Kite Manor

Kite Manor is a house dating back to the 15th century, with significant alterations made in the mid-to-late 16th century, the early 18th century, and the 19th century. It is constructed of timber framing, with plaster infilling, and has a plain tile roof. The ground floor of the bay to the right end is brick, laid in a mixed bond. The house is built in the Wealden style, characterised by unequal-length hall bays and a storeyed bay at each end. The hall was floored in the 16th century, and the first floor of the end bays projects in a jettied fashion.

The front has a stone plinth, capped in brick on the right end. The timber framing is close-studded. The left end bay is jettied on solid brackets. The right end bay was formerly jettied, with the jetty returning to the right, but is now underbuilt. The hall's jetty is higher, featuring a moulded and brattished fascia board and moulding to the base of the central bracket. The roof is steeply pitched and hipped. There are red brick stacks positioned in the front slope of the roof towards the right end of the left hall bay, and a projecting brick stack at the right end. Cogged brick cornices define both stacks and the base of the right stack, with a plaque on the latter.

The windows are irregular in number and arrangement. A four-light wood mullion window from 1707 is present in the left end bay. Above the front door is a similar five-light window with leaded external glazing. The right end bay features a gabled oriel window extending through the eaves, which contains a later two-light stained-glass window within a carved bargeboard. The front also has a ten-light moulded mullioned and transomed window with leaded lights, canted side pieces, a moulded cill, and a coved plastered base with a brattished strip. The cill has been renewed but is said to have been originally dated 1574. Below it is a twelve-light moulded mullioned and transomed window from the same period, with side-lights, resting on a brick base with moulded two-light mullioned frieze windows. Hollow-chamfered spines are present under a moulded, brattished strip to the left end of the hall. A ribbed and studded door provides access. A single-storey addition, timber-framed and brick-clad in a stretcher bond, stands to the front on the left side, with a plain tile roof and a brick gable end stack with a cogged cornice. Rear lean-tos are also present.

The interior reveals exposed timber framing. Notable features include moulded and brattished end-of-hall beams, with a close-studded partition beneath the one on the right. A moulded octagonal crown-post sits on a doubly hollow-chamfered tie-beam, originally arch-braced. There are rebated hollow-chamfered principal posts, and a hollow-chamfered axial tie-beam with solid spandrel braces to the left end bay. Four-centred-arched, hollow-chamfered service and rear doorways are also present. The inserted hall floor has a moulded axial beam and chamfered joists. The hall features a moulded, four-centred-arched wooden fireplace bressumer with carved spandrels, an integral moulded, brattished mantelpiece, and is dated 1578. Deep wooden hall window-cills and a late 17th or early 18th century dog-leg staircase with a moulded handrail and barley-sugar balusters add to the detail. Wall paintings in the stairwell depict a house, and octagonal brick flues are visible to the right end stack.