Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Grade I listed building.

Monument Types

• SITE (Post Medieval to Modern - 1557 AD to 2050 AD) + Sci.Date

Full description

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The following text is from the original listed building designation:
CRANBROOK BIDDENDEN ROAD TQ 83 NW (north side) Sissinghurst 4/26 West Range at Sissinghurst Castle 9.6.52 (formerly listed as part of Sissinghurst Castle) GV I
Stable range, now house and 2 flats. Circa 1490, restored and altered C1930-40, for Sir Harold Nicholson and Vita Sackville-West. Red brick with rubbed red brick mouldings. Plat band to right of centre and a gabled projections. Plain tiled roofs, hipped with deep gablet to left, gabled with tumbled parapet to right. end stack to right, tall ridge stack off-centre to right and circa 1930 stack with projecting buttressed chimney breast to front towards left-hand end. Return tumble-parapetted gabled projections to left and right of centre, with single 3-centred arched windows with simple Perpendicular-style brick tracery in recessed surrounds under brick drip-moulds on first and attic floors. Very wide 3-centred arched recesses on ground floor with boarded doors in recess. Two storeys and attics in centre and to right with 4 gabled dormers. Irregular fenestration of 14 windows on the first floor, including the 2 arched and traceried windows in the gabled projections and a third, without recess or drip- mould, 5 windows from the left. Five windows on the ground floor. Wooden case- ments with diamond lattice glazing in rubbed brick surrounds. Boarded doors in recesses below gabled projections, as well as to right of centre, and towards right-hand end with flat hood. Central archway between projections, with 3- centred arched surround and stone mouldings. Drip-mould and crests in the spandrels. To the rear, the arch is flanked by buttresses topped by moulded octagonal brick chimneys with a parapetted gable in between at roof level. Moulded octagonal pinnacle to gable with round panel below over brick mullioned window with drip-mould. Similar irregular fenestration as east front, and boarded doors to left and right ends and to right of centre. This was the entrance range of a house earlier than that later built to the east by Sir Richard Baker who inherited in 1558. The coat of arms over the inner arch- way, dated 1548, was brought from Carnock in Stirlingshire. See N Nicholson, Sissinghurst Castle, National Trust, 1983.
Listing NGR: TQ8077038394
(1)

Dendrochronology dating gave a date range of 1557-1592. (2)

In 2010 Archaeology South-East carried out a survey of the building. The first part of the structure was built in the early 16th century. It was a three-bay timber-framed structure. It was faced on its western elevation with brickwork, probably shortly prior to its extension to the north and south, carried out as part of the creation of the Baker's courtyard house in the late 16th century. During the use of the site as a French prisoner of war camp in the 18th century, the northern part of the range was used as dormitories. In the 19th century the northern range was used for stabling whilst the southern was used for farm-workers' accommodation. In the 20th century the northern range was converted to domestic space with a fireplace constructed from stonework found reused in a culvert on the site. (3)

<1> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

<2> Vernacular Architecture Group, ADS Dendrochronology Database, Vol. 24, Pg. 40 (Website). SKE17391.

<3> Archaeology South-East, 2011, Sissinghurst Castle, Sissinghurst, Cranbrook, Kent: Conservation Management Plan volume 3 (Unpublished document). SKE25133.

Sources and further reading

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