Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Grade II* listed building. Main construction periods 1633 to 1799 Almshouses of the mid-17th century and later

Monument Types

• ALMSHOUSE (Post Medieval to Modern - 1633 AD to 2050 AD)

Full description

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Description from record TR 25 SE 35 :
[TR 2566 5476] Hospital [NAT] (1) The Gabriel Richards Almshouses (formerly listed as Almshouses), The Street (E side), Goodnestone. Grade II*. [TR 2566 5476 - sited from HHR map]. Almshouses. Mid C17, extended C18. (For full description see list.) (2) The Gabriel Richard Almshouses. The Richards Charity Almshouses as Gabriel Richard's monument calls them are at the N end. He died in 1672, and the inscription speaks of the almshouses as if they already existed. One wants to know the date because the red brick cottage has gable-end to the street with moulded brick details, giant pilasters and a chewed outline to the gable that looks like a rustic attempt at the sophisticated convolutions of the pedimented gables at Broome Park, five miles away. Small mullioned N windows of brick, rendered. Two big chimney breasts on the S side with lozenge-shaped stacks. (3)

The following text is from the original listed building designation:
GOODNESTONE THE STREET TR 25 SE (east side) 3/108 The Gabriel Richards Almshouses (formerly listed 13.10.52 as Almshouses) GV II* Almshouses. Mid C17, extended C18. Red brick and plain tiled roof. The C18 wing of 2 storeys and hipped roof with stacks to rear left and to rear right. Two leaded 3 light wooden casements on each floor, with segmental heads on ground floor, and central segmentally headed boarded door. C17 range: entrance front of 2 storeys on plinth with plat band and moulded dogtooth eaves cornice. Two large stacks project at left and at right, each with 2 star-shaped moulded flues. Irregular fenestration of wooden casements with 2 light rendered brick mullioned window over door to centre left, the door with flat hood on brackets with side screens. More rendered mullioned windows, irregularly placed on rear elevation. Shaped gable to left, with giant pilasters to left and right, with full entablature in brick supporting broken segmental pediment with a pediment thrusting upwards through it, possibly copying the pattern at Broome Park (1635-8). The charity was endowed by Gabriel Richards in his will dated 1671, but the building was already standing. The charity was for 4 aged decayed gentlemen or gentlewomen, born in Kent, and with preference to his own relations. (See B.O.E. Kent II 1983, 335-6; see also Hasted, IX, 247; see also Gabriel Richard's monument in Church of the Holy Cross, Goodnestone.) Listing NGR: TR2541554411 (4)

<1> OS 25" 1898 (OS Card Reference). SKE48255.

<2> DOE(HHR) Dist of Dover 1986 46 (OS Card Reference). SKE40931.

<3> The Bldgs of Eng NE and E Kent 1983 335-336 (J Newman) (OS Card Reference). SKE50117.

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

Sources and further reading