West Court West Court Farmhouse

West Court Farmhouse

A substantial house of early 14th-century origin, rebuilt and extended in the 16th century, particularly in 1587 for John Parker. The building combines timber framing with brick construction and represents an ambitious but incomplete attempt at gentrification.

The house originated as a hall house and was originally a Grange, possibly a rest-house, of the Canons of St. Martin's, Dover, granted in 1538 to the Archbishops of Canterbury. The Parker family were tenants here in the 16th century, and John Parker, whose initials appear on the 1587 datestone, was confirmed in a coat of arms in 1588.

The structure is timber framed with part exposed close studding and plaster infill, part rendered and part clad and extended with painted brick. The roof is plain tiled. The building comprises a main range with extensions and brick towers to the west and south-west, dated 1587, with the framed 16th-century portion possibly earlier than the brick towers. The intention was to create a sizeable mansion house, but the building programme seems never to have been completed.

The entrance front has two storeys of varying levels with a projecting three-storey tower to the left. The right-hand section features a plinth and plat band with hipped roof stepped up to centre, with a painted flint base and jetty, with close studding and mid-rail frame exposed. A two-storey brick wing projects at the end left and terminates in a three-storey bay and tower with plinth, moulded string and cornice. The brick is laid in Minster Bond, a garden wall bond variant.

The tower displays four-light brick mullioned and transomed windows with label hoods on each floor, with two lights on the return sides, a boarded door to the right side, and a sash window in the connecting wing. The main range includes a three-light wooden casement to the left, blocked mullioned sidelights, two wooden casements and horizontally sliding glazing bar sash to the right on the first floor, and two glazing bar sashes, canted bay and wooden casement on the ground floor. A six-panelled door, with the top two panels glazed, is positioned centre right within a 20th-century brick porch with a slate-roofed outshot to the right.

The rear elevation features a catslide outshot and a projecting hipped staircase tower with brick mullioned and transomed windows. The upper windows are cut off by the roof and interrupted by later stacks, showing evidence of the abandoned building programme. A jettied gable end of the connecting wing faces the front tower, with a renewed mullioned and transomed oriel on original brackets. A garderobe extension appears at the right corner on the first floor. The stair tower has a moulded roundel inscribed with the date 1587. The stacks have been rebuilt with lozenge-set moulding.

Interior: The house reveals gradual development over time. An early 14th-century hall survives with a tall moulded crown post roof and smoke-blackened roof timbers. The main entrance leads into a screens passage. The service end was rebuilt in the 16th century with close-studded extensions featuring moulded ceiling joists supported on carved corbels with cherub's head and strapwork motifs. Further 16th-century extensions include a stair tower with an open-well staircase rising through the entire height of the house, with moulded rail, solid baluster panels, dado panelling and poppy head finials. An upper room has small-panel wainscotting with half-fluted frieze and cornice. Door surrounds in this section are moulded with diamond-stopped chamfers and sunflower motifs. Moulded and panelled 16th-century doors survive throughout. The framed sections have clasped purlin roofs with wind-bracing to the framed central block. Other features include 17th and early 18th-century fitted cupboards and doors with strap and H-hinges and raised panelling.

Historical surveys from 1616 and 1648 describe the brick extensions with towers grandly as "a fair gallery with three turrets leaded over", while other accommodation comprised a hall, great parlour, little parlour, kitchen, buttery, lardyre, washhouse, milkhouse, two cellars, and nine chambers over these rooms.