The following text is from the original listed building designation:
HADLOW HIGH STREET (north side) TQ 63 49 7/72 Lime Tree House (formerly listed as Nos 2 and 4 The 20.10.54 Square
GV II
House and shop, formerly a pair of houses. Late C17/early C18 with some C19 and C20 modernisation. Flemish bond red brick, end walls are timber-framed clad with peg-tile above first floor level, rear kitchen block is English bond brick at ground floor level, timber-framed above clad with peg-tile and painted weatherboards; brick stacks and chimneyshafts; peg-tile roof.
Plan and Development: Main block is built parallel to the street and faces south east. It has a 4-room plan, 2 rooms each side of the central axial stack with serves back-to-back fireplaces. It is now one property but was built as a pair of small mirror-plan houses, one each side of the stack. Integral rear outshots include a stair block to rear of the right heated room although trimmers in the joists over the left heated room suggests that there was once a stair inside the room there. One-room plan kitchen block projects at right angles to rear near the right end. It has a gable-end stack. It may be an earlier C17 building incorporated into the late C17/early C18 house. Another rear block projects at right angles and overlaps the left end. It has a one-room plan and has an outer lateral stack. It too appears to be an earlier C17 building but was refurbished in the C19. 2 storeys and main block has attics in the roofspace.
Exterior: Regular 4-window front was probably symmetrical originally and is nearly so now. The ground floor has 2 C20 shops, each has a central door with large windows each side containing glazing bars. Second doorway each end containing C20 doors. C20 casements to first floor and hipped-roof attic dormers in original openings. Flat brick band projects at first floor level. Plain eaves. Roof is half-hipped each end and part of the shaped chimneyshaft is late C17/early C18. Both rear blocks are gable-ended and contain C20 casements with glazing bars. The outer side of the left rear block (onto School Lane) includes a C19 doorway with loading hatch doorway above.
Interior: The rear blocks probably contain the oldest fabric but most is hidden behind plaster. The left rear block is said to include timber-framed walls of large scantling with curving tension braces. The ground floor of the right rear block has a 4-panel intersecting beam ceiling, chamfered crossbeams but the main axial beam is boxed in. The fireplace is blocked and the owner reported that its lintel had burnt through. Above is the tie-beam of a formerly closed truss but the roofspace here and in the left rear block is inaccessible.
In the main block all the rooms have axial beams. Most are plain chamfered but that in the left heated room has step stops and that in the right end first floor chamber has scroll stops. Large ground floor fireplaces are brick with oak lintels. First floor right fireplace has a probably late C17/early C18 chimneypiece. First floor includes a great deal of late C17/early C18 joinery detail including 2-panel doors, plank doors with strap hinges and cupboards. Straight flight stair is broken through towards the bottom but this lower newel post is original, square section with a carved monster finial. Stair has a closed string with moulded handrail and turned bulbous balusters. Main block roof of A-frame trusses with staggered butt purlins.
Lime Tree House is one of a good group of varied listed buildings in the centre of Hadlow.
Listing NGR: TQ6338049803

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