The Old Palace

The Old Palace

A house, subsequently divided into council houses, located on the north side of High Street in Brenchley. The building dates from circa the mid-15th century, with 17th-century additions and restoration work of circa 1880 by Oswald. In 1958 the building was purchased by the local council, repaired, altered and divided up for housing.

The structure employs framed construction, though most of the external timber dates from the 19th or 20th century as replacement material. The roof is covered with peg tiles and has brick stacks.

The building fronts the road and faces west-southwest, with the frontage angled to follow the curve in the road. It forms a massively long range with four rear wings. The south end originated as an exceptionally large, high-quality Wealden-type house with a two-bay open hall in the centre. The cross passage was probably within the hall, at the north end, with jettied storeyed ends. The hall may have been heated by a rear lateral stack, though evidence is uncertain; there is little blackening on the roof timbers and a lateral stack appears in old photographs of the rear elevation, but the roof timbers may have been cleaned during 19th or 20th-century restoration programmes. The function and date of the north end of the range, which has a drangway to the left, is less clear. No original fireplaces survive, and the 1958 repartitioning has disguised the original internal arrangement. Two adjacent rear wings have early 17th-century windows and could be of this date; the main block may be contemporary with the Wealden house. The plan form deserves closer study as an example of a large early complex in a village context.

The exterior presents two storeys and an attic, with a long, irregular ten-window front (eleven windows to the first floor). Two gables to the front, to the left of centre, are 19th-century additions not shown in a pre-1880 photograph. Close-studded framing is present to the first floor, with the ground floor underbuilt in 20th-century brick. The first floor is jettied throughout except for the two bays of the centre of the Wealden house, to the right. Six plank and cover strip front doors with arched heads to the individual houses date from 1958, along with a 20th-century glazed door to the Post Office which is to the right of centre. All windows are 19th or 20th-century casements with diamond leaded panes; the ground floor windows are transomed, with some set in 20th-century bays. Some of the window frames may be original.

Below the gable to the right of the drangway is a twelve-light ribbon window with a similar four-light window immediately below it, probably 19th century. Two gabled dormers are present. The rear elevation has four rear wings: one at the south end, two adjacent to one another to the right of the drangway, and a fourth in use as the parish room, immediately alongside the drangway to the right. The two adjacent wings have moulded fascias below the gables, which feature moulded bargeboards with 17th-century pendants at the gable. The gable ends contain ovolo-moulded mullioned windows of an early 17th-century character.

The interior contains spectacular survivals on the ground floor. A fine moulded screen is visible in the Post Office, although partly obscured by shelving. This screen is said to have been re-sited in 1958, when it was returned to what was thought to be its original position at the lower end of the hall. The screen includes a Tudor arched doorway, now blocked, with a richly-moulded frame, giving access to No. 4, the former lower end room of the Wealden. The screen is plastered over on the north side. A matching moulded Tudor arched doorframe on the rear wall of the Post Office may have been the rear doorway of the cross passage. Numbers 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7 all retain massive axial beams, interrupted by new partitions and inserted chimneystacks.

The hall truss of the Wealden house, sited on the first floor of the Post Office (No. 3), has massive arched braces with hollow chamfers and a large roll-moulding on the soffit of the arch. The tie beam supports a full octagonal crown post with a moulded base and capital (in No. 2) with four-way up-braces. The attic space of No. 2 also includes the two plain crown posts at either end of the open hall. These have two-way up-braces; one of the braces has been removed and another is broken. The roof timbers are fully intact over the hall. No. 5, which lies north of the Wealden house, also has what appears to be a plain crown post in the crosswall with No. 4. The Parish room, the most northerly rear wing, has a three-bay tie beam clasped purlin and queen strut roof construction with narrow bays at either end and windbraces.

Despite the alterations, this is an outstanding building. The alterations appear to have obscured rather than destroyed the evidence of the original plan form in the north end of the range.