Listed Building record TR 02 SW 90 - Old Tomms

Summary
A small two-storey vernacular farmhouse dating from the seventeenth century.

Reasons for Designation
Old Tomms is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as a C17 farmhouse that survives with a significant proportion of historic fabric.

Historic interest:
* as a good example of a vernacular farmhouse which is illustrative of the agricultural history of the Romney Marsh area.

History
Until the first century AD, the area of Romney Marsh consisted of several small islands within a shallow bay. The marshes were formed through natural deposition of sediment and, from the eighth century, reclamation by local farmers. Following the Great Storm of 1287, which diverted the mouth of the River Rother from New Romney to Rye, extensive drainage works were undertaken to reclaim more parts of the marsh into usable agricultural land, driven in part by nearby abbeys that exploited the area for its resources. The resultant flat expanse of land provided rich grazing particularly for sheep, but also for cattle. Further drainage works from the mid-C19 and again in the 1950s allowed the conversion of much of the loam soil areas to arable, although stock grazing persists in some parts of the marsh.

Matthew Poker's 1617 map of Romney Marsh depicts a farm building in the approximate location of Old Tomms, and it is possible this is the same as the present building. The farmhouse is also depicted on the original one-inch Ordnance Survey (OS) mapping for the location, dated 1816-1819. Higher resolution OS maps from 1871 onwards depict the building with its present footprint. The name 'Olde Tomms' does not appear on OS mapping until the publication of the 1977 map. It is likely the original building was constructed in the C17 as a single-pile farmhouse, with the east porch and west range under catslide roofs added sometime later, probably in the late C17 or C18 and certainly by 1871.

Details
A small two-storey farmhouse dating from the C17.

MATERIALS: ground floor walls of red brick with grey headers laid in Flemish bond, stretcher bond brickwork to the west range. Tile-hung first floor. Clay tile roofs. Brick chimney.

PLAN: rectangular with the long elevations approximately west and east. Originally probably a single-pile but west range added later. Projecting porch to the centre of the east elevation.

EXTERIOR: Two-storey main range under a hipped roof with ridge pierced by a central chimney stack with corbel courses. The single-storey west range, which was probably built slightly later is covered by a catslide roof. This elevation has two tripartite windows and a door to the ground floor, plus a single window set in an eyebrow dormer to the upper level. The north elevation has a square four-light window and a small single-light window to the ground floor, and a bipartite window to the first floor. The east elevation has a central projecting porch covered by catlside roof, containing a door and ground-floor window. On the north side of this porch there is a tripartite window to each floor. On the south side there is a single window to the ground floor; the first floor appears to have been reclad.

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