Brook House

Brook House is a house dating from the 15th century or earlier, with significant extensions and alterations in the late 16th century. It has a timber-framed plan, now clad with red brick, tile hanging to the right return, and weatherboarding. The roof is plain tiled, with a hipped section, gablets, and a stack cluster to the centre left, along with a stack at the end right. The house has four framed bays, originally a hall house plan with an aisle and a cross-wing. It is two storeys high, with wooden brackets supporting the eaves. The front features three wooden casements on the first floor and two long ranges of casements on the ground floor, with a single casement to the right. A boarded door is positioned to the centre left, within a hipped, 20th-century porch with sidelights. A square porch is located on the right return, formerly a separate cottage. A catslide roof extends to the rear. The interior shows evidence of an original aisled hall, alongside an early 15th-century jettied cross-wing, which was possibly gabled and explains the wooden brackets to the eaves. A hall tie-beam with decorative braces and a mortise for a crown-post remains. The roof was re-tiled and the house made into two storeys with a continuous jetty, likely in the late 16th century. Surviving features include chamfered heads over service doorways (as documented in Traditional Kent Buildings, Vol. 5). Evidence suggests a surviving "Dragon beam" from the original cross wing.