Ightham Place

Ightham Place is a late 18th-century house extended in 1869 by William Burges for the Reverend James Sandford-Bailey. The house comprises a 18th-century wing on the right and a taller wing added by Burges on the left, intersecting at a “T” shape. The right wing is constructed of red brick with a plain tile roof and one ridge stack. It originally had four windows, all glazing bar sashes, though the window in the second bay from the left has been replaced by a blank panel. The original doorway has been blocked and replaced with a small, stone-dressed window with a single mullion. The Burges wing features a three-sided, apsidal end facing the front, built of uncoursed squared rubble stone with a steeply pitched tiled roof and ridge cresting. It contains single windows with trefoil heads in the left-hand and centre bays of the apse, and the main entrance is in the right-hand bay, featuring an arched surround to stout double doors with foliated metalwork and a large pentice hood. The garden front of the Burges wing has a gable topped with coping and kneelers, and a wide mullion-and-transom ground floor window with blind trefoiled heads, with a smaller mullioned window above. Inside, the entrance hall has a barrel vault and a two-flight wooden staircase leading to a landing with a panelled balustrade decorated with punched-out stars. The north-east drawing room contains a very tall, 13th-century-style stone fireplace displaying a bear. The east drawing room features a Delft tiled fireplace, believed to have been originally intended for Raspit Hill, though its use remains unconfirmed. Ightham Place was originally the dower house for Ightham Court.