Old Hall And Old Vicarage

Old Hall and Old Vicarage

This house on Boley Hill in Rochester is a nationally important example of domestic architecture spanning nearly 400 years, from the late 13th century to the 18th century. It was substantially restored in the late 1940s after bomb damage.

The building's earliest feature is a vaulted undercroft from the late 13th century, one of very few such structures known to survive in Rochester. This vaulted space has a quadripartite vault with chamfered ribs and plain springers.

The main hall range was built in the early 16th century for the Skipwell family and runs east-west parallel to the street. It was modernised and re-floored in the late 16th century by Richard Watts. The building subsequently received extensions in the early 17th century, mid-18th century, and later periods. Its construction is predominantly timber-framed rubble ragstone and limestone with brick stacks and infill, under Kent tiled roofs.

The exterior displays a complex arrangement of wings. A shallow cross-wing contains the main entrance to the left, itself partly obscured by a late 17th or 18th century wing that projects forward to street level and has been re-fronted in brick in the late 18th century. This forward wing stands over the undercroft. To the right is a later 16th century cross-wing, which was further extended westward by a series of gabled bays facing Satis House.

The front facade shows a jettied attic in the shallow cross-wing with a gabled oriel on scrolled brackets containing 2-5-2 lights with transom and ovolo mouldings. Two smaller gabled bays to the right display exposed timber framing of close studding with rails and occasional straight angle braces. Four first-floor 12-pane sash windows sit in exposed frames. An early 19th-century doorway with classical surround and panelled door provides access. To the right is a later 19th-century single-storey extension with tripartite 10-15-10 pane sash windows. The low two-storey wing over the undercroft is tile-hung on the right side and rendered to the left, featuring a large external lateral stack with set-offs. Its front is a regular Georgian arrangement of three windows with 12-pane sashes in reveals under flat rubbed brick arches, with a fielded panel door under a rectangular overlight to the right. The right return of the main house is gabled and rendered with some framing visible and first-floor sashes matching those to the front. The rear elevation is irregular, with the cross-wing oriel lacking a gable but retaining its jettied form and exposed timber framing with replica 16th-century windows to lower floors. The rear wing displays much original framing with largely renewed windows.

The interior contains a remarkable collection of late 16th and early 17th-century painted wall panelling documented by Arthur Oswald in Country Life (1953). The ground-floor hall features ovolo-moulded ceiling beams and plain joists, with one panelled door bearing fleur-de-lis strap hinges and a re-used wooden lintel serving as a fireplace bressumer. The first floor above the hall, termed the solar, contains a stone fireplace with initials A and H in the spandrels and small panelling throughout comprising five tiers of grained oak with painted designs of hearts to the centre and lozenges at the junction of stiles and muntins, finished with cyma mouldings. The ceiling features ovolo-moulded beams. The second floor above the hall has a fireplace with high-set stops and initial letters on shields in the spandrels (W decipherable on the right), together with plaster panels of the exposed side wall bearing 'antiqued' line drawings of the early 17th century. The west wing contains an open stair with turned balusters on rising rail and the so-called 'Justice Room', fully panelled with decoration similar to the solar and featuring integral painted figures representing Prudence and Justice over the stone fireplace. Another room contains panelling removed from Langley House. Numerous other 16th and 17th-century features survive throughout the house.