Listed Building: HOPPERS HOSPITAL (1251320)

Grade II
Authority
Volume/Map/Item 1356, 1, 254
Date assigned 24 August 1990
Date last amended

Description

TQ 64 NW CAPEL FIVE OAK GREEN ROAD (north side) 1/254 Hoppers Hospital II Originally a farmhouse, built in more than one phase in the C17; it was used as an ale house in the C19 and in the late C19 was bought up by a Roman Catholic charity for use as a hospital for the hop-pickers; the front courtyard was added circa 1940. The place is now used to provide holiday accommodation for deprived people from the East End of London. The main house is timber-framed but the ground floor level is underbuilt with painted C19 brick and the first floor is hung with peg-tile; brick stacks and chimneyshafts; peg-tile roof. The courtyard buildings are brick with a pantile roof. Plan: Main house is set back from the road and faces south. It has a 4-room plan. The 2 larger central rooms are heated by a stack between them with back-to-back fireplaces. A stair rises from the centre left room in front of the stack. Smaller end rooms each heated by a projecting end stack. Centre stack and stair is C17 but the end stacks were added in the C19. Although the main block is C17 evidence from the roof suggests that it was built in more than one phase, the left (west) half before the right half. 2 storeys with attics and secondary or rebuilt lean-to outshots across the rear. Front courtyard is enclosed by a circa 1940 cloister-like shelter with central front archway and a fireplace and stack in the west wall. Exterior: House has an irregular 4-window front of late C19/early C20 casements with glazing bars. 3 contemporary front doorways, all containing plain plank doors, 2 of which have plain narrow flat hoods over. Plain eaves and roof is half-hipped both ends. Interior: The exposed carpentry suggests that the C17 structure is well- preserved, although the partition between the two left ground floor rooms has been removed. The left end room has plain joists and all the other rooms have chamfered axial beams, and the beam over the first floor chamber left of centre is chamfered with scroll stops. All the fireplaces are blocked. Some plain but good (and probably C19) plank doors. The roof structure indicates 3 C17 phases. The 2-bay section over the left (west) half appears to be the earliest. It was somewhat altered in the C19 but there is the remains of a clasped side purlin construction. Narrow central bay (about the central stack) is also of clasped side purlin construction but the purlins are set at a different height. The next bay to right has an uncollared tie-beam truss with raking struts and butt purlins and the right end truss is an A-frame truss on a tie-beam with butt purlins. The front courtyard shelter is open with the pitched roof carried on a series of brick piers. 5-bay front with central entrance. Roof raised over bellcote with pyramid roof. A pole at the apex is thought to be the shaft of a former cross. Front and back of bellcote is panelled. central plaque inscribed: "In happy memory of Old Friends who loved hopping and who loved this place very dearly who gave their lives for Old England and for us, 1914-18. Lord all pitying, Jesu blest grant them Thine Eternal rest." Below is a brass plaque in memory of Alexander Forsythe Asher, an Augustine priest (died 1946) and Helen Chalk (died 1938) and each side are symbols of the old Rose and Crown. The area around Capel is the centre of the Kent hop industry and this building is an important monument to its more labour-intensive heyday. Listing NGR: TQ6382645009

External Links (0)

Sources (1)

  • Map: English Heritage. List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest.

Map

Location

Grid reference TQ 6473 4535 (point)
Map sheet TQ64NW
Civil Parish CAPEL, TUNBRIDGE WELLS, KENT

Related Monuments/Buildings (1)

Record last edited

Nov 16 2006 5:21PM