page_title: Wickhambreaux
section_title: Landmarks
hierarchical_section_title: Wickhambreaux / Landmarks
caption_attribution_description: English: The Old Rectory, Wickhambreaux - Westerly Aspect
context_page_description: Wickhambreaux is a small rural village in Kent, England. The village is just off the A257 Sandwich Road, four miles east of the city of Canterbury. Since Roman times the village has had connections to the Church and the Crown, including being owned by Joan of Kent in the 14th century. The 13th-century parish church of St Andrew stands around a medieval village green along with other historic buildings.
context_section_description: The historic village of Wickhambreaux contains a harmonious collection of substantial distinctive properties clustered around the village green, including the former watermill on the banks of the Little Stour. The most picturesque corner is to the south-east with the Old Stone House and Wickham Mill adjoining the river.
  Wickham Mill (Grade II listed) previously a corn mill dominates the entrance into Wickhambreaux from Littlebourne and its four-storey, with attics, white weather boarded structure is a local landmark. Of particular note is the retention of the overshot waterwheel. Opposite the mill is the Old Stone House/former Post Office (Grade II*). Beyond the mill, where the road crosses the Little Stour via a small bridge with white painted wooden railings, the village green is reached. The green is very much the centre of the village with the, church, large houses and the Rose Inn public house fronting it.
  Wickhambreaux Court (Grade II) sits on a small slope above the green and its Regency buff brick 1700s façade with green shutters is the dominant built feature from the green. This re-facing masks an older building which could well be medieval in origins and was likely undertaken on the instruction of the then owner of the Manor Sir Thomas Palmer, 4th Baronet, of Wingham. The house featured in the 1944 film A Canterbury Tale. Behind Wickhambreaux Court is the Wickham Court Oast, which is all that remains of a farm.
  Across the green from Wickhambreaux Court sits Old Willow Farmhouse (Grade II) a two-storey 18th century house of red brick which was restored and rendered in the first half of the 19th century. The building sits prettily in its grounds next to the Little Stour. The river at this point flows between the Oast Houses and Old Willow Farmhouse and has landscaped banks with willow trees, shrubs and flowers crossed by attractive foot bridges.
  The Old Rectory (formerly Wickham House) is Grade II* listed with unmistakable Baroque tendencies. It was built in 1714 by Reverend Alexander Young The Old rectory is two storeys high with attics and a basement. Its construction of red-brown brick with red brick dressings has one of the finest examples of tuck-pointing mortar in the district.
  To the south of the Old Rectory is the Rose Inn (Grade II). Its two-storey rendered frontage is late 17th early 18th century in appearance. In earlier times travellers used it as a stopping point on their way to Grove where The Stour could be crossed. It remains the busy hub of this community being one of the few businesses left in the village. Adjacent to the Rose Inn is a small terrace of locally listed cottages which, along with the Old Bell House, form the corner and entrance to The Street a narrow road of smaller terraced style houses.
  The Old Bell House (Grade II) is a 15th-century timber-framed building, probably a hall-house of two bays. The first floor is close studded with brown roughcast infilling, the ground floor is rebuilt in painted brick. It turns the corner into The Street where it is abutted by Bell Cottage.
  Wickhambreaux retains the medieval pattern of development of grander homes around the green and smaller workers' cottages and small businesses in their own separate area. The Street is narrow and lined with closely packed buildings predominantly built up to the road edge. This character area contains 17 listed buildings and 23 locally listed properties. The form, layout and character of this street hark back to a much earlier era. Until 1966 the road still had the central drainage gutter from the Middle Ages and is still locally known as Gutter Street.
  The Street would have been the commercial core of the village and many of the building forms and names still reflect this, however, the village shops have closed over the years.
caption: The Old Rectory
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