Headcorn Manor

Headcorn Manor is a timber-framed parsonage house, dating to approximately 1516, which was restored in the 20th century. The building is of Wealden design, featuring two roughly equal-length hall bays and storeyed bays at each end. It has a plain tile roof and plaster infilling to the timber frame. The right and left end bays are jettied to the front and gable ends, with the right end bay also jettied to the rear, while the left end bay projects, either unjettied or underbuilt. The front has moulded dragon posts, while the rear has plain posts to the right. All elevations feature close-studded work. Solid brackets are located under each end of the central tie-beam and under the front and rear flying wall-plates. The roof is steeply pitched and hipped, with a multiple brick ridge stack to the left end of the hall and a gabled dormer to the left hip. The window arrangement is irregular, with one four-light wooden mullioned canted oriel window to each end bay, featuring shaped brackets and cinquefoil-headed lights. There are two-storey canted bays with close-studded sides, a solid bracket at the base, and four-light wooden mullioned windows with cinquefoil-headed lights and daggers to the left hall bay and a two-light wooden mullioned window with cinquefoil-headed lights and trefoils to the right hall bay. A similar two-storey canted bay and window are present on the rear elevation of the hall, along with a two-light ovolo-moulded wooden mullioned window to the rear of the left hall bay and a diamond mullioned window to the rear of the right end room. A boarded door with a moulded four-centred arched architrave, carved roses to the spandrels, and a moulded brattished bressumer is located at the right end of the hall; a similar, less elaborate door is opposite on the rear elevation. The interior features moulded end-of-hall beams, with the left end beam brattished, and short moulded spears – possibly removed from the left end of the hall – beside the front and rear doors. There are three four-centred arched service doors to the right end of the hall, the central one with roses to the spandrels, leading to the stairs. Other interior details include moulded central truss posts, a moulded arch-braced tie-beam of heavy scantling, a moulded crown post, ashlar pieces, ogee end-of-hall braces to the first floor and end-of-hall crown posts, close-studded infilling below the inner wall-plate, a 17th-century newel staircase in front of the stack, moulded beams to an inserted hall floor, and a moulded four-centred arched brick fireplace on the first floor of the left end bay.