The Abbots Fireside Hotel And Restaurant

The Abbots Fireside Hotel and Restaurant

An inn on the High Street in Elham, originally comprising cottages. The building dates from the early 17th century with a mid-to-late 18th century addition to the right.

The main structure is of two storeys on a rendered plinth. The ground floor is rendered, while the first floor is timber-framed with plaster infilling. The left gable end is built in red and grey brick in English bond. The roof is plain tile, gabled to the left and hipped to the right with a gablet.

The building follows a lobby-entry plan of five timber-framed bays, with a sixth bay added to the right end in the later 18th century. A prominent feature is the continuous jetty at first-floor level, supported by grotesque brackets with an enriched bressumer. The eaves are also jettied to the front, carried on thirteen (probably originally fourteen) grotesque brackets—one at each end, a pair flanking the central stack, a pair flanking each mullioned and transomed window, and a pair flanking the frieze windows of the right-central bay. The brickwork of the left gable end is corbelled out at each jetty level.

The first floor displays close-studding, with a diamond of ornamental panelling beneath the left and central first-floor windows. The left gable end features a moulded brick plinth, a moulded string course between storeys and at eaves level, and moulded detail to the gable apex. A red brick ridge stack occupies the second timber-framed bay from the left.

The fenestration is irregular. The first floor contains five leaded windows: a ten-light ovolo-moulded mullioned-and-transomed window with a two-light ovolo-moulded frieze window to its left and a three-light frieze window to its right; similar mullioned-and-transomed windows with two-light frieze windows in the left-central and right-central bays; and a two-light casement with two-light ovolo-moulded frieze windows in the right end bay. A single casement sits in a rendered gap beneath the stack. Mortices indicate that all four principal windows were formerly oriels. The ground floor has four canted bays with rendered bases: one at the left end with a six-light mullioned and transomed window; one at the left-central bay with a four-light window and a blocked four-light frieze window; and two towards the right with twelve-pane sashes and moulded wooden cornices. There is a two-light ovolo-moulded mullion window to the left of the front door and a small eight-pane sash to the right. The front doors are studded with fifteen panels in a moulded rectangular architrave, set up two steps beneath the stack; a similar seven-panel door serves the right end.

A later red brick rear lean-to has been added.

The mid-to-late 18th century addition to the right is a single bay, rendered on a rendered plinth, with a red and grey brick right gable end and a plain tile roof. It is two storeys with a cellar. A continuous jetty and Ionic-modillioned eaves cornice continue the line of the main range, though the roof has a lower ridge, hipped to the right. Two truncated projecting brick stacks rise from the right gable end. The fenestration comprises a single twelve-pane first-floor sash and two small multipane canted bay windows to the ground floor. A central ribbed door rises four steps and is topped by a semi-circular fanlight with radiating glazing bars.

Interior features (partly inspected): The two central bays form one room with exposed framing. A moulded cross beam, resting at the rear on a corbelled wooden bracket dated 1614, spans the room. Two pairs of ovolo-moulded axial beams form a six-panel ceiling. A moulded rendered fireplace features a moulded attenuated four-centred-arched bressumer carved with dragons or serpents and a central cherub's head. The enriched wooden overmantel displays a moulded, corbelled and finely-dentilled cornice, with a central panel bearing a shield inscribed "richard benet the Smithies arms 1624". A smaller moulded four-centred-arched fireplace in the left end room has a bressumer carved with lions and angels and a central cherub's head, with an enriched cornice. The left end room features chamfered axial and cross beams and is entered from the lobby through a moulded rectangular doorway. The right end room has chamfered axial beams and a later rear fireplace. Wall painting with text and floral border appears on the rear wall of the left-central bay on the first floor, and probably elsewhere. An ovolo-moulded first-floor doorway retains 18th century panelled doors.

The building was known in the 19th and early 20th centuries as Keeler's Mansion, when it comprised three cottages.