Otham Manor, previously known as Wardes, is a late 14th-century manor house in

Otham Otham () is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Maidstone, Maidstone district of Kent, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 523, with 204 dwellings. Buildings The village itself has been in existence sin ...

, Kent. The house was built in the late 14th century, probably around 1370, and was altered and extended in the 16th century. It is a L-shaped two-storey

timber-frame Timber framing () and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs. If the struc ...

hall house The hall house is a type of vernacular house traditional in many parts of England, Wales, Ireland and lowland Scotland, as well as northern Europe, during the Middle Ages, centring on a hall. Usually timber-framed, some high status examples wer ...

; the north wing being the older part and the south wing being from the 16th century. The north wing has

jettied Jettying (jetty, jutty, from Old French ''getee, jette'') is a building technique used in medieval timber framing, timber-frame buildings in which an upper floor projects beyond the dimensions of the floor below. This has the advantage of incr ...

bays at each end; the western bay having been rebuilt. The clay tiled

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other vertical sides ...

is steeply pitched with a

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

to the south end of the south wing. Internally the roof structure is exposed with tie beams and king post. The house was restored in 1912 by Sir Louis du Pan Mallet, ambassador to the

Sublime Porte The Sublime Porte, also known as the Ottoman Porte or High Porte ( or ''Babıali''; ), was a synecdoche or metaphor used to refer collectively to the central government of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul. It is particularly referred to the buildi ...

. Sir Louis engaged the architect

Philip Tilden Philip Tilden (31 May 1887 – 25 February 1956) was an English architect, active in the early twentieth century, who worked for some of the most prominent members of English High society, society, including Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George ...

who extended the house with a wing to the west. The whole house is a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. The Listing described the mansion as a "GV I House, formerly cottages, now house. Late C14 with C16 alterations and additions". The estate was in a state of "semi-dereliction by the early 1990s" according to

Country Life (magazine) ''Country Life'' (stylised in all caps) is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine, launched in 1897, that is published by Future plc. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until 2016, when moved to Farnborough, Hampshire. I ...

. It was subsequently restored by new owners and listed for sale in 2019.

References

{{reflist

External links

Images of Wardes from 1917
National Monument Record:ViewFinder,

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, Otham: Otham Manor
Image of the stained glass window Grade I listed houses in Kent Borough of Maidstone

See also

References

External links