Oxen Hoath

Oxen Hoath

Grade II*

A house of late 16th-century origins substantially remodelled in the mid-18th century (after 1757) and again around 1846 by architect Anthony Salvin, with further additions by Burn & McVicar Anderson in 1878. The building is constructed throughout of coursed rubble stone with slate hipped roofs.

The entrance front presents three storeys across five bays with rusticated and painted rendered ground-floor. A painted rendered plat-band and quoins run across the elevation. The eaves cornice features four small pediments to the sides with one larger pediment over the centre. Windows are glazing bar sashes set in painted moulded surrounds with sills. The central bay projects slightly and is topped with a segmental pediment on brackets over the central first-floor window. A central arched doorway with fanlight and half-glazed double doors is surmounted by a balcony with balustrade resting on console brackets carved with masks. To the left stands an earlier two-storey wing with a blocked Elizabethan six-light transom and mullion window on the ground floor. This wing has irregular fenestration of tripartite and single sashes, now largely masked by shrubs and trees.

The south front displays two storeys of fenestration externally, though three storeys rise internally behind the left-hand two bays. Eight bays in total are arranged with a 2-3-2-1 rhythm centred on a three-bay bow and a single-bay tower to the right. The eaves cornice incorporates small windows flanking the central bow. Above the bow sits an octagonalised Mansard roof with a shallow dome and wrought iron railings to the platform. To the right, a three-storey single-bay tower is topped by a very tall and steep square Mansard roof. Arched windows in arched recesses face both south and east sides of the tower, with surrounds in rusticated render. Balconies above are carried on heavily decorated console brackets. A one-storey billiard room extension extends to the east, added by Burn & McVicar Anderson. The east side of the house, partly obscured by later extensions, displays four pediments on the eaves cornice with irregular fenestration of single and tripartite sashes.

The interior is a mixture of 18th and 19th-century rooms and decoration. All doorcases are late 18th century with flat hoods. The hall features a screen colonnade of fluted composite columns and an 18th-century chimney-piece. The central stair-hall rises two storeys with a coved ceiling and central square lantern light. A central acanthus boss with lion brackets at the sides supports the cove. Galleries on two sides of the stair-hall are articulated with Ionic columns and pilastered piers, with balustrades advancing between them. Chair-leg balusters run throughout. The three-flight square-well staircase occupies the centre, flanked by two tall arched entrances to the stair-hall beneath the south landing.

The library features a panelled bow with heavy neo-Jacobean bookshelves carved in wood. A carved two-storey fireplace preserves an earlier, probably 17th-century, central panel depicting angels. Louis XV-style pelmet-hoods frame the windows. A deep, delicate cornice and thin-ribbed ceiling complete the room.

The south-west room has a painted acanthus cornice and a later 18th-century French fireplace of carved wood in the Marie Antoinette rustic shepherd style, painted realistically. The dining room features a late 18th-century cornice incorporating military cartouches and an 18th-century wooden chimney-piece. The drawing room contains an 18th-century chimney-piece with a relief of Oedipus and the Riddle of the Sphinx in a panel below the mantelpiece. It is finished with a heavy ribbed ceiling and Louis XV-style pelmet-hoods.

The building is rated Grade II* for its documented history of three major remodelling campaigns and the quality of its interiors. A view of the Jacobean house appears in John Harris's The History of Kent in Five Parts (London, 1719, Vol. I, Book II, page 235), based on Kip's engraving. An 18th-century view of the house from the south-west, prior to Salvin's alterations, survives in the house itself. Preliminary exterior sketch perspectives by Salvin and a sketch elevation of the library interior, all dating to around 1846, are preserved in the Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings Collection.