Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Elizabethan courtyard house Grade II* listed building. Main construction periods 1567 to 1987

Monument Types

• COURTYARD HOUSE (Post Medieval to Modern - 1567 AD to 2050 AD)

Full description

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[TQ 70034874] House called Normans belonging to the firm of Oswald Jones, Electricians of Maidstone. Until recently two cottages but now under restoration. (1) Normans, a large square timber framed house of two storeys and attics, with a small central courtyard. It is close studded mainly with plaster infilling but some modern brick herringbone is evident in the SW side. The principal SE facing front is triple gabled, jettied and exhibits carved barge boards and brackets and moulded fascias. It has bay windows in the lower storey and oriels in the upper. The stonework of the two exterior chimneys appears to be original. Restoration is in progress and externally is in style (the interior was not visited). Some of the wooden mullions are original. A fine example of an Elizabethan courtyard house. (2) Checked and correct. (3) [TQ 70034874] Normans [NR] (4) Normans Cottages, Benover. Grade II*. A timbered frame building with plastered front. (5) The Normans (formerly listed as in Auth. 5) Grade II*. A house, formerly two cottages. Late 16th or early 17th century, restored in the mid-20th century. (6) Additional bibliography. (7)(8)

Description from record TQ 74 NW 228:
The following text is from the original listed building designation:
YALDING BENOVER ROAD TQ 74 NW (south-west side) 4/64 The Normans (formerly listed as Normans 13-5-67 Cottages, Benover) GV II*
House, formerly cottages, now house. Late C16 or early C17, restored in mid C20. Timber framed, with rendered infilling. Herringbone brick infilling (probably C20) to left return. Plain tile roof. Courtyard house. Front range faces south-east, with symmetrical central-entry plan of 3 timber-framed bays, that to centre shorter. Rear range has 5 timber- framed bays; central stackbay, with one room comprising two timber-framed bays to left (south-west), and one long bay and one very short gable-end bay to right. Front and rear ranges joined by a single bay each side of a small courtyard. 2 storeys and attic, on ragstone plinth. Close-studded all round, including courtyard elevations, but excepting part of left return. Each floor has secondary midrail half way up. Front elevation: continuous jetty, with moulded bressumer and enriched solid-spandrel brackets. Similar continuous eaves jetty, carried on projecting tie-beam and wall-plate ends, and supporting three gables, that to centre smaller. All three have enriched bargeboards and moulded finials and pendants. Hipped roof to rear range, hips returning forwards to form sides of outer gables. Eaves and ridges continuous throughout house. Long curved sprockets. Projecting gable end stacks to front range, each dressed stone, on chamfered stone plinth, and with stone slab offsets. Left stack has red brick flue in English-type bond, with tumbled shoulders. Right stack has two diagonally-set flues on red and grey brick plinth in English bond, with moulded cornice. Central multiple brick ridge stack to rear range. Ovolo-moulded mullion windows to gables; one four-light to each outer gable and one two-light to centre. Regular 3-window front of rectangular moulded mullioned and transomed oriel windows on enriched brackets; one twelve- light with three-light ovolo-moulded mullioned frieze windows to each outer bay, and one ten-light with single-light ovolo-moulded frieze windows to central bay. Ground floor has similar frieze windows and twelve-light bay window, the latter on chamfered ragstone base, to each outer bay, and one four-light ovolo-moulded mullioned window (deepened to eight-light, probably later) to central bay. Broad moulded rectangular doorway with ribbed boarded door, up three ragstone steps to left side of central bay. Left return elevation: eight-light moulded mullioned and transomed window on chamfered stone base to left end of rear range. Moulded rectangular doorway to shorter central bay. Rear elevation: irregular fenestration of ovolo-moulded mullion windows (mainly original) to both floors. Right return elevation: three-light ovolo-moulded mullion window to right end of front range, behind stack. Boarded door in C20 recess to right end of rear range. Courtyard: ovolo-moulded mullion windows to each face, on each floor. Original rectangular doorway to rear range, in rear right corner. Interior: exposed framing. Front range has chamfered axial beam with chamfered tenoned cross beam to right and left rooms on each floor, and axial beam to entrance hall. Rear range has chamfered cross beam and chamfered tenoned axial beams to left room on each floor, and chamfered axial beam to right room. Axial joists to central left room on ground floor, and chamfered axial beam to central right room. Shaped jowls of large scantling to principal posts, except to front corners. Each range has clasped-purlin roof with diminishing principal rafters, curved windbraces, and intermediate collars, but no queen struts. Each corner turned on three principal rafters of particularly large scantling. Broad attic floorboards. Timber-framed partitions throughout house, framed with two panels per storey. Moulded rectangular doorways to front range rooms on ground floor. More simply-moulded doorway from stair hall to left room of rear range on both floors, and to head of smaller right staircase on first floor. Moulded four-centred-arched stone fireplace with rose and spear-leaf spandrels, dressing in very light relief, and vase stops with strapwork to chamfer below them, to both ground-floor rooms and left first-floor room of front range (right first-floor fireplace blocked). Broad, tooled stone fireplace with plain chamfer, vase stops, and chamfered wooden bressumer, to left and right ground-floor rooms of rear range, and small chamfered stone fireplace with bressumer to left first-floor room. Broad C20 open-well staircase in a C17 style, with turned oak balusters and moulded handrail, to central bay of left return. Small enclosed single-flight staircase to central bay of right return. A relatively uncommon house in this area. Listing NGR: TQ7003648742 (11)

<1> Mr T Cheeseman Congelow Farm Yalding (OS Card Reference). SKE47422.

<2> F1 CFW 08-JAN-59 (OS Card Reference). SKE42481.

<3> F2 ASP 14-JAN-64 (OS Card Reference). SKE43110.

<4> OS 1:10000 1977 (OS Card Reference). SKE48162.

<5> MHLG (Maidsone RD) 2225/11/A October 1960 84 (OS Card Reference). SKE47053.

<6> DOE (HHR) District of Maidstone Kent 14 October 1987 46-47 (OS Card Reference). SKE40498.

<7> Bldgs of Eng-West Kent & the Weald 1980 622 (J Newman) (OS Card Reference). SKE38168.

<8> Trans Ancient Monuments Soc New Series 4 1956 13 (OS Card Reference). SKE50621.

<9> Field report for monument TQ 74 NW 2 - January, 1959 (Bibliographic reference). SKE3741.

<10> Field report for monument TQ 74 NW 2 - January, 1964 (Bibliographic reference). SKE3742.

<11> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

Sources and further reading