Broomfields

Broomfields is a detached house in Kentish Vernacular style, designed around 1930 by the architect Gerald E Burgess (1896-1973).

Materials and Construction

The house is constructed of handmade red bricks with some timber-framed gables filled with plaster, including decorative pargetting, and tile-hanging to the first floor with bands of fishscale tiles. The roofs are half-hipped and gabled, covered with tiles. There is a massive stone and brick external chimneystack on the east side, a tall off-centre ribbed brick ridge chimneystack on the south side, and a similar ribbed brick chimneystack facing north. The building features decorated lead guttering and other rainwater goods. Windows are mainly wooden mullioned or mullioned-and-transomed casements with leaded lights, including some decorative stained glass panes, some pictorial.

Plan and Layout

The plan is asymmetrical and roughly L-shaped, rising two and a half storeys with the uppermost floor within the roof space. It comprises two conjoined parallel ranges. The principal rooms—including staircase hall, study, dining room and drawing room—are positioned on the south and east sides, with the service end to the north.

The South Elevation

The principal elevation faces south and extends four bays, dominated by a steeply-pitched hipped roof with two dormers on the eastern side. The penultimate bay to the east has a recessed balcony with turned wooden balustrading and a loggia with an entrance below. Adjoining to the west is a projecting full-height timber-framed gable with close-studding, carved bargeboards and curved tension braces to the first floor. The western bay is open on the ground floor, supported on three timber piers. Originally a loggia, the northern part—which has decorative pargetting and elaborate arched double doors—was later glazed in. The western return has a large gabled dormer. The eastern return of this range features a massive external chimneystack, stepped and built in stone up to first-floor level with brick tumbling-in, brick above with diaper work decoration, and two tall brick diagonally-set stacks.

The East Elevation

The east front was probably originally the entrance front, though the entrance was later blocked. It is dominated by an off-centre projecting full-height jettied gable with close-studding, curved tension braces on the first floor, a moulded bressumer and carved brackets between the first floor and attic. The first-floor four-light oriel window has decorated pargetted panels below depicting squirrels. The ground floor is of brick with stone quoins, and there is a Tudor-style arched doorcase to the north-east with a ribbed oak door. To the north is the plainer plastered wall of the service wing.

The North Elevation

The north elevation of the north range has a steeply-pitched roof with a three-light hipped dormer. The ground floor level has some close-studded timber framing with brick infill and plaster on a brick plinth. A half-hipped range projecting from the north-western end is in similar materials and has the former tradesman's entrance under a gabled hood. The eastern side of the northern range has a steeply-pitched hipped roof to ground floor level and a timber-framed dormer with pargetted plaster decoration. The exterior throughout has highly decorated lead rainwater downpipes and exaggerated horizontal hoppers embossed with flowers, grapes and birds.

Interior: Ground Floor

The oak-panelled ground-floor corridor has a plate-shelf and panelled doors. The south-western ground floor room is lined in plank-and-muntin panelling with a plate-shelf and has two axial beams and floor joists. In the eastern wall is a stone four-centred arched fireplace with brick lining and an overmantel comprising five linenfold panels and three high-relief carved panels.

The adjoining study has a painted wooden fireplace incorporating a curved shelf. The ceiling has a moulded spine beam and chamfered floor joists. The drawing room to the south-west is lined in plank-and-muntin panelling with a plate-shelf and has a series of moulded axial and spine beams, some bearing carpenters' marks. The eastern wall has a stone four-centred arched fireplace with an oak overmantel featuring four panels, a mutule frieze and fluted pilasters with masked heads. The door in the west wall was originally external, but the loggia to which it leads has been partly enclosed. The kitchen, on the north side of the corridor, retains a chamfered spine beam with carpenters' marks.

Interior: Staircase Hall and First Floor

On the east side of the corridor is the staircase hall, which ascends through two floors. It has further plank-and-muntin panelling on the ground floor. The south wall has a massive open fireplace with an ovolo-moulded bressumer, decorated pargetted panels above, and an elaborate brick hood with some tile decoration and herringbone patterns. The well staircase has part-turned bulbous balusters and moulded square newel posts. On the landing, the newel posts have moulded caps with ball finials.

The first floor has a two-bay roof of crownpost type with a square-section crownpost with two head braces. The collar beam terminates in a male and female mask. The tie beam has filled-in mortices indicating it is reused. The first-floor wall framing has decorative pargetting. The east window has heraldic glass and a built-in windowseat below. The first-floor central corridor has arched openings. The western bedroom has some exposed timbers on the northern side. No other bedrooms have this treatment; narrow moulded wooden cornices, picture rails and skirting boards are typical.

Historical Background

An earlier house on the site called Broomfields is illustrated in two paintings owned by the painter Sir John Gilbert (1817-1897), one dated 11 July 1860, held in the Royal Academy collection. They depict a brick building in Jacobean style with Dutch gables and a tower with cupola, of a very different form and style to the present building. One painting has a hand-written annotation reading 'Our house - Broomfields, Wilmington. Before the Barn was removed and Cottage built and with the window introduced as I wished it should be but never did it'. From this it is presumed that the building was owned by Sir John Gilbert, although Gilbert's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography indicates that he lived his entire life at Ivy House, Vanbrugh Park, Blackheath, London.

On the 1881 Census the Bovil family with their coachman and servants are recorded living here. On the 1885 Ordnance Survey map a building on the site called Bloomfield Lodge is shown as one of very few properties in the vicinity, with the settlement pattern typified by occasional houses on the edge of Dartford Heath and Wilmington Common. On the 1891 Census the head of the household is recorded as one Thomas Parker 'living on his own means'. On the 1897 Ordnance Survey map the footprint is unaltered but the building is now called Broomfields. Thomas Parker died in 1912, and a photograph of around 1900 held by the Local Studies Collection refers to Broomfields as 'the former home of a Mrs. Parker (died 1928) which was burnt down and rebuilt'. On both the 1909 and the 1939 Ordnance Survey maps, although a house called Broomfields occupies the same site, the building's footprint is slightly different, although the massing is broadly similar. For instance, there is a new extension to the east and north-west and the removal of some small extensions to the south and north-east. The 1909 Ordnance Survey map shows an L-shaped service building to the north of the house for the first time.

An undated booklet produced by the Hercules Powder Company Ltd (but referring to events in 1957) describes Broomfields as '... an impressive property, worthy of note, situated in Wilmington very near to the manor. This house was designed as an entirety on the Sussex farm manor character and built about 1930 by a well known Architect, Gerald Burgess, who has specialised in reproduction of this nature. Much of the interior is panelled with oak taken from Tudor houses in Kent and many of the beams and timbers were, in fact, taken from St George's Chapel at Windsor, when this was re-roofed in the early 30's. Many of these beams are, therefore, very old indeed and there can still be seen on them the ancient carpenters' markings showing the foot lengths in Roman Characters. Much of the wood carving is modern and unusually good. The floors are throughout made of one foot wide oak planks which would be impossible to replace today, as such timber is unprocurable. the owner of Broomfields is [in the late 1950s] the General Manager of the Dartford Paper Mills, one of the customers of Hercules...'.

The Architect

Gerald E Burgess (1896-1973) was a local architect and surveyor from Dartford, and his records are retained by the Centre for Kentish Studies in Maidstone. Four documents relate to Broomfields, although one is a drawing of a lodge. The others are the architect's drawing of the fireplace in the dining room, dated 3 June 1930, the surround to the lounge, and the Tradesman's porch, dated 14 April 1931.

To the north of the house is a detached range of garages and former stables. These have seen alteration and are not of special interest.