Sevenoaks

 

High Street
Many of old buildings still remain. John Wesley preached to 'a large, wild company' on open ground near Sevenoaks School.
13, 15, 17 medieval hall house
152 Electric Theatre Cinema. Built in 1911, by the proprietor of the Royal Oak Hotel on the site of Smith's Brewery closed 1925. Rebuilt Tudoresque. Rebuilt again 1935 as The Cinema plus cafe, etc.  This was J Nye's second film theatre commission and done for the Sevenoaks Cinema Company. 'Cinema'  was opened by Lord  Sackville on 4 November 1935. A simple spare brick facade was treated as a symmetrical composition relieved by a wide central window which lit a cafe on the first floor. Further up on the frontage, a stone frieze carried the word  ‘Cinema’, outlined in neon after dark, flanked by low relief panels designed as variations on the masks of comedy and tragedy. the interior was of restrained proportions with metal  balustrades on the stair wells and a glazed screen dividing off the café. In the streamlined auditorium, horizontals drew the eye screenwards in the Mendelssohnian manner with the plaster firmament illuminated by concealed installations above the proscenium and a 'flying saucer' providing a central halo of light. An abstract pattern appliquéd in the stage drapes and a glass organ console completed the effects.  Nye designed the entire scheme himself. It cost some £10,000 and provided 1,150 seats, representing excellent value even in 1935.  In 1936 became a Plaza, with a Compton organ installed and a Granada in 1947. Closed in 1960 and a road was built through the site
65 15th-century timber- framed building which was originally the residence of the Archbishop Reeve or his steward but was converted into a shop in the 19th . 
Banks at the beginning of the modern shopping centre.
Bligh’s Hotel was an isolated Tudor farmhouse, much restored
Chantry. red-brick stands right on the street, rubbed brick and blind windows on the wings. Staircase with turned balusters. Extension of 1905 on the street side, but 17th garden walls, one of which is dated 1686. 
Chequers. 16th
Jail was furniture shop opposite the post office
Manor House, house of' 3 bays and fanlight over the front door.  1800 This 18th house is thought to have been built as a dower house for Knole. It is now part of Sevenoaks School
Market House 1843. Originally opened as an arcade. Rendered with terracotta 
Midland Bank. 1922 3 by Whinney 
Oak End. Brown brick. 18th by Baillie Scott & Beresford.  
Old House. 1700, placed on the corner. 
Old Vicarage. Late 18th  
Post Office timber framed 
Royal Oak Hotel. 1820. Plain, 
Burlington’s school.
Royal Oak Tap. John Wesley a blacksmith who seized one of the troublemakers, carried him off to his forge (now the tap-room of the Royal Oak in High Street) and hung him by the belt from one of the hooks until the sermon ended.
Sevenoaks School.’ For the free education of poor children’ - founded in 1432. The grammar school and almshouses were founded by William Sevenoke, who became Lord Mayor of London in 1418, It was rebuilt 1724 by Lord Burlington. But local men were in charge – posh architect would have insisted on something smoother. Grouped with almshouses in long blocks. Modern buildings behind.
St.Nicholas church., St Nicholas is the patron saint of- merchants and travellers and the position of the church, close to the roadside, suggests that it may have originally been a wayside shrine on the trade route from London to the sea. it seems originally to have been a daughter church of Shoreham.  There has been a church on the site for over 1,000 years, initially wooden but replaced by stone in 11th, Present  building is 13th and 15th but restored.Battlements were added by Cockerill in 1812. Both John and Charles Wesley preached here encountering  fierce opposition. Font and pulpit from Wrotham. 
Stables 18th  end on to the road. .
Temple House, 1884 on a grass mound. 
The Red House. Built 1686 for John Couchman of Tooting. Once the home of Jane Austen's uncle. Jane visited the house during her childhood. 


Knole Park
Church, Access from High Street
Deer enclosure by Bourchier in 1456, taken over by Henry VIII. Elizabeth passed it to Sackville. Deer are mixed fallow and Japanese Sika, 400 in 1973,
Surrounded by stone wall a mile round. Bryan Donkin worked there at age of 20 as agent to Duke of Dorset
Herb garden
Ice house domed by the drive now filled in
Echo Mount, a Knoll that gives the house its name. Landscape gardening in the trees
Duchess Walk. Landscape painting going north-east to Godden Green. Loudon praised the old formal garden then left it intact
Glass works
Knole House. One of England's greatest show houses, set in a deer park Knole's historic links with kings, queens and the nobility, as well as its literary connections with Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, make this one of the most intriguing houses in England. Thirteen state rooms are laid out much the same as they were in the 18th , to impress visitors by the wealth and status of the Sackville family. The house contains paintings by Gainsborough, Van Dyck and Reynolds, and 17th-tapestries.  Built by Thomas Bouchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1456. Henry VIII took it from Cranmer and Elizabeth gave it to Sackville. 1604 major remodelling. Looks the same now as it did when Sackville died. Built round three main courtyards. A very large house with a lot of important rooms and fittings. Wesley twice visited Knole, in 1780 and 1790. He wrote rhapsodically of both house and grounds: 'The Park is the pleasantest I ever saw; the trees are so elegantly disposed. The house, which is at least two hundred years old, is immensely large. It consists of two squares, considerably bigger than the two quadrangles in Lincoln College ... The pictures are innumerable; I think, four times as many as in the Castle at Blenheim.' And he was particularly impressed by the Spangle Bedroom, furnished for a visit of James I. The first impression the house makes is one of size. It is a great jumbled mass of buildings, roofs, chimneys, and gables—looking more like a fortified town than a house for a single family. Covers four acres and has seven courtyards, and is supposed to have fifty-two staircases, and 365 rooms. Buildings existed in at least 1370, and probably earlier, but it was transformed into a great house in 1456 for £266 13s. 4d. The price may have been low as the previous owner's father, Lord Saye, the Lord Treasurer, together with his son-in-law, the Sheriff of Kent, were beheaded by Jack Cade in the Peasants' Revolt of 1450. Two weeks earlier Cade's rebels had ambushed the royal troops on the edge of Knole Park, and defeated them.  Several archbishops followed Bourchier until Henry VIII confiscated the house from Archbishop Cranmer in 1538. After a period of confusion, the present family, the Sackvilles, gained uncontested possession in 1603, and have remained at Knole ever since. Entering the house by the main gate we pass through the Green Court to the Stone Court, a large courtyard paved with stones over reservoirs of water for the house. The attention to detail in the house is shown by the leaden drainpipes, dated 1605, which are all different. The Great Hall, covered with ornate wooden panelling and carving, is where the family would eat, with an orchestra in the musicians' gallery.  A special feature is the original upholstery and coverings on the chairs and sofas—they are rather faded and tatty but still lasting after three or four hundred years' use.  The Ballroom is an immense room with magnificent oak panelling with carvings of mermaids and grotesque figures, and a plasterwork ceiling decorated with flowers and acorns. The Venetian Ambassador's bedroom has a huge and sumptuous four-poster bed; the crimson drawing- room has several Reynolds; and the Cartoon Gallery has copies of Raphael cartoons on its red velvet-covered walls. 
Stone Court reservoir underneath. a quite magnificent feat of early architecture. Best described as a pair of underwater cloisters, interlinked by beautiful archways along its whole length, the water cistern is almost 70 feet long, twenty feet wide and ten feet deep. The water in the reservoir was crystal clear, other than the silt
Pleasance, deer park, landscape garden, herb garden.
Old Oak. 
King John’s Oak
King’s Beech

London Road
20 The house where Wesley is said to have stayed, became a butcher's shop

Market Square
Market House built to replace a timber Tudor building. Originally the ground floor arcade was open and provided covered space for market stalls and the upper rooms were used as a corn market and the coroner's court

Six Bells Lane
Curving cobbled lane.  Church bell tower gave it its name.

Sevenoaks
The oldest and most interesting part south of the railway station. Pleasantly situated 500 feet up on the greensand ridge, with fine views over the Weald

Tonbridge Road
White Hart White Hart Inn. Beyond it are said to be the seven oaks. Road soon reaches its highest point

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