Fowlers Park House

Fowlers Park House is a house, now converted into flats, built around 1813/1814 and altered in 1869 by R. Norman Shaw. Part of the building was demolished in the mid-20th century. The front of the house has a rendered facade from the early 19th century, with later alterations using red and painted brick, and a slate roof. The visible two-bay section of the 1869 elevation has a plinth, moulded plat band, pilasters, a moulded cornice, and dentil eaves. It features two glazing bar sashes on the first floor and four large, paired glazing bar sashes on the ground floor. A glazed door provides entry to an arcaded entrance porch on the right return, above which is a large, 18-light mullioned and transomed stair window. The right return elevation is irregular and incorporates glazing bar sashes; it originally formed an internal courtyard. Photographic evidence indicates that the original front of the house had five bays, with an attic containing pedimented dormers. The platform for the demolished three bays, which originally fronted the current entrance courtyard, remains. The garden elevations, dating to the early 19th century, are two storeys high with a plinth, plat band, cornice-parapet, and a projecting central piece with a segmental headed recess. This section has five glazing bar sashes on the first floor, four large French windows on the ground floor, and a central glazed door with a traceried, segmental fanlight and sidelights. The right return elevation also incorporates glazing bar sashes. An engraving print from 1813 shows that the original house had verandahs with tented door surrounds along the entire ground floor, a feature faintly visible in the rendering. The interior retains the 1869 stair, with large turned balusters to the open-well staircase and a balustraded landing, as well as C17-style wainscotting and moulding to the roof. Other rooms feature surviving C17-style wooden pilastered fireplaces. Fowlers Park House was once the main building of a large estate in east Hawkhurst, replacing a 17th-century house that had been the residence of Richard Kilburn, who died in 1678. Kilburn was an eminent lawyer and author of ‘Survey of County of Kent’ in 1659.