Hales Place

BIDDENDEN

945/0/10020 CRANBROOK ROAD 23-AUG-05 Hales Place

II House. Second half of C18. Refenestrated in early C20 and porch added after the 1960s. Timberframed on a Flemish bond plinth, the ground floor and side elevations mainly weatherboarded, the first floor of the south or front elevation tile-hung, including one course each of curved and pointed tiles. The roof is tiled with end brick chimneystacks and catslide roof over the rear outshot. Two storeys: two windows. PLAN: A two bay end chimneystack house with integral outshot. EXTERIOR: The front or south elevation has early C20 wooden casements, including triple windows to the ground floor. Gabled C20 brick and timberframed porch with plank door. The rear or north elevation has a gabled mid C20 dormer with leaded light casement inserted into the catslide void and three early C20 casement windows, which includes a metal grille to the pantry. Central plank door. INTERIOR: Originally there were two rooms on each floor and service rooms in the outshot. The partition between the ground floor rooms has been removed but leaving exposed floor joists. The eastern part has a wide open brick fireplace with wooden bressumer, including two spice niches and a bricked up aperture for a breadoven (breadoven removed). The western part has a smaller cambered brick opening to the fireplace and was probably the Parlour. There is a brick floor, which probably also survives under carpeting to the western part. The outshot has a series of plank doors and brick floor and a half-winder staircase leads to the upper floor, which has two bedrooms at the front of the house and a further smaller room made in the mid C20 out of a void in the outshot probably originally used for storage. The south eastern bedroom has two cupboards with plank doors either side of the chimney. Traces in the plaster suggest a fireplace was removed and that this room was originally heated. The south western bedroom appears not to have been heated. HISTORY: Hales Place was linked to Hales Place Farm in the early C20, and possibly earlier, when it was the farm manager's house.

A substantially intact second half of C18 timberframed two bay end chimneystack house with integral outshot.