Rowling House

Rowling House is a house dating from the 16th century, clad in the 18th century and extended in the mid-19th century. It has a timber frame covered with painted brick and buff brick extensions. The house features slate roofs and stands two storeys high with an attic on a plinth. It has boxed eaves and a hipped roof with two flat-roofed dormers and a central stack. The first floor has five glazing bar sash windows, while the ground floor has four, both with gauged heads. The central door consists of six raised and fielded panels. To the left, the house is extended by two separately roofed two-storey blocks; the adjacent block has a dogtooth cornice and gable, while the end block is hipped, with stacks on the left and rear left, and one glazing bar sash window on each floor of both blocks. There is a projecting two-storey hipped bay on the right return. The exterior was undergoing repairs at the time of the survey.

Inside, the house features an exposed frame with stop-moulded joists in the main hall and inglenook fireplaces. The dining room has sunk panelling and moulded 18th-century wooden fire surrounds. There is an open well with a dogleg late 18th-century staircase and a newel stair, along with a clasped purlin roof. Historically, the house was an ancient manor and later belonged to the Bridges family of Goodnestone Park. It was rented by Edward Austen, who later became Edward Knight of Godmersham Park, and was the son-in-law of Sir Brook Bridges and brother of Jane Austen. The house and its surroundings are frequently mentioned in Jane Austen's letters from 1791 to 1797 and her literary works. A later tenant, George Dering, around 1800, may explain the Dering windows and the Pluckley-style architecture typical of early 19th-century buildings in the Goodnestone estate.