms of Swann family. Ovolo moulded bressumer. Coved eaves cornice to roof,
stepped down to end right bay, and hipped with stacks to end rear left and
to right. Hipped dormer to right return. Four glazing bar sashes and
tripartite glazing bar sashes to left and to right on 1st floor, 3 glazing
bar sashes, that to Centre with segmental frame, on ground floor, and mullion
and transomed C19 canted bay to left, and tripartite sash to right in C16
canted bay (now flush with underbuilt wall surface). Half-glazed door to
left, early C18 panelled doors to centre left in wooden Gibbs surround, to
centre right in fluted surround with pedimented hood on gryphon brackets, to
right with pediment on brackets, and at end right with mullioned rectangular
fanlight, all with steps; simple rails to centre left. Right return with
recently exposed 5 light mullioned and transomed 1st floor window, and 5
light Venetian-derivative on ground floor, with plank and stud door in fine
moulded and stop-chamfered doorway. Rear, with catslide outshot and rear
hipped wings. The main block, particularly to the east (No. 140 is a very
narrow single room in depth, backed by immense stack. Interior: the
plastered outer wall disguises several surviving mullioned windows. Finely
moulded interior beams, much cut into by conversion C18 to 4 houses. The
construction and decorative details of No. 140 suggest an earlier separate
building here. "Tudor" bosses in ceiling to No. 138. Stone carved fireplaces
especially No. 140 (similar to work in Wye College). The Swan family lived
here C16-C18. The Coat of Arms on the jetty bracket and carved on the fire-
place was granted 1533; the main body of the continuous-jettied building is
unlikely to predate this. (See G.A. Worrall, Wye Local History Magazine,
BOE Kent II, 507).

Listing NGR: TR0525746709