Wierton Place

Wierton Place is a large house in Boughton Monchelsea, built around 1760 according to Hasted, the County Historian. The core was substantially altered and extended in Gothic style around 1857, with limited external modifications but a complete internal refurbishment around 1899 for the Kleinwort banking family. A few minor late twentieth-century alterations were made subsequently. The late twentieth-century garage and link block to the west are not of special interest.

The building is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond with black brick headers, sandstone dressings, and a Kentish ragstone plinth to the rear. It has a tiled roof with brick chimneystacks, including four tall clustered brick stacks to the main part. The house is two or three storeys with a basement and irregular fenestration, mainly sash windows with vertical glazing bars only, but also some mullioned or mullioned and transomed windows with leaded lights.

The entrance front to the north is of two storeys and basement with six irregularly spaced windows and four gables with moulded sandstone coping. The first floor has five sashes with vertical glazing bars only. Above the porch is a late nineteenth-century two-tier four-light window with leaded lights and a panel with strapwork decoration. The ground floor has two windows partially obscured by circa 1900 corridor extensions of one storey: to the right is a single-light and four-light mullioned window with leaded lights, and to the left are two mullioned windows in an angle leading to a large one-storey flat-roofed structure, originally the Billiard Room and Winter Garden. The large central porch has a central gable with strapwork motif, angled buttresses, sidelights, a four-centred arch with trefoil design to the spandrels, and a twentieth-century half-glazed door. To the west is a three-storey service wing with a set-back two-tier three-light window and, to the right, a large gable with kneelers with a four-light mullioned and transomed window to the upper floors and an arched opening to the ground floor. Attached at right angles to the left side of this window is a brick and sandstone carriage arch with a crenellated parapet, a stone finial with metal decoration, and a stone shield inscribed with a chevron, compasses, and a female head above.

The east front of the main house is of two storeys and basement with three gables, the left one pierced by an external chimneystack and the right side with a sandstone panel bearing a shield in place of a first-floor window. The central gable is partly obscured by a two-storey canted bay with a crenellated parapet. This has sashes with vertical glazing bars to the first-floor sitting room and a three-tier angled casement window to the ground-floor large drawing room. The south front of the former Winter Garden has a five-light mullioned and transomed window. The south or garden front to the main house is of two storeys and basement with four windows and three gables with moulded sandstone coping and blank shields. There is a moulded band between floors. The first floor has on the left side a triple window with vertical glazing bars only and a blindbox, and three similar single-light windows. The ground floor has on the left side a three-light square bay to the Hall Lounge and two sashes to the right with blindboxes under dripmould to the Small Drawing Room. A central gabled porch with a four-centred arch stands between the sections. To the west is a set-back section of two storeys with three gables with kneelers, three sashes with vertical glazing bars only, and a half-glazed door. At the extreme west is the three-storey service wing with a large gable with kneelers, mullioned and transomed windows to the upper floors, and a mullioned window to the ground floor. The west elevation of the service wing is of three storeys with a projecting central gable with kneelers containing two mullioned and transomed windows, with the first-floor windows featuring blindboxes. The right side has a mullioned and transomed window and the left side a triple mullioned window with a blindbox to the first floor only under a penticed roof.

The interior underwent a comprehensive refurbishment around 1899 for the Kleinwort family, variously executed in Jacobean, early eighteenth-century, and Adam styles. The entrance hall retains elaborate wooden inner double doors with a decorative metal grille. The former Billiard Room retains a Jacobean-style north wall with full-height panelling, an overmantel with pilasters, and a carved wooden screen. The former Music Room, now a bar, also has a Jacobean overmantel with male grotesque masks, a grey marble fireplace, dado panelling, and a plastered cornice. The Hall Lounge is in Jacobean style with a strapwork-design plastered ceiling with pendants, an oak overmantel to the fireplace dated 1899 with the letter K (for Kleinwort) in strapwork motifs, half-columns and pilasters, full-height panelling, and a carved screen to the hall. There are numerous Jacobean-style oak doors, some with mahogany eighteenth-century-style backs. The main staircase is in early eighteenth-century style with elaborate cast-iron scrollwork balusters, a mahogany handrail with a column newel, and full-height panelling with a dado rail. The northern part of the hall features similar panelling with plastered decoration of swags and musical instruments above the door to the present bar, suggesting this was originally a Music Room. Two drawing rooms are in Adam style with interconnecting doors for entertaining. The Small Drawing Room has a plastered ceiling with an oval design with swags and figurative medallions, original window surrounds with wooden shutters, a wooden fireplace with pilasters and swags and a grey marble fireplace, and double painted wooden doors with swag and urn decoration. The adjoining Large Drawing Room has a similar larger plastered ceiling with swags, a cornice with wheat-ear drops, a wooden fireplace with pilasters and a panel of crossed fasces and arrow, a grey marble fireplace, and interconnecting doors. The first floor has a corridor with a painted fretted and panelled screen to the north forming a sitting area and eighteenth-century-style panelling with dado rails and elaborate early eighteenth-century-style architraves and six-panelled doors. The ceiling features Lincrusta. Some bedrooms have fireplaces with bolection-moulding and eared architraves. The upstairs Sitting Room is in Adam style with a cornice with Greek key design, roses and acanthus leaves, dado panelling, and an overmantel with pilasters, swags, and an oval figurative medallion.

According to Hasted's History of Kent, Wierton Place was built around 1760, replacing an earlier house situated a little to the north. The Kleinwort banking family lived here between 1899 and 1943. It was occupied by the army during the Second World War. A grandson of Thomas Cook lived here afterwards.