Kings School And Cathedral Visitors Centre

This building, formerly The Deanery and now part of King’s School, is a complex structure incorporating late-medieval and early 16th-century fabric within a building largely dating to 1640 and 1770. The exterior is constructed of random and coursed ragstone and clunch rubble, with Kent tile and Welsh slate roofs. Due to limited access and extensive late-20th century interior alterations, a full understanding of the building’s original plan and development is currently challenging.

The front elevation presents a symmetrical, late 18th-century 2:3:2: bay house with a projecting central bay beneath a brick pediment, topped with a renewed brick parapet featuring a cornice band and stone coping. The windows are 12-pane hornless sash windows with red brick dressings. At the rear, the east wall of the now ruined Chapter House is incorporated into three parallel wings with hipped roofs, featuring a large central stack. A brick and ragstone service wing to the south, which lies on the side of the monastic dorter, displays evidence of rectangular brick window openings from the 16th century. A mid-19th-century brick entrance porch is situated at the north-east angle. A 20th-century brick extension to the south is not of special interest.

Internally, access to the main staircase is restricted. One ground-floor room retains a late 18th-century fire surround. The first floor contains two large chambers from the 16th century with 17th and 18th-century details. The three central bays of the first floor feature stile and muntin panelling with an 18th-century marble fire surround and an overmantel in an 'artisan mannerist' style, though it may be a 19th-century replica. A two-bay room to the south has a four-centred moulded brick fireplace, likely from the early 16th century. There is early to mid-17th-century panelling, probably dating to circa 1640, comprising two fielded and raised panels, a deep coved cornice, pilasters, plinths, two strapwork panels at the base, and primitive Doric capitals. The building was previously listed as The Deanery.