TR 34 NW LANGDON LANGDON ABBEY 2/29 Langdon Abbey 27.3.52 GV II* House. C12, C16 and late C17 altered mid C19. Built for Thornhill family on remains of Premonstratensian priory. Red brick in irregular Flemish, stretcher bond and English bond, with flint and dressed stone sections to rear. Plain tiled roof. Entrance front; late C17, 2 storeys and basement with plinth,plat band and boxed eaves to hipped roof, with stacks to left, centre left and to right. C19 fenestration, regular to right hand of elevations, with 2 tripartite sashes and central segmentally headed sash, and 2 tripartite sashes on ground floor with central door of 6 panels with semi-circular fanlight in rendered rusticated surround. The left hand portion has 1 sash on each floor in blocked larger window openings, and door of 4 raised and fielded panels with simple architrave. Four segmentally headed basement openings. Rear elevation: L-shaped 2 storey hipped structure in English bond with brick arcading of giant pilasters carried across whole facade and projecting wing. The main wing with keyed and blocked arches on ground floor, now filled in, so as to form 3 bay portico effect, an unusually advanced classical feature in the east Kent Artisan Mannerist vocabulary. Projecting from the left hand projecting wing is 1 storey extension of stone blocks with galleting, the return wall of this wing is rebuilt in C18 brickwork. Interior: rear wings with large scantling joists. Chamfered and stopped with quirk and tongue. Some fitted cupboards and doors with raised and fielded panelling, most features date from mid C19. Cellars: the undercroft of the cellarium of the C12 abbey form the basis of the C17 cellars, including a barrel vaulted slype with finely gauged chalk, webbing, the main range at right angles to this, with the springers for groin vaults surviving, with chamfered arched and round headed stone doorways. Domed bread oven C18 survives in stone end wing. Langdon Abbey was founded by William d'Auberville of Westernhanger 1189-1192 for white canons from Leyston Suffolk. Dedicated to St. Mary and St. Thomas the Martyr, the Abbey (strictly only a priory) had an uneventful history until dissolution in 1535. A house was built by Samuel Thornhill after 1590 and extended by his successors until 1700, when sold to Waldershare estate. The church and conventual remains lay east of the house, excavated and back covered 1882 by Sir William St. John Hope. (See Arch Cant. 15, 1883; Hasted, IX; BOE Kent II 1983, 369). Listing NGR: TR3263446960