Sharsted Court

Sharsted Court is a house of complex phased construction spanning the 14th to 20th centuries. The building originated as a 14th-century hall house with two cross-wings, which was substantially remodelled in 1711 (dated on rainwater heads) and extended during the 1880s and around 1911. The house is constructed of red brick with plain tiled roofs, incorporating timber framed wings to the rear clad with red brick, flint, and flint rubble with a plastered gable.

The 1711 remodelling encased and maintained the plan of the original 14th-century hall house while extending the rear service wing to enclose a staircase. Chalk and flint walls survive within the interior of the hall. Two timber framed ranges were added to the rear in the late 14th century and subsequently extended and remodelled from the 16th century through the early 20th century to form a double courtyard, which has been opened by demolition of an enclosing 20th-century range to the south-east.

The entrance front faces north-west and displays two storeys and an attic on a plinth with a plat band. The centre is raised and features projecting wings to left and right with wide modillion eaves cornices to hipped roofs and dormers in each wing with heavy segmental pediments. The left wing has a contemporary one bay extension with a separately hipped roof, a stack at the end left, and two projecting stacks at the end right. The recessed centre rises to battlements with a central wooden belfry featuring an ogee cupola. Fenestration is regular: on the first floor there are seven glazing bar sashes (three to left, two to right, and two to centre with a central blocked window space), and on the ground floor three glazing bar sashes to left, two cross-windows to right, and two double height glazing bar sashes to centre. All windows have exposed frames with gauged heads and aprons. Central double three-quarter glazed doors are set within a projecting and battlemented porch decorated with Corinthian pilasters, a pulvinated and enriched frieze, and a segmental pediment containing a crest of a winged demi-bull rampant. To the right is an early 20th-century ballroom of one storey with two glazing bar sashes and a double span hipped roof.

The left return front features an 18th-century wing extending for four window bays with glazing bar sashes and terminating in a banqueting room added around 1911 with two hipped dormers.

The rear elevation comprises three projecting ranges: to the left a 16th-century range remodelled in the 19th century with timber clad brick and flint; to the centre a 17th-century timber framed range with red brick infill, two storeys, a plinth with plat band and three wood casements on each floor; to the right the rear of the 20th-century banqueting hall. On the rear wall of the main range to the left is a flint and rubble plastered gable of two storeys and garret with a kneelered parapet and irregular fenestration of 19th-century mullioned windows.

The interior is complex. Crown post roofs survive in the two 14th-century rear wings, with crown posts braced to arched tie beams. The house was divided in 1374 to allow for a widow's dower house, including a range "at the west end of the south side of the Great Chamber" and "a new Chamber at the East side with cellars built under the same" (as recorded in E. Selby's Teynham Manor and Hundred, reprinted 1982). This division corresponds exactly to the two timber framed ranges (the easterly with cellar) either side of the surviving gable of the "Great Chamber". The western range is extended by a continuously jettied range toward the courtyard, visible only from inside the building. A two storey hall presently undecorated leads to the Grand Staircase of 1711, featuring spiral balusters around an open well, a renewed moulded handrail, acorn newel heads, and original bolection moulded panelling. Back stairs with turned balusters follow a dog leg plan with half landing, headed by a doorway with a keyed arch on imposts. A newel staircase reversing the direction of twist at half flight leads to the attic. A heavy screen of around 1600 flanks the cellar stairs with turned baluster ornament. Seventeenth-century panelling survives in some upstairs rooms and has been re-used in the 20th-century ballroom. Panelling from around 1711, designed in some cases for specific paintings and tapestries (now sold), survives in most state rooms and main bedrooms, as do 18th and early 19th-century fireplaces. The hall and library retain 1711 beamed and plastered ceilings; the drawing room and banquet room feature 20th-century plastered ceilings, and the ballroom has a wooden ceiling of geometric panels. The work of 1711 was carried out for Colonel William Delaune, M.P.