The Old Palace

The Old Palace is a house, possibly the former kitchen wing of the long-demolished Archbishop's Palace, located in Wrotham. It dates to the 16th century, but incorporates fabric from before 1340. The building is constructed of coursed ragstone on a wide ragstone plinth. Some windows have early 16th-century red brick dressings, while others have stone dressings. The roof is tiled, featuring a return gable off-centre to the left. There are end stacks, including an off-ridge stack with coupled octagonal stacks, likely from the 16th century, and a slope stack at the left end. The house is two storeys and contains attics. It has irregular window placement, with one window under the gable, two windows on both floors to the left, and one window on both floors at the extreme right-hand end. A square-headed doorway with double-glazed doors is centrally positioned on the ground floor. At the right-hand end is a two-storey ruin with one blocked window on each floor facing south, clearly originally taller. A blocked window of early 13th-century character is visible behind. The palace served as a resting place for the Archbishops of Canterbury travelling to London, but was later demolished and used as a granary during the construction of Maidstone Palace. The ruins were restored as a manor house by the Byng family in the 16th century.