From the report: "The building is a substantial detached dwelling located on high ground to the north of the quarry slope in Boughton Monchelsea, outside of the conservation area. The building dates from the 1840s and replaced a much earlier house which stood on the site and had historic associations with Rock Cottage (grade II*)… Rock House is a detached three bay, two storey building constructed from coursed buff rag stone with a hipped slate roof above with flanking chimneys. The building displays classical and Italianate detailing applied in a traditional local vernacular way… Overall the primary heritage interest of this building derives from its robust appearance and form as an early 19th century, though altered, detached house with some classical features." (1)

"Documentary records from the late 16th century indicate that the present Rock house was preceded by a large house known originally as Wychden and later as ‘The Clock House’ and ‘Boughton Mount’, which was destroyed by fire and replaced by the current Rock House in the 1840s." (2)

During an Historic Landscape survey undertaken at this site it was suggested that: 'It is probable that ragstone has been quarried in Broughton since the Roman period. The location of the Roman quarries is unknown. They may have been sited close to a known Roman building east of Brishing Road at the eastern end of ‘The Quarries’, although all traces are likely to have been obliterated in later workings, which continued into the early 19th century' and that 'The southern face of the ridge upon which Rock House stands, represents the medieval extent of the quarrying at the western end of ‘The Quarries’. Quarrying had ceased here before the later part of the 16th century, at which time two well constructed and high status timber-framed houses, Rock Cottage and Hart’s House, were built on the quarry floor. These two houses remained part of the wider land holding (together with Rock House and its predecessor) until the 1953 and sometime in the second half of the 19th century, respectively.' (2)

<1> Heritage Collective, 2015, Land at Rock House, Bottlescrew Hill, Boughton Monchelsea, Maidstone (Unpublished document). SKE32013.

<2> Archaeology Collective, 2016, Historic Landscape Survey, Smith House, Boughton Monchelsea, Maidstone, Kent ME17 4LY (Unpublished document). SKE32066.