Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Grade I listed building. Main construction periods 1793 to 1834. Voluntary Aid Detachment hospital at Clare House 1914-1918

Monument Types

• HOUSE (Post Medieval - 1793 AD to 1834 AD)
• (Alternate Type) HOSPITAL (Modern - 1914 AD to 1918 AD (at some time))

Full description

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(TQ 69475773) Clare House (NAT) (1) Clare Lane Clare House Park I Clare House This delightful Regency house is surrounded by landscaped park on the opposite side of the road to Bradbourne. It was built by John Larkin, a prosperous timber merchant, who bought several hundred acres from Sir Roger Twisden of Bradbourne in 1793. The name of the designer of the house is obscure, but the unusual plan of circular, oval and octagonal rooms grouped round a circular stair-case hall, has been attributed on stylistic grounds to John Plaw. The most attractive feature of the exterior is the curved loggis and balcony of the entrance front and the dome that surmounts the staircase well. The interior has recently been restored. Reference Country Life. Vol.C.V.I.No.2749. Article by Gordon Nares. (2) Clare House, north west of East Malling. A charming neo-classical villa built in 1793 for John Larking by Michael Searles. Two storeyed, rendered a pinkish white. Windows cut into the walls without surrounds. Heavy projecting slate roofs. From the south one sees a five-bay box, bowing forward in the centre three bays, which are encircled by a one-storey colonnade of coupled Tuscan coloumns. Behind, to left and right, short wings ending polygonally. Above a low dome on a drum like a concave-sided lozenge with chamfered corners, a complex shape produced by chimneystacks hidden in it. The veranda that shades the rooms over the colonnade, not intended by Searles, clouds the pellucid geometrical design. Circular central hall, with one big room leading off it in each direction, a circular library to the south, to the east the dining room, like an elongated octagon, and the drawing room, an oval, to the west. Entrance vestibule and a lobby fitted into the odd corners of the square delightful staircase in the hall swinging up to a first floor balcony. Wrought iron balustrade. The decoration is reduced to a minimum, just a palmette plaster friezes, and marble chimneypieces. Bedrooms on the first floor the same size and shapes as the ground floor rooms. The same plan in the cellars and attics. Office wing on the north side later widened. (3)

Description from record TQ 65 NE 242:
The following text is from the original listed building designation:
EAST MALLING & LARKFIELD CLARE LANE TQ 65 NE (north side) 7/152 1.8.52 Clare House
- I
House. 1793 for John Larking by Michael Starles of Blackheath. Stuccoed brick with wide-spreading boxed eaves to slate roof. Trilobed plan with central square block flanked by two octagonal bays, fronted by bow with concentric two- storey loggia. 2 storeys; 3 bays in ends of lobes, single bays in sides of flanking lobes and in revealed corners of square central box. Glazing bar sashes windows, with projecting sills on 1st floor, lengthened to ground level below. 2 doorways with architrave surrounds and shallow flat hoods on brackets in bays flanking central bow. Bowed loggia on attenuated Tuscan columns carry- ing entablature and 1st floor loggia. Doubled iron supports with cast-iron sup- ports with cast-iron railings carrying lead-carved awning with decorated fringe. Bowed roof above with low stacks at angles behind, in front of lead-carved dome. Large square block added to rear, circa 1814, including a conservatory project- ing to left at rear. INTERIOR: Central circular 2-storey top-lit stairwell. Stair with two-lights and intermediate landing, iron balustrade and wooden hand- rail, leading up around the rear of the stairwell, anti-clockwise. Drawing-room: Oval with moulded decorated plaster cornice. Peer glasses inset between windows with reeded surrounds and swagged tops. Marble pilastered fire surround. Dining room: Stretched octagon. Decorated moulded plaster cornice. Arched recesses either side of door with composite columns and gilded capitals. Marble pilastered fire surround. Library: Moulded plaster cornice. Black marble fire surround in quasi-Egyptian style. Halls: Moulded decorative plaster cornice. 1st floor: Various moulded decorative plaster cornices and moulded wooden fire surrounds. Sources: Country Life, CVI, September 16th & 23rd, 1949. Listing NGR: TQ6945757738 (4)

Voluntary Aid Detachment hospital at Clare House 1914-1918 (5)

<1> OS 1:2500 1968 (OS Card Reference). SKE48210.

<2> DOE (HHR) Dist of Malling RD Kent May 1950 28 (OS Card Reference). SKE40310.

<3> Bldgs of Eng W Kent & the Weald 1980 266-7 (J Newman) (OS Card Reference). SKE37862.

<4> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

<5> Hazel Basford, 2004, Kent VAD - the work of voluntary aid detachments in Kent during the first World War (Unpublished document). SKE31644.

Sources and further reading