Listed Building record TR 26 NW 1168 - SHELVINGFORD FARMHOUSE

Summary

Grade II listed building. Main construction periods 1450 to 1899

Location

Grid reference TR 2114 6540 (point)
Map sheet TR26NW
District CANTERBURY, KENT
Civil Parish HOATH, CANTERBURY, KENT

Map

Type and Period (1)

Full Description

The following text is from the original listed building designation:
1. 5273 HOATH
Shelvingford Farmhouse TR 26 NW 1/398
II
2. C16 or earlier continuous jettied timber-framed house much altered in the C19. Two storeys and attics plastered front. The first floor oversails on brackets and with a drawn post. Hipped tiled roof with 2 tiny C19 gables dormers Cl7 brick chimneystack. Three casement window. Two small C19 bays on the ground floor. C19 gabled porch.
Listing NGR: TR2114265405
(1)

From a 2015 assessment carried out by Historic England prior to the buildings upgrading to grade II*:

"Shelvingford Farmhouse has a long and varied history. According to the County Historian Edward Hasted
writing in 1800, the ancient manor of Ford was renamed Shelvingford after the Shelving family who held it at
the beginning of the C14. The present house on the site has not currently been dendro-dated but Kenneth
Gravett in 'The Houses of Hoath' considered that the earliest part comprised the three surviving bays of a
timber-framed four-bay continuous jetty house with a crown post roof, dated from 1500-1530, or possibly the
very end of the C15 as it was in the same parish that Archbishop Morton had brought Ford Palace up to date
in the reign of Henry VII. Therefore the property was built by the Hawte family who held the property at this
time. The Hawte Family were influential in Kent and Sussex; Sir William Hawte fought at the Battle of
Agincourt and the family owned Ightham Mote in the C15. The family also had connections with the Royal
Household. Unusually the open hall is thought to have been built with a chimney from the beginning, instead
of a central hearth, and it may have been fully floored from the start. In 1541 the younger brother of Sir
Thomas Culpeper, the owner at that time, was executed for his alleged adultery with Queen Catherine
Howard and two years later, whether or not coincidentally, Sir Thomas Culpeper ceded Shelvingford Manor to
Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, in exchange for estates elsewhere. Shelvingford was owned by
the church from 1543 until the 1980s and was a farmhouse for most of this time. In the second half of the
C16 the solar end bay of the continuous jetty house was replaced by a timber-framed cross-wing of two bays
with a roof of rafters and collars. The side of the cross-wing was re-fronted in brickwork and a cellar
excavated under it in the early C18. Further early or mid-C19 additions were added at the back of the
property.
Architecturally this is a high status late medieval timber-framed house with a good quality oak timber frame
which includes a continuous jetty, curved braces, close-studding, a dragon beam, the survival of some
original ogee and ovolo-moulded casement windows, and square and chamfered ceiling beams.
Although the roof structure of the open hall, of late C15 or early C16 date, is not exceptionally early for a
crown post roof (the earliest crown-posts in Kent date from the 1290s) it is one of a relatively small number of
cruciform or rebated crown-posts with four upward braces. The two RCHME volumes on medieval houses of
Kent, published in 1984, only illustrate two examples of this type. The end wall of the open hall has exposed
lime-washed wattle and daub and the lack of smoke blackening to either this surface or the roof timbers is
evidence that unusually there was a chimney from the beginning rather than a central hearth with louvres
above. Shelvingford Farmhouse contains two original roofs as the later C16 cross wing also retains its roof of
rafters and collars.
Original interior fittings include a flight of very rare C16 solid wooden triangular-shaped tread stairs, a number
of open fireplaces, including a parlour fireplace with unusual diamond-shaped decoration, and original wide
oak floorboards.
The plan form has necessarily evolved over five centuries. However the original plan, of a four-bay
continuous jetty house with a two bay open hall, is still apparent externally, despite the replacement of the
solar bay by a later C16 cross-wing, because of the abrupt ending of the jetty just into the later cross-wing
bay. The external framing also appears to indicate the presence of an original chimney or smoke bay.
Another suggestion is that the house was built as two storeys with an upper hall from the beginning, an
interesting transitional plan between the open hall plan and full two-storey plan. Internally the original plan
form is now apparent because of the recent removal of a later ceiling to reveal the original crown post roof of
the open hall, the survival of some internal partitions and the evidence from sockets in one beam for a former
partition in the service end, and the solid tread staircase, which demonstrates the original circulation around
the house before a later staircase was built. The plan form of the two bay cross-wing is evident externally and
internally by the room divisions. Although extensions were added in the early and mid C19 these were built
onto the earlier part of the house without significant damage to the original plan form.

Shelvington Farmhouse survives remarkably intact. The timber wall frame, roof structure and some internal
partitions survive with little alterations, both to the three surviving bays of the late C15 or early C16
continuous jetty house and the late C16 cross-wing."(2)


<1> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

<2> historic england, 2015, Historic England Advice Report, Upgrading Case: Shelvingford Farmhouse (Unpublished document). SKE30901.

Sources/Archives (2)

  • <1> Map: English Heritage. List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest.
  • <2> Unpublished document: historic england. 2015. Historic England Advice Report, Upgrading Case: Shelvingford Farmhouse.

Finds (0)

Protected Status/Designation

Related Monuments/Buildings (0)

Related Events/Activities (1)

  • Non-Intrusive Event: Historic England Assessmant: Upgrading Case: Shelvingford Farmhouse (Ref: Case Number: 1424748) (EKE15009)

Record last edited

Apr 20 2016 10:51AM