Belmont, With Stable Courtyard And Pump

Belmont is a neoclassical house with stable courtyard and water pump. The first house on the site was built in 1769 for Edward Wilkes, storekeeper of the Royal Powder Mills at Faversham. It was substantially remodelled and extended between about 1787 and 1792. Unsigned drawings for the rebuilding appear to come from the office of Samuel Wyatt, and it is possible that the owner, Colonel Montresor—a retired engineer with the British Army in North America—may have designed the house himself but engaged Samuel Wyatt as his architectural advisor. The later listing amendment states the remodelling was by Samuel Wyatt for General Lord Harris. Interior work was carried out by Basil Ionides in the 1930s.

The house is built of red brick, with the main elevations faced in buff-coloured gauged mathematical tiles. Details are in Coade stone and ashlar, and the roofs are slated. The house is positioned asymmetrically at the south and south-west corner of the stable courtyard (amended later to south and south-east corner), with internal arrangements set asymmetrically to an axial corridor.

The entrance front faces south and has two storeys and an attic on a plinth, with a guilloche plat band and modillion eaves cornice below a hipped roof. The first floor has three glazing bar sashes, and the ground floor has three tripartite French windows, though only the left-hand one is genuine and serves as the main entrance. A verandah of three bays is carried on Ionic columns, coupled to the centre, with Coade-stone capitals. It contains six full-height glazing bar sashes separated by Doric pilasters, with a cornice above. Gauged niches to left and right have Coade-stone swags on plaques above them, one dated 1790. Red brick kitchen buildings extend beyond.

The east front is the principal display elevation. It has two storeys and an attic on plinths, with a guilloched plat band and modillion eaves cornice. Two projecting bows to left and right are topped with saucer domes and belvederes. Each bow has three glazing bar sashes on each floor, and the centre section has three sashes on each floor. Above each window is a Coade-stone plaque or medallion decorated with swags, putti, and emblems of the seasons. The central plaque depicts a figure of India on an artillery bastion studying plans of Belmont, with an elevation of the house shown in the background amongst palm trees.

The north front resembles the entrance front but has a four-bay verandah of single columns and a bowed projection with a tripartite "Wyatt" window. The cast iron balustrade is carried across this projection. A single-storey range extends northward to join the courtyard, but also contains rooms for the main house.

The stable courtyard lies to the north of the house and is built of chequered brick with slate roofs. It contains part of the surviving 1769 house to the south. This has two storeys on a plinth with a moulded cornice. The first floor has five glazing bar sashes; the ground floor has four sashes with a central boarded door under a flat hood on a pilaster surround. The stables have elliptically arched doorways and sidelights, echoing the Wyatt window motif of the main house. The coach house has a clock tower and cupola, dated 1792. The entrance to the courtyard is flanked by octagonal lodges in buff brick with gauged niches, one glazing bar sash to the entrance, and a panelled door to the courtyard side. A hand pump is attached to the west range of the courtyard, with a wooden box body, a leaded spout dated 1790, a curved handle with knop, and an iron water trough.

Inside, the entrance vestibule, staircase hall, and corridor form the axis of the house. The staircase is full height and top-lit, with a first-floor balcony and a second-floor balcony reached only from the back stairs. It has a cast iron balustrade. Shallow well niches on the walls enhance the use of the staircase hall as a gallery. A screen to the upstairs corridor consists of two Ionic columns in antis with an elliptical arch over, and an identical blank screen appears on the opposite wall. This motif, along with the apse form and simplified details, is repeated throughout the interior decoration.

The main rooms lie to the east of the central axis. The drawing room and library occupy the bows of the east front and have apsidal walls internally, with the dining room centrally placed between them. The library has fitted veneered bookcases in the "Wyatt window" configuration, a gilded cornice and moulded frieze, and medallions and plaques on the wallpaper frieze. Elsewhere, decorative details are restrained: light architraves and friezes, wall panelling, and marble fire surrounds. The bowed windows have fitted shutters and pier glasses, and bedrooms have fitted wall niches. The study, office, and billiard room are isolated from the main range along the east wing of the courtyard.

The service rooms are complete. The orangery has a half-glazed roof and apsidal end walls. The orangery and service wing contain a series of fine vaulted cellars, ascribed to the 1769 house, though the quality of design and workmanship is more consistent with the Wyatt house. Below the main house runs an original hypocaust central heating system, stoked externally on the north front of the main house.