Hay House

Hay House, on Sir John Moore Avenue in Hythe, is a Grade II listed building. Originally known as the Commandant's House and later as Paddock House, it was built around 1804 and converted into six flats in the late 20th century, having undergone alterations in the later 19th and 20th centuries.

The house is constructed of painted brick with a brick dentil course, a hipped slate roof, and six-over-six timber sliding-sash windows. It is rectangular in plan, comprising a long hip-roofed range to the south with four perpendicular hipped roofs to the north. The building has six chimney stacks and a two-storey pitch-roofed out-shut to the north. The principal entrance faces east, while the garden front faces south.

The east elevation is three bays wide, featuring a central doorway with a semi-circular fanlight and ground and first-floor windows on either side. The original list description noted a porch and doorcase with two engaged Tuscan columns, which no longer remain. The south elevation has four bays, with ground floor windows consisting of three-light sashes set within recessed segmentally-arched heads.

The house was purchased in 1809 as a residence for the Commandant of the Royal Staff Corps and Director of the Royal Military Canal. It stood adjacent to Hythe barracks, which were built between 1808 and 1810 to provide a new depot for the Royal Staff Corps, previously stationed at Chatham.

Lieutenant Colonel John Brown (baptised 1756, died 1816), later promoted to Major-General, was a military engineer and accomplished watercolour artist. He conceived the idea of the Royal Military Canal in 1804 as the principal element of coastal defence for Kent and Sussex against the threat of French invasion. The coastline between Folkestone and Hastings was particularly vulnerable to landing, and the canal was designed to act as a defensive line containing the enemy on Romney Marshes. Under Brown's direction, the Royal Staff Corps oversaw the canal's construction, which was completed in 1809. Brown took up residence in the house in 1809 and remained there until his death in 1816.

When the Royal Staff Corps was disbanded in 1837, the barracks became home to the School of Musketry from 1853 onwards, and the Commandant's House became the residence of the Inspector-General of Musketry. The barracks continued in army use until 1969, after which they were demolished. In the late 20th century, the Commandant's House, also known as Paddock House, became known as Hay House and was divided into six flats.