The Forresters

TQ 64 SW PEMBURY ROMFORD ROAD

5/423 The Forresters

II

Former farmhouse, once a public house. Mid/late C17, enlarged and modernised circa 1930. Original house is a tile-hung timber-frame on brick footings, the extension is stretcher bond red brick to first floor level with tile-hung timber framing above. brick stacks and chimneyshafts. peg-tile roof.

Plan: L-plan house. The main block faces south south east, say south. It has a 3-room plan. An axial stack between the centre and left rooms serves back-to-back fireplaces and the right room has a projecting end stack. In fact the left end room is the front room of a crosswing projecting to rear which was added circa 1930 with a new kitchen and staircase built behind the rest of the main block. Thus the original house had a 2-room plan; a larger heated main living room to right and originally unheated service room to left. The rear corner fireplace there was probably inserted in the C19. The partition between these 2 rooms has been removed.

House is 2 storeys with attics in the roofspace of the C17 section and a secondary lean-to outshot on the right (east) end.

Exterior: Irregular 3-window front of C20 casements with glazing bars and the original part has 2 flat-roofed dormers. Front doorway is right of centre and it contains a late C19/early C20 part-glazed plank door behind a contemporary gabled porch with wavy bargeboards. The main roof is gabled to right and hipped to right over the extension.

Interior: The framed structure of the C17 house appears to be well-preserved. The beams are chamfered with some scroll stops. Wall posts with formed jowls carry the tie beams but common rafter roof, a couple of them with high curving collars.

Up until 1917 the house was known as the Foresters Arms and was licensed to sell beer and tobacco. Apparently it was locally known as 'The Peep and Slip- it'. . Source Mary Standen. Pembury in the Past (1984) p.17.

Listing NGR: TQ6395441157