Oasthouse At Budd'S Farm Situated To North Of Farmhouse

Oasthouse at Budd's Farm, Wittersham

An oasthouse of early to mid-19th-century date, situated to the north of the farmhouse and converted to residential use in 1982.

The building comprises a rectangular stowage barn with two cylindrical drying kilns set into the north-east elevation. Both drying kilns have tiled bottle-kiln shaped roofs with small bell-shaped caps topped with finials; the south-eastern kiln also bears a weather vane. The stowage barn has a brick-built lower storey and an upper storey clad with weatherboarding. The roof is hipped and tiled, with a gabled dormer on the north-west elevation containing an eight-over-eight-paned sash window. The ground floor kiln windows have segmental arches. The first floor windows on the north-west elevation are modern casements; on the ground floor to the west of the door is one casement window under a segmental arch and two round-arched windows. A further seven windows on the south-east elevation are all modern casements.

The main entrance leads through a door in the south-east kiln into a hallway with a staircase to the first floor landing. The north-west kiln contains the kitchen, with bathroom and dressing room above. The former stowage barn is subdivided downstairs into lobby, living room, and smaller utility rooms and cupboards, with four bedrooms, bathroom, landing, and cupboard on the upper floor. The ceilings downstairs contain exposed beams, while upstairs four regularly spaced parallel beams span the width of the building, suspended below the ceiling and resting on the wall plate. Both wall plate and timber framing are visible in the landing and bedrooms. The roof is of king post construction and appears to be new.

The Tithe Award of 1848 makes no reference to an oasthouse at Budd's Farm, then owned by Earl Thanet and tenanted by William Knight. The building appears on Ordnance Survey maps of 1877 and 1882 as part of a farmyard consisting of ranges of buildings set around a courtyard, with the oasthouse positioned to the south-west. This was the period of Kent's hop-growing industry at its height. In the following years a third, larger round kiln was added to the north-west elevation immediately west of the existing kilns, appearing on OS maps of 1898 and 1908. In the early 20th century the farmhouse was much enlarged, with gardens laid out by Colonel Charles Grey. The oasthouse was used in part as a garden store until its conversion to a dwelling with listed building consent in 1982. Of the farmyard buildings, one has been converted to a dwelling and the remainder demolished.