Stoneacre And Path Between Front Door And Road

STONEACRE AND PATH BETWEEN FRONT DOOR AND ROAD

A house, formerly a farmhouse, built in the late 15th or early 16th century with mid-16th-century alterations. The building underwent substantial restoration between circa 1922 and 1928 by Aymer Vallance, during which a wing from North Bore Place, Chiddingstone (bearing dates 1547 and 1629) was re-erected on the site.

The main range is timber-framed with rendered infilling. The north end addition has roughly coursed stone to the ground floor and rendered first floor with exposed principal posts. The North Bore Place wing features coursed stone to the ground floor with exposed framing above. The south addition has re-used bricks in English bond from North Bore Place on the ground floor and 1920s close-studding with rendered infilling to the first floor. All parts are roofed in plain tiles.

The original structure comprises an east-facing open hall of two roughly equal-length timber-framed bays with an integral cross-wing to the south, and formerly had storeyed bay or bays to the north. The cross-wing comprises three timber-framed bays projecting forwards, with an integral two-storey lean-to on the north side positioned in the re-entrant angle between wing and hall. The cross-wing is internally subdivided into one two-bay room on each floor towards the front, with access from the hall to the ground-floor room through the lean-to. A single-bay rear room formerly contained stairs and provided ground-floor access to the front room, hall and rear. The original northern bays were replaced in the later 16th century by a linear wing of two timber-framed bays. A further wing of approximately three first-floor timber-framed bays from North Bore Place was added in the 1920s, running west from the west elevation of the north wing. A further 1920s addition to the south comprises two rooms and a lobby on the first floor.

The cross-wing rises to two storeys above a stone plinth, while the hall is single-storey. The linear north wing and west wing (from North Bore Place) are both two storeys with garret and cellar. The cross-wing features broadly-spaced close-studding with tension braces and ogee foot braces to a plain gable crown-post. The hall has exposed principal posts and a braced intermediate stud to the north hall bay. The west wing displays decorative framing to its first floor, comprising three small square, quadrant-braced panels per storey.

The cross-wing is jettied to both front (including the lean-to) and rear, with higher eaves than the hall except where the lean-to eaves continue from the hall plate. The north wing has higher eaves than the hall, gabled to the south and half-hipped to the north. The south addition has a hipped roof. A projecting stack of re-used red and grey bricks in English bond stands on the south addition. Multiple brick stacks are positioned on the front slope of the roof at the south end of the hall, towards the south end of the north wing, and towards the west end of the west wing.

Fenestration is irregular, comprising five leaded windows. A re-used 16th-century twelve-light mullioned and transomed oriel window on a moulded cill rises to a coved timber-framed eaves gable with pierced bargeboards at the centre of the south addition (removed from the upper part of the east window of the hall). A reconstructed eight-light mullioned and transomed oriel window on a coved and moulded base with moulded, brattished cornice and four-centred arched frieze windows stands on the first floor of the cross-wing. A small two-light mullioned window lights the first floor of the lean-to. A reconstructed canted twelve-light bay window fills the south bay of the hall, with a stone base, ogee-headed upper lights and moulded cornice. A six-light mullioned and transomed casement window of 19th or early 20th-century date appears on the south end of the north wing, with a blocked window under eaves towards the north end. A canted eight-light mullioned and transomed bay window stands on the ground floor of the cross-wing, on a stone base, with moulded transom, mullions and cornice. A slender two-light window lights the lean-to, and a chamfered rectangular stone cellar light serves the north wing. Ovolo-moulded mullioned and transomed windows are set into the north gable end. The west wing has a jettied gable with moulded bressumer and pendants, and solid-spandrel braces under the bressumer forming an "apron" on each side of a moulded ten-light mullioned and transomed oriel window. The braces are dated 1547 and 1629. A flush twelve-light mullioned and transomed window serves the rear of the hall. Moulded four-centred arched doorways with trefoiled spandrels and boarded medieval doors occur at the north end of the hall and at the rear. A similar narrow doorway with hollow spandrels serves the rear of the cross-wing.

Interior features include exposed framing throughout. Moulded beams and cornices appear in variety, including moulded end-of-hall beams. A rare central crown-post of four clustered shafts with moulded capitals and bases sits on a moulded, cambered tie-beam with moulded solid-spandrel arch-braces springing from shafted principal posts with reconstructed moulded capitals and bases. Ogee foot-braces belong to rebated end-of-hall pilaster crown-posts. Ashlar-pieces and moulded cornices are present. A panelled screen, partly reconstructed, separates the hall from the cross-passage. A four-centred arched doorway connects the hall and the lean-to of the cross-wing.

The front ground-floor room of the cross-wing has moulded axial beams and cornice, with a moulded cross-beam bearing solid-spandrel braces springing from moulded, shafted posts. The first-floor room above features rebated central and pilaster crown-posts and a central tie-beam with re-used moulded braces and reconstructed shafts. Original jambs to the oriel window of this room are grooved for vertically-sliding shutters.

Sixteenth-century moulded four-centred arched stone fireplaces remain in situ on the ground and first floors of the north wing and the first floor of the cross-wing. A 16th-century inserted hall ceiling with moulded cross and axial beams was removed and re-installed in a specially-designed room in the south addition.

Fittings recovered from North Bore Place and from houses in Lynsted and Faversham were re-used at Stoneacre, including panelling (incorporating linenfold panelling), carved and moulded 16th and 17th-century stone fireplaces (some with overmantels, one partly painted), four-centred arched wooden doorways and a wooden newel staircase.

A stone rubble footpath approximately 30 metres long runs between the front door and the garden gate and is included for its group value with the house.

The property is owned by the National Trust.