The following text is from the original listed building designation:

TR 1643-1743 ELHAM HIGH STREET (west side)
9/37 No. 20 (The Master's House) 29.12.66 and No. 22 (Poor's House)
GV II
Parish Workhouse and the Master's house, now house pair. Late C18. Red and grey brick in Flemish bond. Left gable end tile-hung (probably over brick), right gable end brick. Plain tile roof. 3 storeys and cellar. Central section of building is slightly recessed. Hipped roof, cut back over central section. Rendered brick gable-end stack to left and rear stack to right. Irregular fenestration of 4 windows; three two-light horizontally-sliding sashes and one two- light casement to second floor and four recessed twenty-pane sashes with segmental heads to first floor (one to each 'wing' and two to central section). Ground floor has three multipane canted bay windows on brick bases, with flat corniced roofs. Door with four fielded panels, two top lights and flat bracketed hood up three steps to right end of left 'wing', to The Master's House. Blocked carriage entrance to left end of central section. Panelled door with two small top lights and flat bracketed hood up three steps to left end of right 'wing', to Poor's House. Two-storey rear lean-to. Interior not inspected. (A building to rear, now in The Row, said to have been the old Hospital of the Workhouse. Not listed).
Listing NGR: TR1766543990

A parliamentary report of 1777 recorded a parish workhouse in operation at Elham with accommodation for up to 60 inmates. Elham was part of a Gilbert Union formed under Gilbert's Act of 1782 which provided a variety of powers including the operation of a workhouse for the elderly, infirm and children.

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

Kent Workhouses
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© 2017 Kent Workhouses, 2018, Kent Workhouses & Poorhouses (Website). SKE51755.