Church House

Church House, Yalding High Street

A house or former vicarage comprising an early 18th-century addition to a 17th-century house. The building stands on the east side of the High Street.

The 17th-century left section is timber-framed, clad with red brick in Flemish bond on the ground floor and red and grey mathematical tiles in Flemish bond on the first floor. It consists of two timber-framed bays. The 18th-century main range is of chequered red and grey brick with red brick dressings and chainwork. Both sections are of two storeys with attics and a cellar, each standing on a ragstone plinth. The moulded wooden eaves cornice to the left section is lower, with Ionic modillions, while that to the right has Composite modillions. The roof ridges are at the same height, with the roof hipped to left and right. A projecting red brick gable end stack rises from the left, and a multiple red and grey brick ridge stack with cogged cornice is positioned at the right end of the left section. A red brick ridge stack, also with cogged cornice, sits at the centre of the main range. The plain tile roof features two pedimented dormers with leaded two-light windows to each section, those to the left larger and lower.

The left section has two tripartite sashes with squared Gothic hoodmoulds. The right section displays a regular six-window front of eighteen-pane sashes with thick glazing bars in open boxes, all with splayed rubbed brick voussoirs. The voussoir soffits of the left end window and the third and fifth windows from the left are decoratively cut in different designs. Rubbed brick panels between ground and first-floor windows include decorative detailing: the third window from the left has a crinkly edge to its fielded panel, the fourth from the left has a fielded panel with moulded outer borders, and the second and sixth from the left have plain channels to rectangular panels. The eighteen-pane ground-floor sashes have raised brick keystones and decoratively-cut voussoir soffits to windows under the third and fifth first-floor windows from the left. A door positioned under the left end first-floor window features six fielded panels and a ten-pane rectangular fanlight, set in an architrave with narrow sunk-panelled pilasters and a moulded cornice breaking forwards over scrolled consoles. An ornamental cut brick tablet between the third and fourth first-floor windows from the left displays an egg-and-dart plinth on scrolled consoles, tapering Doric colonnettes, and a scrolled pediment enclosing a moulded finial. A Sun Fire Insurance plaque appears above. The right gable end has one blocked central window to each floor, with splayed rubbed brick voussoirs; those to the first floor are fluted, while those to the ground floor are reeded.

A slightly projecting rear brick stair turret with a flat-topped gable spans all but the right end room of the main range, featuring casement windows to the service stairs and eighteen-pane sashes with thick glazing bars to the principal staircase. A rear lean-to extends from the left section. A single-storey addition of the 1930s spans most of the front elevation of the left section, constructed in red and grey brick in Flemish bond on a brick plinth, with a moulded Ionic-modillioned wooden eaves cornice, plain parapet, and four eighteen-pane sashes (three to the front, one to the right return) with splayed rubbed brick voussoirs with alternately cut soffits.

The interior of the left section contains boxed principal posts. The left section has right and left end tie-beams in the same plane as the wall-plates, and a central truss with gunstock-jowled posts, an interrupted tie-beam, and vertical queen struts to the collar forming the sides of a central doorway. The entrance hall features plain sunk panelling and a moulded wooden cornice, with two round-headed doorways to the 17th-century section to the left, both with panelled double doors (the front one with a wooden keystone, the rear with a semi-circular fanlight with radiating glazing bars). The room to the right of the entrance hall has sunk moulded panelling, a moulded dado rail and cornice, and a bolection-moulded wooden fireplace with a raised rectangular central keystone, moulded mantleshelf and flanking niches to the right end. The right end ground-floor room displays a moulded skirting board, a Doric fireplace of circa 1840, and an anthemion border to the ceiling. The stair turret houses service stairs with moulded balusters to the right, rising from a corridor behind the central room, and the principal staircase to the left, rising from the entrance hall, with turned balusters, moulded cheeks, a ramped moulded handrail, and plain sunk dado panels. Moulded cornices surround windows lighting the principal staircase. Seventeenth-century attic stairs within the left section feature splat balusters and polygonal finials to the newels. Each of the two principal first-floor rooms has plain sunk panelling and a moulded cornice. The fireplace to the right room has an elliptical brick back, while the left fireplace features an eared surround with pulvinated frieze and moulded overmantel. Panelled doors and window shutters appear on both floors. The roof exhibits staggered butt purlins. The cellar contains a re-used 16th-century moulded beam and hollow-chamfered joists.

The building was formerly listed as Holborough House. It is wrongly marked on the Ordnance Survey map as Holborn House.