BIRCHINGTON 878/0/10042 MINNIS ROAD 08-OCT-03 Upper Gore End Farmhouse GV II Farmhouse. North and west wings appear mid C18 but possibly with earlier core, east wing is C19. Minor C20 extensions. North and west wings are of brown brick in Flemish bond with tiled roofs and brick chimneystacks. East wing is in stock brick. EXTERIOR: Front range is of three storeys with gable ends with kneelers and two tall chimneystacks to the rear. Three window spaces but central blanks. Windows have rubbed red brick voussoirs and are early C19 six-paned sashes. Simple central doorcase, also with rubbed brick voussoir. Right side of this wing also has one blank to the first floor but a 16-pane sash to the ground floor and appears to have the outline of a Diocletian window to the gable. The western L-wing is lower, of two storeys in similar brickwork with end chimneystack and has two windows to first floor, both with cambered head linings, one a six-pane sash, the other a C19 casement and there is a wide casement window to the ground floor and a simple doorcase. This appears to have been built as a service wing. There is a C19 stock brick lean-to at the end of the range. The whole of the eastern rear range appears to be a C19 further service range of two storeys and is in yellow brick with tiled roof and has two late C20 sashes with a C20 lean-to extension including porch. INTERIOR: Not inspected. HISTORY: There has been a building on this site since at least 1642 when Henry Robinson gifted it to St John's College Cambridge, in whose ownership it still remains. The existing house looks very similar to the drawing of the building on Thomas Hill's map of 1679, copied in 1740. One of only two dwellings outside the village of Birchington in this direction until the railways came in 1863.