Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 19/11/2020

TQ 8538
16/73

BIDDENDEN
NORTH STREET (west side)
The Old Cloth Hall
East Wing and West Wing

(Formerly listed as The Old Cloth Hall or Old Cloth Workers Hall, NORTH STREET)

4.6.52.

I
This was the dwelling-place and one of the workshops of the cloth workers who were numerous in Biddenden in the Middle Ages. Later the building was divided into eight houses which were separated on the ground and first floors but were inter-connected in the attics. The whole is now two residences.

The main portion is C15. The east end facing the road was added or altered in the C17. Timber-framed range with plaster infilling, the east end close-studded, the ground floor mostly rebuilt in brick, now painted: six small tile hung gables, some with carved bargeboards. Tiled roof. Casement windows, mostly with diamond-shaped leaded panes. At the east end is a bay on the ground and first floors with a window of two tiers of seven lights and wooden mullions and transoms. On the first floor below the three westernmost gables are similar oriel windows of five lights, the westernmost one with two wooden brackets beneath it, the others with a plaster cove beneath. Between the easternmost of the oriel windows and the bay at the east end is a slight projection on the ground floor with a sloping tiled roof and a roundheaded recess. Two storeys and attics in gables: Eight windows facing north.

The east front has one window. Its first floor oversails on a moulded bressumer and brackets. Oversailing gable above with the date 1672 and the initials E S (Edmund Stede). On the ground floor is a similar bay of seven lights and a similar oriel window above with a plaster cove beneath it. The south front is faced with red brick on the ground floor and tile hung above: seven gables, some of them oversailing. Projecting bay on first floor beneath the easternmost gable.

Listing NGR: TQ8511738505

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17529252

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Harrow on the Hill: A photographic portrayal of listed buildings and structures (Historic Buildings Picture Guides)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)