Langdon Abbey
Langdon Abbey, Langdon
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II*
- List Entry Number:
- 1070055
- Date first listed:
- 27-Aug-1952
- List Entry Name:
- Langdon Abbey
- Statutory Address:
- Langdon Abbey, Langdon
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Location
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II*
- List Entry Number:
- 1070055
- Date first listed:
- 27-Aug-1952
- List Entry Name:
- Langdon Abbey
- Statutory Address 1:
- Langdon Abbey, Langdon
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- Langdon Abbey, Langdon
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- County:
- Kent
- District:
- Dover (District Authority)
- Parish:
- Langdon
- National Grid Reference:
- TR 32634 46960
Details
TR 34 NW
2/29
LANGDON
LANGDON ABBEY
Langdon Abbey
27.3.52
GV
II*
House. C12, C16 and late C17 altered mid C19. Built for Thornhill family on remains of Premonstratensian Abbey. Red brick in irregular Flemish, stretcher bond and English bond, with flint and dressed stone sections to rear. Plain tiled roof.
Entrance front; late C17, two storeys and basement with plinth, plat band and boxed eaves to hipped roof, with stacks to left, centre left and to right. C19 fenestration, regular to right hand of elevations, with two tripartite sashes and central segmentally headed sash, and two tripartite sashes on ground floor with central door of six panels with semi-circular fanlight in rendered rusticated surround. The left hand portion has one sash on each floor in blocked larger window openings, and door of four raised and fielded panels with simple architrave. Four segmentally headed basement openings.
Rear elevation: L-shaped two storey hipped structure in English bond with brick arcading of giant pilasters carried across whole facade and projecting wing. The main wing with keyed and blocked arches on ground floor, now filled in, so as to form three bay portico effect, an unusually advanced classical feature in the east Kent Artisan Mannerist vocabulary. Projecting from the left hand projecting wing is one storey extension of stone blocks with galleting, the return wall of this wing is rebuilt in C18 brickwork.
Interior: rear wings with large scantling joists. Chamfered and stopped with quirk and tongue. Some fitted cupboards and doors with raised and fielded panelling, most features date from mid C19.
Cellars: the undercroft of the cellarium of the C12 abbey form the basis of the C17 cellars, including a barrel vaulted slype with finely gauged chalk, webbing, the main range at right angles to this, with the springers for groin vaults surviving, with chamfered arched and round headed stone doorways. Domed bread oven C18 survives in stone end wing.
Langdon Abbey was founded by William d'Auberville of Westernhanger 1189-1192 for white canons from Leyston Suffolk. Dedicated to St. Mary and St. Thomas the Martyr, the Abbey had an uneventful history until dissolution in 1535. A house was built by Samuel Thornhill after 1590 and extended by his successors until 1700, when sold to Waldershare estate. The church and conventual remains lay east of the house, excavated and back covered 1882 by Sir William St. John Hope.
Listing NGR: TR3263446960
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 178468
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Sources
Books and journals
Hasted, E, History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, (1797)
Newman, J, The Buildings of England: North East and East Kent, (1983), 369
Archaeologia Cantiana in Archaeologia Cantiana, Vol. 15, (1889)
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 05-Jun-2026 at 14:35:19.
Download a full scale map (PDF)End of official list entry
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