Rectory Park The Old Rectory

Rectory Park, formerly known as The Old Rectory, is a timber-framed house dating from the 15th century with significant extensions in the 16th century and alterations in the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries. The building is rendered in part, tile-hung in sections, and extended with red brick. It has a plain tiled roof.

The house follows a hall house plan with a cross wing, comprising a first-floor hall which may represent the earliest phase of construction. The entrance elevation rises three storeys on a plinth, with a projecting jettied wing to the left and a projecting gable to the right marked by a stone plat band. Both wings feature mid-19th-century moulded bargeboards with pendants and finials. The main range is crowned with a battlemented mid-19th-century parapet in white stock brick, with stacks positioned to the left and rear right. The fenestration is irregular: the second floor of the main block has two glazing bar sashes, the first floor five, and the ground floor four. A central gabled porch contains glazed outer doors, a raised and fielded panelled inner door, a short flight of steps, and a relief of the Smith-Marriot arms over the doorway with an inscribed welcoming message.

The right-hand wing was originally mid-18th-century in character and was altered in the mid-19th century, retaining two glazing bar sashes on the first floor and two blocked central openings above and below, indicating the building was originally three storeys and was truncated when the bargeboarded gable was applied. A single-storey bargeboarded gabled extension projects from the ground floor with a Gothic arched sash. The right return reveals the original form of the whole wing: two storeys on a plinth with a stone plat band, parapet, and two two-storey canted bays with glazing bar sashes.

The left-hand timber-framed wing displays a lattice pattern leaded three-light casement in the garret and a tripartite glazing bar sash on the first floor. The ground floor features an underbuilt jetty with tripled attached moulded colonettes at the corners and a pentice with red brick side walls. The left return shows a jetty with a moulded bresummer on dragon posts and thin moulded colonettes attached to the upper floor supporting brackets to the eaves, with the jetty underbuilt at the end. A projecting stone stack stands to the right, a gabled dormer to the centre, and a 19th-century bell turret to the centre left. Each floor has irregular wooden casements and a boarded door. Single-storey service wings project at left and right to form an open-ended courtyard.

The rear elevation displays three tile-hung gables and irregularly projecting additions of one and two storeys, all battlemented with glazing bar sashes and casements to the kitchen block to the right, arched French doors to the left opening to the drawing room, and an arched half-glazed door to the centre.

Interior

The jettied left-hand block contains a remarkable first-floor hall with a heavily moulded wall plate, the moulded colonettes of the exterior repeated on the inner walls, and a moulded arch-braced trussed roof with heavily curved windbraces. The roof is likely circa 1400 and represents a type rare in Kent. An inserted first-floor ceiling with heavily moulded beams, probably from the early 16th century, is a later addition. A stone fireplace serves the externally projecting stack.

The main range contains a central hall with four centrally placed inserted wooden columns. Leading from it is the main stair, an 18th-century dog-leg plan with turned balusters and ramped moulded handrail. The back stairs also feature turned balusters. Principal ground-floor rooms and the porch contain substantial panelling: a 17th-century panelled overmantel and wainscotting with lozenge enrichment, some 16th-century or earlier plank and muntin panelling with wave moulded enrichment, proto-linenfold work, and fully developed linenfold panelling. Much appears to have been introduced and cut to fit, likely during the mid-19th century, though much may be original to the house. Unusual mid-19th-century cast iron ceiling roses are present, alongside other good 19th-century features including moulded curtain pelmets and marble fireplaces.

Historical Context

The 18th-century alterations were made for William Hassel, rector from 1724 to 1785. The house later became the seat of the Smith-Marriot family, the principal landowners, lords of the manor, and rectors of Horsmonden. The 19th-century alterations were carried out for the Reverend William Marriot Smith-Marriot, Baronet, who served as rector from 1825 to 1864.