Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Grade I listed building. Main construction periods 1625 to 1899

Monument Types

• HOUSE (Post Medieval - 1625 AD to 1899 AD)

Full description

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The following text is from the original listed building designation:
KEMSING HEAVERHAM 1. 5280 St Clere TQ 55 NE 43/588 lO.9.54. I GV 2. Large house of 2nd quarter of C17. Entrance front of 3 storeys, attic and basement. 5 windows, plus windows in octagonal angle towers. High pitched hipped slated roof has row of coupled tall chimneys, now rendered, all along ridge. 3 pedimented dormers. Modillioned cornice and parapet of 1767 (date on rainwater head). Raised brick quoins and shouldered architraves (now rendered) to sash windows with glazing bars in exposed frames. Projecting Cl9 central porch with rusticated brick columns and stone entablature with ball finials. Inside hall panelling of C18 and good C18 staircase. Also chimneypiece by Sir John Soane, brought from Bank of England. Simpler South front, without towers or porch, has balustraded stone terrace up 7 steps. Later additions to East of house. Related in style to original Chevening House. St Clere, the forecourt wall and gates, the outbuild to North-east and the outbuilding to North-West form a group.
Listing NGR: TQ5769259121

Description from record TQ 55 NE 40 :
(TQ 57655911) St. Clere (NAT) (1) 5280 KEMSING HEAVERHAM St. Clere TQ 55 NE 43/588 10.9.54. I GV 2. Large house of 2nd quarter of C17. Entrance front of 3 storeys, attic and basement. 5 windows, plus windows in octagonal angle towers. High pitched hipped slated roof has row of coupled tall chimneys, now rendered, all along ridge. 3 pedimented dormers. Modillioned cornice and parapet of 1767 (date on rainwater head). Raised brick quoins and shouldered architraves (now rendered) to sash windows with glazing bars in exposed frames. Projecting C19 central porch with rusticated brick columns and stone entablature with ball finials. Inside hall panelling of C18 and good C18 staircase. Also chimneypiece by Sir John Soane, brought from Bank of England. Simpler South front, without towers or porch, has balustraded stone terrace up 7 steps. Later additions to East of house. Related in style to original Chevening House. St Clere, a rectangular, double pile brick house dated to the early 1630s, related to Chevening (TQ 45 NE 12), which in view of the controversial dating of that house and its link with the name Inigo Jones, gives St Clere a national importances as one of the earliest examples of the house-type that Coleshill expressed most perfectly but which only became standardized after 1660, and has thus come to be known, quite wrongly, as the Wren type of house. Here, in its earliest manifestation, it is natural that the turrets, a freakish Jacobeanism, should not have yet been eliminated in the new rationalistic plan. Full architectural description. (2) Additional bibliography - not consulted. (3-5)

<1> OS 1:10000 1968 (OS Card Reference). SKE48152.

<2> Bldgs of Eng W Kent and the Weald 1980 350-51 (J Newman) (OS Card Reference). SKE37996.

<3> DOE(HHR)Dist of Sevenoaks RD Kent Jan 1975 150-51 (OS Card Reference). SKE41351.

<4> A guide to the historic bldgs of Kemsing (VE Bowden) (OS Card Reference). SKE32793.

<5> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

Sources and further reading