Evegate Manor

EVEGATE MANOR, STATION ROAD, SMEETH

Originally a manor house, later farmhouse, now house. The building retains remains of an early 14th-century open hall and service end with a contemporary south-western crosswing. An early 16th-century south-western wing comprises the first floor and roof, and an early 16th-century north-eastern wall now forms an internal partition. The northern range was extensively refurbished in the early 17th century, and a south-eastern range was added in the 18th century. The building underwent refenestration around 1965.

The structure is constructed mainly of Kentish ragstone rubble with red brick dressings. The crosswing is part timber-framed, and the first floor of part of the west side is of red brick and tile-hung. The roofs are plain tiled with brick chimneysstacks. The plan comprises two parallel ranges with a south-western crosswing.

The northern range originally comprised the open hall with service end, which was later truncated and adapted in the early 17th century to form a lobby entrance house. The south-eastern range dates to the 18th century. The building is of two storeys with irregular fenestration, mainly 20th-century wooden mullioned and transomed casements with leaded lights.

The north or entrance front of two storeys rises on a plinth beneath a steeply pitched hipped roof with a central clustered brick chimneystack. Mid-20th-century mullioned and transomed windows occupy the front, with three on the first floor and two on the ground floor within openings partly blocked with 17th-century or earlier red brick. A central 20th-century plank and stud door stands opposite the chimneystack. Two massive stone clasping offset buttresses support the north-west corner. A projecting brick outshot to the north-east contains a wooden casement and half-glazed door. The west front has two windows at the end of the northern range, with a blocked basement opening and infilled segmental arches now containing smaller 18th-century brick-lined openings. The eastern wall to the 14th-century wing shows stone rubble on the ground floor and a mixture of brick and tile-hanging on the first floor. The south front of the crosswing features a gable with a casement window on the first floor. The ground floor has a 14th-century small round-headed lancet with a single shaped keystone of 14th-century date. The remainder of the south front is 18th-century, constructed of stone rubble with some galleting and a hipped roof with an off-centre brick chimneystack. Three 20th-century mullioned and transomed windows occupy the first floor, two on the ground floor, and a central bay contains a 20th-century glazed door. The east side is also of stone rubble with some galleting and retains some 19th-century casements in earlier brick surrounds, one originally a doorcase. Both the north and south ranges have outshots, and a 20th-century conservatory has been added.

Interior features of significance include the south-western crosswing ground floor room, which has an internal plinth, a 14th-century lancet window, and a blocked round-headed opening to the west. Early 16th-century ceiling beams of square section with an iron hook, probably of 18th-century date, suggest the room was once adapted to form a larder. The floor is of 18th-century brick. The southern wall of the northern range contains a small internal window against the 18th-century southern range. Its outer or south-east face has colonnettes with mutilated caps and bases, probably of early 14th-century date or earlier, and may once have been an aumbry or piscina.

The first floor above the south-western crosswing contains a central open truss with solid arch braces to a simple tie beam and a simple collar rafter roof of circa 1500–1535. The northern range's former open hall and service end were much altered first in the early 16th century by the insertion of an eastern wall with midrail and close-studding, now internal, but principally in the late 16th or early 17th century by the insertion of a chimneystack and floor. This work includes chamfered ceiling beams with run-out or lambs-tongue stops, cross beams with roll moulding, and jowled posts. Several good-quality early 17th-century ovolo-moulded door surrounds with carved circular stops and studded doors survive. The 18th-century southern range has ogee-shaped braces to the first floor. The massive late 16th-century inserted chimneystack to the northern range is visible in the roof space. The northern range has a staggered purlin roof of 17th and 18th-century date with reused timbers, and three sides of an 18th-century lath and plaster partition remain, probably for storage purposes.

Evegate Manor is recorded in Domesday Book and later became a sub-manor of the Archbishop of Canterbury's manor of Aldington. From at least 1307 to 1452–53 it was held by the Passele or Pashley family. The stone open hall may have been built for Sir Edmund Pashley, who inherited in 1341 and died in 1361. After the mid-15th century the property passed first to the Pimpes of Nettlestead Place and then to the Scotts of Scott Hall. A codicil to the will of Sir Thomas Scott, dated 17 December 1594, states: "That my executors shall finish the buildings which I have begonne at Thevegate for Dame Dorothie, my wife", which may refer to the late 16th and early 17th-century refurbishment of Evegate Manor. The Scotts of Scott Hall held the manor until the late 18th century. In 1965 the building was sold separately from the adjoining farm.