Bidborough Court

Details

TQ 56 43 / TQ 54 S BIDBOROUGH PENSHURST ROAD (south side)

11/22 and 4/22 Bidborough Court

GV II Country house, converted to school boarding house. Circa 1860s in origin with later C19 and early C20 alterations. Squared sandstone rubble, brought to course with sandstone ashlar dressings; clay tile roof with ornamental banding; stone stacks with stone shafts. Gothic style.

Plan: Asymmetrical plan, an irregular rectangle with the main entrance on the north elevation, the south and west elevations overlooking the garden, service rooms to the east. The north entrance leads into a 2-storey stair hall, the principal rooms opening off this. A corridor on a west east axis leads from the stair hall to the service rooms to the east, with a service stair in a south east tower. An early C20 billiard room was added to the south of the service wing, probably contemporary with a programme of internal refurbishment.

Exterior: 2 storeys and attic with a 4-stage entrance tower. Gabled roofs; stacks with tall clustered octagonal shafts with moulded cornices. Stone and timber mullioned windows, mostly transomed, with plate glass casements. Ruggedly asymmetrical 13 window north elevation, dominated by the entrance tower to right of centre. This has a pyramidal spire, a parapet with gargoyles, a 5-sided north west stair turret, angle buttresses and a first floor corbelled oriel window with a battered pyramidal stone roof and trefoil- headed one-light windows. The tower has a moulded Tudor arched doorway, one- light windows to the second stage and 3-light windows to the top stage. To the left of the tower a 3-window block is gabled to the front with a square bay with a parapet to the ground floor. The bay has a 4-light transomed window with round-headed lights, similar first floor window above. To the right of the tower a crosswing with a hipped roof has a separately-roofed rectangular bay angled across the outer corner of the range. The service wing is slightly set back to the far left and gabled to the front at the left with a lower-roofed gabled block alongside it at the left end. The south elevation is also irregular, the main range 4 windows with the gable end of the west crosswing to the left with a 2-storey canted bay. To the right of this the 5- light transomed stair window with a frieze of glazed quatrefoils in the head and a gable above it. The other windows are mullioned and transomed, matching those in the north side. The billiard room, to the right of the main block, is top-lit with a hipped roof and a large bay window on the south side. The service stair tower rises behind it to the right with a pyramidal roof, a stack and a 2-light plate traceried window on the south side. The west end crosswing is of 3 irregular bays with transomed windows, French windows to the ground floor. 3 gabled dormers with bargeboards with pierced trefoils at the apex.

Interior: Mixture of 1860s and early C20 features. The stair hall is 1860s with a 2 tier triple arcade with Early English capitals. The stair has pierced splat stick balusters. Stair window with decorative leading. The stair hall has a neo-Jacobean chimney-piece. The other principal rooms retain C19 or early C20 joinery, chimney-pieces and some elaborate plaster cornices and friezes. The present institutional use has involved very little change to the interior.

The house was originally called Elm Court, the architect is unknown to date.

An ambitious Victorian country house.

Listing NGR: TQ5598743372

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

430782

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.