Spring Place

Spring Place, Hadlow

This is a farmhouse with origins in the mid to late 15th century, substantially altered and extended during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The front bay window and gable are dated 1634. The house was divided into three cottages, probably in the early or mid 19th century, then reunited into a single dwelling and refurbished around 1950, with minor modernisations around 1968.

The building is essentially timber-framed, though much has been underbuilt or faced with brick (some ragstone footings survive internally). Parts are clad with peg-tile. It has brick chimney stacks and chimneyshafts, with a peg-tile roof.

The house faces north east and follows a developed three-room-and-through-passage plan. The hall occupies the centre with crosswings at each end, both projecting to the rear. The passage was originally at the right (north west) end but is now blocked by a 20th-century stair; the passage front doorway is also blocked. At the right end sits an unheated service room (possibly a buttery) with a parlour behind, served by a projecting lateral stack in the outer wall. A large axial stack at the upper end of the hall serves back-to-back fireplaces. The left end contained a kitchen with an unheated service room behind. This wing was rearranged around 1950 when the main entrance was relocated to the centre of the outer wall. The main stair projects from the rear of the hall fireplace and was enlarged around 1960. On the first floor is an original corridor along the back of the hall chamber, running from the main stair to the parlour wing.

This plan is essentially that of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Remains of the late medieval house are confined to the left (south eastern) crosswing, which originally extended further back. The front bay was a storeyed end, probably the inner room or solar. The late 16th/early 17th-century kitchen beam was originally part of a full-height crosswall which still survives above. The rest of the wing was the hall, open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire, spanning one wide bay. After enlargement in the late 16th/early 17th century, the main block roof (over the new hall) ran between the crosswings. In 1634 the front was altered with the addition of the full-height bay window with jettied gable.

The building is two storeys with attics in the roof space and a lean-to outshot to the rear of the kitchen wing.

The gabled front is striking. The brickwork is Flemish bond with burnt headers. The three-window front has an extra ground floor window at the right end. The windows are of various dates. Those at each ground floor end are 20th-century; the upper windows at the right end are 18th or 19th-century casements, with the first floor window containing rectangular panes of leaded glass and the attic window containing diamond panes. At the left end, the first floor and attic windows have late 16th/early 17th-century oak frames with ovolo-moulded mullions, the lower one with a transom. The centre features the full-height canted bay window with an ovolo-moulded mullion-and-upper-transom window on each floor; the first floor window contains rectangular panes of leaded glass. On each side of these windows are strips of later brick suggesting former ribbon windows on each floor. The gable above is carried on a bressummer. Console brackets at each end are carved with guilloche and floral motifs; the bressummer itself displays a decorative frieze of guilloche and crude egg-and-dart, with the date 1634 in the centre accompanied by symbols including crescents, a lozenge and an upside-down heart. The tile-hung gable contains an original four-light window with ancient diamond panes of leaded glass. The bargeboards are original and display the same carved ornamentation as the bressummer, though worn. At the apex is a pendant. The flanking gables are not jettied; both are tile-hung with bargeboards. The left end bargeboard and bressummer are late 16th/early 17th-century, carved with the same decorative frieze. Similar carved ornamentation appears on the bressummer and bargeboards in the jettied gable at the back of the parlour crosswing. The roofs are tall and steeply pitched. The main chimneyshaft is late 16th/early 17th-century brick and is shaped.

There are two other oak windows, both small and late 16th/early 17th-century, at first floor level on the left end wall: one of three lights and one of four lights, both with chamfered mullions and diamond panes of leaded glass. Below is a three-light window with Gothick tracery from Hadlow Castle.

The late medieval work is confined to the kitchen (south eastern) crosswing. Here the side walls and possibly the end walls are original timber frames with large curving braces visible at first floor level. The original partition between the hall and probable solar end survives above first floor level. What is now a crossbeam was originally a rail in the frame, with a series of redundant mortise slots in its soffit (including evidence for a doorway at the north west end) from the lower part of the partition. The chamfers with scroll stops were applied in the late 16th/early 17th century. The ceiling joists in the front bay are of large scantling and original. Two bays of the medieval roof survive, one on each side of the crosswall. The tie-beam is supported on heavy wall posts with jowled heads and features small curving arch braces. Above is an A-frame truss with a crown post and downward-curving braces, with no crown purlin. The remainder of the roof is carried on common rafter trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars. The hall section is smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire, while the front section (probably over the solar) is clean with evidence of a gablet and original hipped roof arrangement.

The rest of the house contains late 16th/early 17th-century carpentry. The hall and kitchen fireplaces have oak lintels with chamfered and scroll-stopped low cambered arches; a smaller version appears in the hall chamber. The parlour fireplace is similar but its lintel is ovolo-moulded and carved with false spandrels and rosettes; a matching fireplace exists in the chamber above. Most floor beams are chamfered with scroll stops, but the hall beam is ovolo-moulded with chamfered joists, all with scroll stops. The parlour contains the remains of a moulded plaster frieze. The doorways from the hall to the passage and from the passage to the parlour have ovolo-moulded surrounds with scroll stops. The chamber over the hall features good early joinery, notably a late 16th/early 17th-century panelled door to a small closet in front of the stack and the bay window sill with oak panelling below, which includes cupboard doors hung on iron butterfly hinges.

The roof over the hall and parlour crosswing is carried on tie-beam trusses with clasped side purlins, small wind braces and queen posts.

Spring Place is a well-preserved late 16th/early 17th-century house with a late medieval section. The quality of craftsmanship is high. It was apparently once known as the Old Manor House, though no documentary evidence has been found to suggest it was a manor; it is certainly higher quality than most of its local contemporaries.