Formerly TR 35 NW 163

Description from record TR 35 NW 78:
5275 Nos 39 & 41 (Pilgrims House) Strand Street (South side) TR 3358 1/40 19.5.50 Grade 2. C14, C15 and C16 timber framed building, restored. 1st and 2nd floors overhang on the protruding ends of the floor joists and bressummers. Curved braces. Plaster infilling. Ground floor rebuilt in brick. Modern casement windows, lead lights. There is an internal courtyard which is surrounded by the building on all side. Nos 33 to 45 (odd) form a group. (1) Nos 39 & 41 Strand Street, with two overhangs, at the corner of Harnet Street, have been restored. Behind no 39 is a high wall, and behind that a 17th century addition to an older building on the original street line. (2) Nos 39 and 41 Strand Street. This attractive pair of timber-framed buildings stands on land which once belonged to the monks of Christchurch, Canterbury. It is believed that before the Dissolution, they were used as hostels for travellers, of which type of building Christchurch owned not less than six in Sandwich. No 39 includes part of the undercroft of a very interesting 13th century building of stone and flint rubble, which stood on an earlier building line, hehind the present frontage. This older line extends between Upper Strand Street and Harnet Street, and has an number of fragments of 13th century, or earlier buildings on it, including a roofless 13th Chantry Chapel and a stone vaulted undercroft, from which line, all evidence points to the widening of the quayside, and moving forward the building line somewhere around 1300. None of the buildings on the old line can be later than that date, and none on the forward line earlier. The key to all this would appear to be the disastrous storm of 1287, which devastated the whole of the south-east coast. It deposited a great bank of shingle northwards from Deal, and inside part of Sandwich haven. the harbour therefore must have become narrower then, and has silted up even more since. The north side of Strand Street, which was once the quayside, is now covered with various later buildings, mostly unattractive sheds and warehouse of the Georgian and Victorian periods. Fig. 1 (illustration card no 1) shows the quayside here before 1287, with a reconstruction of the small Norman house, part of which may still be seen. Fig. 2 (illustration card no 1) shows the same scene in the 14th century, when the quayside had become wider, No 41 appears to have been the first timber-framed building to have been erected on the new building line. It had three stories on the street front, with an open hall behind, which went up the three storeys and shared a common roof with the solar part. This was the first "high hall" to be recorded. Fig. 3 (illustration card no 2) No 39 was erected very shortly afterwards. It appears to be similar to No 41 but the roofs are not exactly the same, and the curved braces on no 41 have been added to match no 39. As the sketch shows, the small Norman house was still inuse and was approached by what is now the little courtyard between Nos.39 and 41 and a wagon entrance leading on to the street. No 30 is L-shaped in plan, but is basically the same "high" hall house, with a three storey solar wing at the front, but extended at the front, and built on to No 41. Fig. 4 (illustration card no 2) shows the same scene after the extensive alterations of 1606. The Norman house was sliced down to the level of the undercroft window, as it is today, and a timber-framed extension to no 39 built on it. This timber-framing differed from the medieval in that it was a framing formed of squares with herring bone brick nogging. The extension to the roof can be clearly seen inside, the later part being of oak, but with square...(Cut short)

Ten samples were taken form timbers at No. 39. Analysis of the timbers has resulted in the dating of six to 1334 AD.(4)

The following text is from the original listed building designation:
1. 5275 STRAND STREET (South Side) )
Nos 39 & 41 (Pilgrims House) TR 3358 1/40 19.5.50.
II GV
2. C14, C15 and C16 timber framed building, restored. 1st and 2nd floors overhang on the protruding ends of the floor joists and bressummers. Curved braces. Plaster infilling. Ground floor rebuilt in brick. Modern casement windows, lead lights. There is an internal courtyard which is surrounded by the building on all sides.
Nos 33 to 45 (odd) form a group.
Listing NGR: TR3304958313 (5)

Historic England archive material: PC40825 Pilgrims House on Strand Street, taken from the north-west Note on envelope stating ready for architectural diary on the 18th of May 1923.
PC40826 Pilgrims House on Strand Street, taken from the north-west Note on envelope stating ready for architectural diary on the 18th of May 1923.

<1> DOE(HHR) Dist of Dover Kent 1976 129 (OS Card Reference). SKE40950.

<2> Bldgs of Eng NE & E Kent 1983 451 (J Newman) (OS Card Reference). SKE37774.

<3> Typescript notes unpublished (E W Parkin) (OS Card Reference). SKE50692.

<4> Centre for Archaeology, 2001, Tree-Ring Analysis of Timbers from 39 Strand Street, Sandwich (Unpublished document). SKE12175.

<5> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.