The Old Red House and 2 Church Street

Details

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 15/05/2019

TQ 63 49
7/87

HADLOW
THE SQUARE
The Old Red House, and 2 Church Street

(formerly listed as The Pedlars Pack and La Cremailler Restaurant HIGH STREET (north side), previously listed as House and shop on west corner of Church Street)

20.10.54

GV
II
Two houses, one with a shop, the other with a restaurant, formerly a single property. Some C16 or C17 fabric, major mid C18 rebuild with some C19 and C20 alterations. Front of painted Flemish bond brick, it is exposed on left end (to Church Street) and is red with decorative burnt headers, other parts are timber-framed and variously plastered or clad with peg-tile; brick stacks and chimney shafts; peg-tile roof.

Plan and Development: this is a large building with a long and complex structural history. There are reports (see source) of C16 or C17 structural fabric being discovered during building work but it is now hidden. The main block is essentially the result of the mid C18 rebuild. The main house faces north onto The Square. It has a three-room plan. Axial stack between centre and right rooms, direct entry into smaller right room and main stair in a block projecting to rear of the centre room. Unheated left end room is a shop. Rear block (former service block) projects at right angles to rear of the left end along Church Street. The two-room plan block immediately behind is mid C18 and maybe older in parts. Behind that are C19 rooms with former stables at the end. Two storeys.

Exterior: regular five window front with twelve-pane sashes on the first floor. Ground floor level was altered in the C19. Left two bays are taken up with plain C20 shop windows either side of a shop door. At the right end a mid C19 doorway, part-glazed four-panel door up a couple of stone steps, and timber doorcase with moulded entablature and pediment. Projecting brick flat bands at first floor and eaves level and plain parapet above. Roof is hipped both ends. Lower rear blocks. The stair block is hipped and the rear block roof hips down to the C19 service buildings. Here the windows are less regular. They are a variety of sizes and dates. Inside edge of rear block includes some horizontal-sliding sashes with glazing bars.

Interior: largely the result of the mid C18 rebuild has been modernised more than once since. In the centre room of the main block there is a large open brick fireplace with plain oak lintel. It may be C17 in origin. Mid C18 main stair; closed string, square newel posts, flat moulded handrail and turned balusters. Some other mid C18 joinery including some two-height panelling in the rear block. The roof structure was not accessible. John Billett (see source) describes various irregularities of plan and temporarily exposed features which suggest the extensive survival of C16 or C17 fabric.

This is a large site in the centre of Hadlow and was occupied by wealthy merchants through the C16, C17 and C18 according to John Billett's researches. The earliest documentary reference dates from 1388. By 1570 it was known as Frankfort House, maybe named after the ventures of the wealthy mercer William Trice. In the late C17 it was occupied by another mercer John Wells. He sold it in 1694 to yet another mercer Ruben Colgate in whose family it stayed most of the C18. Billett suggests a possible connection with the Colgates of later toothpaste fame.

This is an important house in Hadlow and is one of a group of varied listed buildings in the centre.

Source: John Billett, The Old Red House (n.d.) MS belonging to the owner of The Pedlars Pack.

Listing NGR: TQ6342849786

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

179523

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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