The following text is from the original listed building designation:
1. 1715 APPLEDORE ROAD (North East Side)
Finchden Manor TQ 93 SW 6/140 8.5.50.
II* GV
2. A large C16 timber-framed house with modern additions at the north west end. Sir Thomas More, when Lord Chancellor of England, was reported to have visited the house. In the C19 it was occupied as a Benedictine Priory but it is now a school. The lower half of the ground floor of the south west front facing the garden is of red brick and grey headers. Above it is plastered and painted black and white in imitation of timbering. 3 storeys, having 3 projecting gables with bressumers and one dormer and 6 bay windows below the gables. 2 storey projecting porch with gable, its 1st floor coved. To the north west of the porch are 2 further bays without gables, one of them coved similarly to the porch. One of these bays has the date 1658 on it, which probably refers to an alteration. Casement windows. The garden elevation is mainly brick fronted. The roof has a massive brick chimney stack and hipped gables, 2 of which have fretted bargeboards. The right side gable has a bressumer with strapwork designs and some fine C17 grotesque brackets. Lion head waterspouts, and rain water heads. The central portion has 3 hipped gables with 4 female grotesque brackets. The left side gable has exposed close-studded timbering. The interior has a C17 staircase with balusters.
Finchden Manor, with gatepiers and garden wall and stables, and Mavnards Farmhouse with Priory Farmhouse (on south-west side of Appledore Road), form a group. Listing NGR: TQ9007933127 (4)

Description from record TQ 93 SW 6:
(TQ 90083313) Finchden Manor (NAT) (1) 1715 APPLEDORE ROAD (North East Side) Finchden Manor TQ 93 SW 6/140 8.5.50. II* GV A large C16 timber-framed house with moderm additions at the north west end. Sir Thomas More, when Lord Chancellor of England, was reported to have visited the house. In the C19 it was occupied as a Benedictine Priory but it is now a school. The lower half of the ground floor of the south west front facing the garden is of red brick and grey headers. Above it is plastered and painted black and white in imitation of timbering. 3 storeys, having 3 projecting gables with bressumers and one dormer and 6 bay windows below the gables. 2 storey projecting porch with gable, its 1st floor coved. To the north west of the porch are 2 further bays without gables, one of them coved similarly to the porch. One of these bays has the date 1658 on it, which probably refers to an alteration. Casement windows. The garden elevation is mainly brick fronted. The roof has a massive brick chimney stack and hipped gables, 2 of which have fretted bargeboards. The right side gable has a bressumer with strapwork designs and some fine C17 grotesque brackets. Lion head waterspouts, and rain water heads. The central portion has 3 hipped gables with 4 female grotesque brackets. The left side gable has exposed close-studded timbering. The interior has a C17 staircase with balusters. (2) Finchden Manor has been much added to and altered. The main front to the road is timber-framed, with overhanging gables and a two-storeyed porch. 17th century geometrical decoration on the porch, and another bit to the left with a date 1658. Good brick stables north east of the house c.1670. The main part has a hipped roof on a cornice with big shaped brackets. English bonding. (3)

Historic England archive material (5)

<1> OS 1:10000 1979 (OS Card Reference). SKE48165.

<2> DOE (HHR) Dist of Tenterden, Kent June 1972 (OS Card Reference). SKE40359.

<3> Bldgs of Eng W Kent & the Weald 2nd Ed 1980 567 (J Newman) (OS Card Reference). SKE37952.

<4> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

<5> Historic England, Archive material associated with Finchden Manor, Tenterden Listed Building (Archive). SKE54294.