Horne'S Place

Horne's Place is a house with private chapel, built in phases from the late 14th century onwards. The building combines a late 14th-century chapel with a house to its north-east, substantially altered and expanded in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.

The chapel is constructed of Kentish ragstone rubble with a tiled roof. Its west front features a double cinquefoil window and a blocked 4-centred arch with a cambered ground floor entrance. The south front displays an ogee opening with a window of three cinquefoil-headed lights and includes a hagioscope. The east and north fronts each have traceried windows with triple cinquefoil heads. The chapel was reroofed around 1520 and contains a barrel-vaulted undercroft. The roof comprises four heavily moulded arch braces rising from corbels, dating to around 1520.

The main house is timber-framed with brick infill, tile hanging to the first floor, and a tiled roof with three tall brick chimneystacks. The principal architectural feature is the very elaborate solar wing, built between 1480 and 1520 with one room on each floor. This wing is decorated with fine late 15th or early 16th-century work. The first-floor chamber is jettied to the north and contains an elaborate crown post moulded in four sections with roll moulding, supported on a roll-moulded and crenellated tie beam. The rafter couples are linked by collars braced with soulaces, and every fifth rafter couple is carved with a cross. The ground floor of the solar wing has roll-moulded beams of around 1500 and a 17th-century brick fireplace with wooden bressummer.

The north-west front of the house features a gable marking the end of the solar wing. The first floor is tile-hung with four 19th-century casements. The ground floor is partly underbuilt, supported on three carved brackets, with a projecting doorcase containing a six-panelled door and rectangular fanlight. The exposed frame to the ground floor is mainly 17th-century. The left side return has a hipped roof with an end external chimneystack and catslide roof. The link block to the chapel features a 17th-century box frame with plaster infill, terminating in a tile-hung gable. The right side of the solar wing is tile-hung with two three-light windows. The rear of the solar wing has a hipped roof with one three-light casement to the first floor and a plank doorcase in moulded architraves to the ground floor.

In the late 16th or early 17th century, the medieval open hall was replaced by the present hall range of continuous jetty form, which originally had a lobby entry. The roof is of side purlins type. The ground floor ceiling of the hall contains reused side purlins from the medieval solar room together with a contemporary chamfered spine beam with lamb's tongue stops. A large open fireplace has a wooden bressummer. The north-western ground floor room contains a dragon beam. The building retains some 19th-century iron firegrates and two panelled doors.

Horne's Place has been the seat of the Horne family since 1276, when Edward I granted land to Matthew de Horne. During Wat Tyler's rebellion of 1381, the property was entered and goods worth £10 were stolen, though this reference must relate to an earlier building on the site.