King's Head Hotel is a Grade II listed building in the Medway local planning authority area, England. First listed on 24 October 1950. A C17 Hotel. 1 related planning application.

King's Head Hotel

WRENN ID
veiled-merlon-crimson
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
Medway
Constituency
Rochester and Strood MP: Lauren Edwards (Lab)
Country
England
Date first listed
24 October 1950
Type
Hotel
Address
King's Head Hotel, High Street, ME1 1LD
OS grid reference
TQ 742 686
Coordinates
51.38983, 0.50345
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: sale history · EPC · related consents · flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The King's Head Hotel is a Grade II listed building located on Rochester High Street. It features a 17th-century rear wing and an 18th-century front range that has been altered and re-faced in the late 19th century. The hotel includes 19th-century rear ranges along Boley Hill. The structure is part timber framed and mostly rendered brick, topped with a roof of Kent tile and slate.

The front of the building is three stories high with a regular three-window arrangement. It has a moulded cornice and tripartite hornless sash windows, arranged as 6:24:6 and 4:16:4 panes, set under depressed arches on the upper floors. A prominent plat band displays the hotel's name in large letters. The ground floor features Edwardian brown tiling and fenestration, with a cornice and fascia that wraps around a curved corner and extends along the Boley Hill elevation. The wide central entrance is flanked by three-light windows with glazing bars, and the cornice here projects to support iron brattishing.

The Boley Hill elevation retains some of the 18th-century dentilled cornice, with the plat band continuing. The rear ranges show varied frontages reflecting their different construction dates, including an older wing that jetties at the second floor level and a back block that is top lit. The windows generally consist of 12 and 16-pane hornless sash styles, with some 20th-century casements at ground level.

Inside, there is much late 20th-century joinery, and an open well stair that extends through three stories. A room at the rear features large joists.

Local climate

King's Head Hotel sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 720 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 84% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 74% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 23 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 76% of listed buildings. Of these, 11 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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  • Full EPC report — heating system, energy costs, size, glazing, construction etc.
  • Sale history — 1 transaction since 2017
  • Related listed building consents — 1 application
  • Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
  • Flood risk assessment
  • Radon risk assessment
  • Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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