Bedgebury Lower School, Collingwood House, and Wall Attached is a Grade II* listed building in the Tunbridge Wells local planning authority area, England. First listed on 20 June 1967. A Georgian School. 3 related planning applications.
Bedgebury Lower School, Collingwood House, and Wall Attached
- WRENN ID
- blind-obsidian-onyx
- Grade
- II*
- Local Planning Authority
- Tunbridge Wells
- Constituency
- Tunbridge Wells MP: Mike Martin (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 20 June 1967
- Type
- School
- Period
- Georgian
- Address
- Bedgebury Lower School, Collingwood House, and Wall Attached, Hastings Road, Hawkhurst, TN18 4RR
- OS grid reference
- TQ 757 293
- Coordinates
- 51.0363, 0.50502
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
This is a mid-18th century house, altered in the early 19th century, and now serving as a school. It is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and slate roofs. The design is fundamentally Palladian, with later Neo-Classical alterations and details.
The main block is three stories high with a basement, featuring a stone plat band and cornice to a parapet. Chimneys are located to the left. The second floor has three half-sized sash windows, while the first floor has three full-sized windows, all with moulded stone surrounds. The central window on the first floor is pedimented, and the outer windows have stone aprons. The ground floor features segmentally headed tripartite sash windows in enriched and bracketed surrounds. A double half-glazed door is set within a Doric porch, originally open, with a fanlight and sidelights. A railed basement area is present. A single-storey extension to the left has a hipped roof, a plinth, a discontinuous plat band, a parapet, and two recessed round-headed sash windows, with an apsidal end wall. A two-storey and basement wing projects to the right, with a parapet and chimneys. This wing has three glazing-bar sashes on each floor, with half-sized windows on the first floor, set within moulded surrounds. The rear elevation has seven glazing-bar sashes on each floor and a canted bay window on the ground floor.
The interior features a geometrical main staircase with stick balusters on scrolled treads, a wreathed handrail, flanking niches, and a top-lit well. The entrance hall has a plaster barrel-vaulted ceiling with an Ionic screen to a corridor. An apsidal room contains a traceried rose window and fanlight over an exterior door. Another ground floor room has a heavily beamed and coffered Neo-Classical ceiling. A back staircase has turned newels, a ramped rail with a flying dogleg over a passageway.
The house was purchased by Sir John Herschel in 1840, who died there in 1871. He was a noted astronomer, President of the Royal Astronomical Society, Master of the Mint in 1850, and a pioneer of photography (coining the terms "positive" and "negative").
Attached to the end on the right is a red brick wall, approximately 10 feet high and projecting about 30 yards in a double curve to the northwest.
Local climate
Bedgebury Lower School, Collingwood House, and Wall Attached receives an average of 740 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 73% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 68% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 26 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 71% of listed buildings. Of these, 12 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- Full EPC report — heating system, energy costs, size, glazing, construction etc.
- Sale history — 1 transaction since 1999
- Related listed building consents — 3 applications
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
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