Home > Kent > Brenchley > Rose & Crown Rose & Crown
Picture source: Hania Franek
The Rose & Crown was situated on the High Street. This grade-II listed pub closed in 1999 and has been converted into housing.
Source: Andy Johnson
My grandfather Arthur George Stevenson took over the Rose & Crown from his sister around 1950 after running the Vauxhall Inn Pembury Road Tonbridge; where I also lived. I lived in Brenchley from 1952 until 1955 with my parents (Syd & Vera) and my two younger brothers (Bill & Tom); when we moved to the Constitutional Club in Calverly Road Tunbridge Wells above the Kosmos Kinema.
Den Stevenson (March 2015)
My Father was the proprietor of this Hotel/Pub from 1935 until just before the 2nd world war. The customers were a very mixed crowd, visits from the poet Siegfried Sassoon and his brother Mike and family with several locals , usually led to after hours drinking and dancing with even the local policeman joining in. I was born in 1936 and lived there with my Father William Farnham his wife Victoria and my brother David. Being so young I have limited memories of the day to day happenings. I remember standing watching the Hunt meetings and the hounds were kept before the off in a field opposite the pub. At hop picking time the workers down from London would swell the number of visitors to the public bar, my mother remembered much drinking and jollity. After my father sold the premises, we moved for a short period to Langton just outside Tunbridge Wells, my Father then took the licence of the Duke of York public house on the Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells where stayed until 1945/46.
Stephen Farnham (December 2019)
Listed building details:
Public house. C17 origins, alterations of the early C18 and early C19. Framed construction, the front elevation underbuilt in brick to the ground floor, tile-hung above and painted white; peg-tile roof; brick stacks. Plan: The pub adjoins the Bournes shop range (q.v.) and faces north, fronting the High Street. L-plan. The main range was 3-rooms wide (now 2), the 2 right hand (west) rooms formerly heated from back-to-back fireplaces in an axial stack with a lobby entrance. The left hand room is probably a rebuilding or addition and was originally unheated. Rear right wing heated from an end stack. Rear service block under a 2-span roof. The absence of evidence for infill on the first floor rear wall framing suggests that the building always had a 2-storey rear service block of some kind. The roof construction suggests that the main range attic was designed to be used for storage, perhaps with a loft door at the right end. In the circa early C18 the house was re-windowed. A winder stair to the rear probably dates from this phase. Ground floor bay windows were added in the early C19. The partition between the 2 left hand rooms has been removed. Exterior: 2 storeys and attic. Asymmetrical 4-window front, the roof half-hipped at the right end; left end stack at the junction with the Bournes shop range, axial stack to right of centre. C20 front door to the lobby entrance with an C18 or early C19 gabled porch hood. 3 early C19 canted ground floor bay windows, 2 to the left of the porch, one to the right, the 2 left hand windows converted to doors in the centre, the right hand window intact with a 16-pane sash in the centre and 8-pane outer sashes; early C19 12-pane sash to ground floor right. The first floor windows are early C18 2- and 3-light casements the mullions bead-moulded on the inner face, with fine original window furniture typical of and peculiar to the parish and leaded panes including some original glazing. 2 similarly-glazed hipped roof attic dormers. The right return also has some C18 windows with leaded panes, some with quadrant catches. C19 panelled door into the wing. Interior: The 2 left hand ground floor rooms have exposed ceiling beams. The chamfered sole plate of the centre room does not extend into the left hand room. The right hand ground floor room and the wing have some re-used ceiling beams and wall-framing timbers. The main block frame preserves wall posts with jowled heads. Roof: Above the 2 right hand rooms the tie beam and clasped purlin roof has remarkably steeply-cambered collars, shaped like an inverted U. One of the collars has a rough off-centre hole in it that appears to be in line with a former timber wheel, fixed partly in the axial stack and possibly used as a lifting mechanism for goods pulled in through a first floor opening. The exterior of this building is very important to the character of Brenchley; interesting interior features.
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Contacts
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Name Dates Comments Julie & Phil Collings 1992/1993 We worked and lived in at the pub.. initially under Rowley and Allison Hill- Managing the Bar and Restaurant. It was a fabulous busy pub with regular customers like Pemble, Derek and Lucy Jones, Paul (from solarshield), George Rhys-Jones, Raymond from Huddersfield and so many more. There was often a lock in on a Sunday.
Other Photos
Picture source: Hania Franek
	Click above photo to expand		Picture source: Hania Franek
© Copyright Nigel Chadwick and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
1830s brass tobacco honour box, stamped with 'The Rose & Crown, Brenchley'		Picture source: Dave Chaperon