BIDBOROUGH COURT

BIDBOROUGH COURT, PENSHURST ROAD

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1277665
Date first listed:: 24-Aug-1990
List Entry Name:: BIDBOROUGH COURT
Statutory Address:: BIDBOROUGH COURT, PENSHURST ROAD

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1277665
Date first listed:: 24-Aug-1990
List Entry Name:: BIDBOROUGH COURT
Statutory Address 1:: BIDBOROUGH COURT, PENSHURST ROAD

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.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

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.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: BIDBOROUGH COURT, PENSHURST ROAD

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Kent
District:: Tunbridge Wells (District Authority)
Parish:: Bidborough
National Grid Reference:: TQ 55987 43372

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

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.