Building record TQ 55 SW 315 - John Kingston (estate agent), The Giggling Squid (Thai restaurant), 3b and 5 Dorset Street, Sevenoaks

Numbers 3b and 5 Dorset Street are commercial premises inserted into the southern and south eastern corner of a former Methodist chapel and clergy house, which first appear on the 1867 Ordnance survey map. This forms part of the Methodist complex which runs through to Bank Street (see record 10195) and includes a school. The modern shop front for John Kingston is not sympathetic. The original buildings are mid-Victorian, built of ragstone with tiled rooves. In the gable end on the LHS, above the shop front of 3b are the triple lancet windows of the old clergy house and on the RHS the heads of three more lancets in the chapel. Below the eaves of the hipped, tiled roof is a raised dentilled band. A modern four light window has been inserted into the centre section , obliterating what may have been there before. The restaurant round the corner at no. 5 (the Giggling Squid) has a high quality grey painted timber shop front with central glazed door and double French windows on either side. It also has a row of diamond paned windows across the top under the shop sign. Above it are three modern windows cut into the dentilled cornice. (1)

<1> Sevenoaks District Council, Sevenoaks District Council Local List of Heritage Assets (Index). SKE53505.