Spelmonden With Walls Attached

House at Spelmonden with attached walls

This is a house of 15th century or earlier date, built in at least two phases and altered during the 17th to 19th centuries. It is timber framed and tile hung, standing on a sandstone ground floor that has been partly repaired with red brick, with a plain tiled roof.

The building appears to be a hall house, possibly of early Wealden plan origin, which has been re-clad and extended with a rebuilt cross wing. It rises to two storeys with a garret to the cross wing, set on a plinth. The eaves are supported on large brackets to the central hall bays, a feature suggesting possible Wealden origins. The eaves line steps up at the right end bay and wing, corresponding with a break in the sandstone coursing. The roof is half-hipped to the left and has a projecting gable to the right, with clustered polygonal stacks positioned to the right, and further stacks to the left and rear centre right.

Windows on the upper floors include two light leaded wooden casements in the right gable, two 2-light casements to the left on the first floor, a 5-light casement to the centre with 2-light to the right, and 4-light casements in the cross wing. The ground floor retains 15th century stone windows with paired arched lights and labels to the end left and right, and 19th century arched wooden casements of 2, 5 and 4 lights to the centre left, centre right and cross wing respectively.

A two-storey porch projects from the centre left. Its upper storey is timber framed and gabled, with a restored bresummer and pendants, and features a coved oriel with a 3-light leaded casement. The lower storey is of sandstone with a four centred wave-moulded arched outer doorway with label, and the letters R and P inscribed in the spandrels. Inside the porch is a benched passage and a rib and stud inner door. The rear of the building includes 19th century wings.

A walled forecourt surrounds the house, with garden walls of red brick averaging about 3 feet in height. These walls ramp up to the front gateway and rise again to the north wall, reaching about 8 feet in height and including a boarded door.

Interior features include a full timber frame in the main range with a hall roof of heavily moulded cambered tie beam supported by massive knee bracing on corbel brackets. The tie beam is enriched with foliage and tree carving including birds, and carries a moulded octagonal crown post with capital and base. The cross wing roof has staggered purlins and arched wind braces. The cross wing features stop-chamfered beams and evidence of jettying on the ground floor, with a wave-moulded arched door in the rear stone-built wall. A four-centred arched door with moulded surround has been resited in the main range, its spandrels enriched with carved swan decoration. An upper room contains a moulded cross-panelled ceiling. A late 17th century bolection-moulded surround frames a very large inglenook in the rear wall of the hall, and there is a raised and fielded panelled stair well. The building includes a full range of domestic service rooms attached to the rear and cellars.

Historical context: Spelmonden was the principal manor of Horsmonden, and the parish church was built on the manor's lands. Richard Lord Poynings, Lord of the Manor, married Isabel, heiress of Lord Fitzpayn around 1380. This marriage was celebrated by the building of the west tower at Horsmonden church, and the letters R and P inscribed in the spandrel of the similarly detailed porch at Spelmonden are thought to refer to this member of the Poynings family (though some sources suggest a late 15th century date for the porch). Vestiges of a piscina or sacrarium were observed in the house in 1838.