Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Franks Hollow Road

Summary from record TQ 54 SE 31:

Grade II* listed building. Main construction periods 1533 to 1899

Monument Types

• SITE (Medieval to Post Medieval - 1533 AD to 1899 AD)
• HOUSE (HOUSE, Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)

Full description

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(TQ 5642 4303) The Grange (NAT). (1) The Grange, house; Circa mid C16, possibly a remodeling of an earlier house with C19 restoration and additions. Grade II*. (2)

Description from record TQ 54 SE 31:
The following text is from the original listed building designation:
TQ 56 43 BIDBOROUGH FRANKS HOLLOW ROAD
11/2 The Grange 20.10.54 II*
House. Circa mid C16, possibly a remodelling of an earlier house with late C19 restoration and additions. Close-studded framed construction on a stone plinth, the rear wall of the main block underbuilt in brick on the ground floor and tile-hung on the first floor. Late C19 addition clad in imitation close studding with some tile-hanging; peg-tile roof; brick stacks.
Plan: The main block faces north and is a 3 room lobby entrance plan, the hall and lower end room to the right (west) heated from back-to-back fireplaces in an axial stack, the inner room originally unheated with evidence of a former stair rising against the front wall. The lower end was probably a parlour, the position of the C16 kitchen is unclear. In the circa late C19 the house was restored and extended. A rear wing was added at right angles containing a new stair and principal room with a service wing parallel to it and another at right angles.
Exterior: 2 storeys, the main block formerly 3 storeys at the right end. Peg-tile roof, gabled at left end; axial stack with a corbelled brick cornice. Asymmetrical 3:1 window front, the right hand end of the house, which is roofed at right angles, is gabled to the front. The house is jettied to the front and returns with a richly-moulded fascia board to the jetty. C19 front door with strap hinges in a repaired C16 Tudor arched chamfered doorframe with scroll stops with some repair. To the left of the front door 2 ground floor 5-light oriel windows. The oriels may be C19 but some of the mullions, glass and window furniture are original. 3 first floor C19 oriels on brackets. The gabled bay to the right has a heavily-repaired C16 5-light mullioned and transomed window with moulded mullions. The similar first floor oriel above is coved. A 2-light C19 timber window lights the gable, which has curly C19 bargeboards. The left return is tile-hung on the first floor. It has a C19 door. Evidence of one blocked window on the ground floor. A second window, remodelled as a C19 4-light transomed oriel, preserves sockets in the inner lintel for massive, diagonally-set mullions. 2 first floor C19 oriels. The right return has 2 C19 ground floor windows and 2 first floor windows, all in a free C16 style. The rear elevation has similar C19 windows and a C19 lateral stack with a divided chimneybreast and tall shaft with a corbelled brick cornice. The C19 rear wing is in a style to match the main block, jettied on the inner (east) side and south end, the windows with square leaded panes with a lateral stack with a tall shaft with a corbelled brick cornice. C19 garden door on the east side with glazed panels round the doorframe.
Interior: Well-preserved high quality carpentry in the early block. The hall has richly-moulded intersecting beams and a co-eval open fireplace with moulded stone jambs and a moulded lintel. C18 salt cupboard with cockshead hinges set into the fireback. Chamfered and moulded Tudor arched doorway into the left hand room with step stops and triangular lozenges carved in the spandrels, original plank and stud door with strap hinges. The left and right hand rooms both preserve their exposed, moulded ceiling beams with stopped dragon beams. The fireplace in the right hand room is rebuilt. The internal framing is well-preserved with massive jowled wall posts and large tension braces. The first floor chamber at the west end is now open to the roof timbers, former attic floor having been removed. The C19 rear wing preserves original joinery, a stair with moulded balusters and original chimney-pieces.
Roof: Clasped purlin roof over the west end room of the main range with a tier of windbraces. Remainder of roof not accessible at time of survey (1989).
A C19 drawing of a C16 doorway at The Grange (formerly called Church Farm House) by J. Fremlyn Streatfeild after Charles Bailey is reproduced in Kenneth Gravett's Timber and Brick Building in Kent (1971).
There is said to be a model of the house in the Tunbridge Wells Museum (information from the owner).
Listing NGR: TQ5641843034

A building survey was carried out in 1995 (3)

English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

<1> OS 1:10000 1980 (OS Card Reference). SKE48166.

<2> DOE (HHR) District of Tunbridge Wells, Kent (Bidborough et al) 24th Aug 1990 2-3 (OS Card Reference). SKE40524.

<3> Archaeology South-East, 1995, A Brief Archaeological Interpretative Survey of the Grange, Bidborough, Kent. (Unpublished document). SKE54729.

Sources and further reading