Port Lympne, house, stable block, forecourt walls to east, and loggia, patio, terrace and shell fountain to south

Port Lympne, house, stable block and formal garden on the south side of Aldington Road at Lympne.

The house was built around 1912 by Sir Herbert Baker in Cape Dutch style for Sir Philip Albert Gustave David Sassoon, a British politician, art collector and connoisseur of the decorative arts. Sassoon, who belonged to the internationally famous Baghdadi Jewish business dynasty known to contemporaries as 'the Rothschilds of the East', was regularly described by his contemporaries as 'oriental' – a stereotype he embraced in this deliberately exotic mansion. The architect Philip Tilden made additions during the early 1920s, including doors, the east forecourt, and probably the south loggias, terrace and shell fountain. An interior frieze was added by Glyn Philpot before around 1920, with further decoration by Tilden. Rex Whistler created the tent room in 1933–34. The property was restored from 1973 by J. Aspinall.

The buildings and loggias are constructed in red brick with plain tile roofs. The terrace and fountain are of ashlar stone. The house is laid out in an H-plan with a double-pile central range lying east-west. The entrance front faces east and features a single-storey loggia running east from each end before curving away from the forecourt, with solid walls fronting the forecourt and colonnades beyond it. Forecourt walls continue east from the curve in the loggias. The north loggia connects with the stable block on the north side of the forecourt. The south loggia frames the east side of the south terrace, while a further matching loggia curves to enclose the west side. Land drops to the south of the terrace, permitting loggia basements linked by the terrace retaining wall, with a shell fountain below.

The east elevation, the entrance front, is two storeys on a flush stone plinth. Rusticated quoins are suggested by recessed brick bands. Shaped brick-coped gable ends crown the north and south ends. A narrow central bay breaks forwards slightly, rising above the eaves to form a gable with a small central rubbed brick niche, flanking inverted brick scrolls and a triangular pediment. Two slightly projecting brick stacks, evenly spaced between the central bay and gable ends, have stone shoulders with panelled flues and moulded cornices. A shallow round-headed recess sits at the base of each stack. The front has a regular three-window arrangement: one four-light wooden casement between each stack and the central bay, and one wooden cross-window with a moulded brick floating cornice to the central bay. Six wooden cross-windows light the ground floor – two below each first-floor casement and one within a panel at the base of each stack. A central rectangular doorway has a bolection-moulded stone architrave surmounted by a stone trophy by Tilden, with studded bronze double doors also by Tilden. Doorways and windows to the loggia walls complete this elevation.

The forecourt walls are brick-coped with fourteen stone terms, brought from Stowe, set at intervals against brick pilasters.

The stable block's principal section is two storeys with a hipped roof, a central cupola containing a bell and clock, and three hipped eaves dormers. The south elevation displays shaped gables at the south ends of north-south wings, with intertwined initials PS towards the top of each. A brick ridge stack stands at each end of the central section. The front is a regular five-window arrangement: one cross-window to each gable end with a moulded triangular brick pediment, and two four-light and one central two-light wooden casements to the central section. Moulded brick floating cornices adorn the ground floor windows. A central rectangular bolection-moulded stone doorway, topped with a festooned swan-neck stone pediment, contains glass double doors with filigree ironwork designed by Tilden and an older lunette. A patio of patterned tiles lies between the wings in front of the central section, with three oval steps descending to the terrace.

The terrace's south wall is capped with an open-work stone frieze of variously combined initials PS. Flights of stone steps lead down to flank an oval fountain pool, which runs back into a shell-shaped ashlar recess under the terrace. A concave flight of stone steps descends from the pool to the lawn. The west elevation is similar to the east elevation but without the central gable and break, and features a three-bay loggia.

The interior has only been partly inspected. A patterned black-and-white marble floor runs through the ground-floor passage between the east and west doors. The staircase is flanked by blue marble columns on the ground floor and pink marble columns on the first floor, with an iron balustrade copied from Caroline Park, Scotland. A Moorish patio by Tilden leads off the staircase to the north. An Egyptian frieze by Philpot decorates the south-west room of the west wing, originally in the south-west room of the central section. The tent room by Whistler, positioned to the north-east side of the passage, is said to be one of the finest examples of his work. An octagonal library sits behind the north-east loggia. The grounds and fittings are inspired by Roman associations of the site. The property served as a venue for Peace Conferences in 1920–21.