Portobello

Portobello is a house on the north side of Brenchley High Street, built in 1739 for Timothy Monckton. It was remodelled and extended in 1839 for Jonathan Monckton, with internal alterations made in 1970. The principal block is rendered and blocked out with a slate roof. The rear blocks are brick to the ground floor with tile-hung, framed construction above painted white, and have a peg-tile roof. Stacks have rendered shafts.

The house is arranged on a double-depth plan with two rooms wide and a central entrance, facing approximately west. Two principal rooms occupy the front with a smaller principal room in the rear right wing. A rear left service block is roofed parallel to the main range. The irregularity of the service block suggests that the 1739 phase may have incorporated an earlier building on the site. The right end bay of the main block is an addition or, more likely, a rebuilding of 1839, which includes a first-floor bow on the right return. During this phase the house was re-roofed. In 1970 the straight stair facing the front door was replaced with a curving stair in a late 18th-century manner, along with minor alterations to internal partitions.

The exterior shows two storeys with a slate roof hipped at the ends of the main range, with deep eaves on paired brackets decorated with lozenges on the soffit. Stacks have semi-circular dividers to the shafts. An almost symmetrical seven-bay front includes 16-pane sashes to the right end bay (early 19th-century), with the other windows probably 18th-century 12-pane sashes with chamfered architraves. A fine projecting Doric porch, shown on an elevation dated 1826, features a Portland stone step, an entablature with triglyph frieze with guttae and deep projecting cornice, and a soffit decorated with paterae. The six-panel front door has fielded panels in a round-headed doorframe with panelled reveals and a fanlight incorporating a candle lantern with iron cresting and antefixae at the angles. The lantern could be lit from inside the house. The right return of the main block has a first-floor bow carried on columns with 16-pane sashes to both floors. The rear block has a pre-1826 ground-floor canted bay window with modillion frieze, moulded cornice and fluted pilasters, glazed with 16- and 8-pane sashes. Beyond it the house is tile-hung to the first floor with a six-panel door with flat porch hood into the service block, one first-floor two-light casement, and at the east end of the wing an oversailing first floor, probably to provide a verandah. The left return is rendered and blocked out with a 19th-century panelled door into the rear block which has a bull's eye window in the gable with diagonal glazing bars and moulded architrave. The asymmetrical rear elevation has a set of 20th-century casements with square leaded panes, except the first floor of the south-east wing which has an 18th-century three-light casement with square leaded panes and quadrant window catches.

The interior retains a number of 18th-century features, and the 1970 alterations are sympathetic. The front right room has a white marble chimney-piece with reeded jambs, re-sited from elsewhere in the house. The left end room chimney-piece has been removed. The 1970 stair has stick balusters and mahogany handrail and rises to the original 18th-century first-floor arch with dentil frieze. The first-floor left-hand room has a fine 18th-century timber chimney-piece complete with fire basket. Original joinery includes shutters and two-panel doors. The attic space of the front block is plastered for service accommodation and includes original doors. Where the roof structure is exposed in the service blocks it is of clasped purlin construction.

The house was named in celebration of Admiral Vernon's capture of Portobello in 1739. It has group value with the barn, cottage and garden walls. A copy of an elevation of the house, dated 1826 and signed by John Adams, surveyor, of Tenterden, is in the possession of the owner.