Rock Villa is a Grade II* listed building in the Tunbridge Wells local planning authority area, England. First listed on 20 May 1952. House.
Rock Villa
- WRENN ID
- first-casement-quill
- Grade
- II*
- Local Planning Authority
- Tunbridge Wells
- Constituency
- Tunbridge Wells MP: Mike Martin (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 20 May 1952
- Type
- House
- Address
- Rock Villa, 85, London Road
- OS grid reference
- TQ 582 397
- Coordinates
- 51.13475, 0.26087
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
Rock Villa, located at 85 London Road, is a notable 18th-century building. It stands two storeys high with attics and features a front that is tile-hung and painted. The house has three dormers, with the central one adorned with a curved pediment. There are three sash windows, all retaining their glazing bars, and the central first-floor window is round-headed. The porch is supported by thin columns and has an open pediment, along with a rectangular fanlight above the doorway that displays geometric tracery. The door itself is modern. A tablet on the house notes that the author William Makepeace Thackeray stayed here in 1860 and wrote "Tunbridge Toys." Rock Villa is part of a group with the adjacent properties at numbers 83 and 85.
Local climate
Rock Villa receives an average of 750 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 69% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 56% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 30 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 65% of listed buildings. Of these, 14 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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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- 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
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