Trottiscliffe Court Lodge (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Trottesclive; Trosley

In the civil parish of Trottiscliffe.
In the historic county of Kent.
Modern Authority of Kent.
1974 county of Kent.
Medieval County of Kent.

OS Map Grid Reference: TQ64616054
Latitude 51.32019° Longitude 0.36089°

Trottiscliffe Court Lodge has been described as a probable Palace.

There are no visible remains.

This is a Grade 2 listed building protected by law*.

Description

Gundulf, Bp. of Rochester, was allotted the manor of Trottescliffe soon after his election in 1077. An episcopal palace was erected but by 1185 the buildings were so ruinous that they had to be rebuilt. It was again improved by Hamo De Heth, Bp. 1319-52, who built a kitchen two dining-rooms and outhouses and surrounded the house with walls. Some years after the Reformation the palace was leased out and is held by the Whitaker family (Hasted). In 1918 there was nothing left of the palace except the indication of its former size in the very high rooms of the farmhouse. A coating of cement had "utterly destroyed its character". The house is approached by an apparently 17th c. brick gateway and three of the original fishponds survive. Many old outhouses had been recently demolished (Norman, 1920). 'Court Lodge' (name confirmed by the owner) is a brick two-storey private residence of the 17c. The house has been refaced on the south side and plastered over. The lower courses of the W. wall are of flint and ironstone evidently a fragment of the former palace. An outbuilding at the rear of the house contains a fragment of flint walling in the west side with a small original square-headed stone window apparently in situ. The gateway, comprising two large square pillars of ornamental brick, each surmounted by a stone ball finial, and the S and E garden walls are contemporary with the present house. An Antiquity Model Survey has been done. Three ponds to the south of Court Lodge (shown by OS map, and certainly those referred to by Norman as Fishponds) are now filled in with waste, the northernmost two are grassed over, the southern one is boggy. They bear in shape little resemblance to artificially constructed fishponds (F1 ASP 18-JUN-59). (PastScape)

House. C18 with C19 alterations. Red brick, the front elevation cement rendered. Hipped plain tiled roof with central brick stack off-ridge to rear and hipped dormer to left. 2 storeys; 4 window first-floor, C18 glazing bar-sashes with open boxes. 2 window ground-floor, both C19 glazing bar sashes, one single, one tripartite. Central panelled door in architrave moulded surround. (Listed Building Report)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1236196
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 413428.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) TQ 66 SW 90.

Books
- Emery, Anthony, 2006, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales Vol. 3 Southern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) p. 321 (mention)
  Thompson, M.W., 1998, Medieval bishops' houses in England and Wales (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing) p. 182
  Flight, C., 1997, The Bishops and Monks of Rochester 1076-1214 (Maidstone: Kent Archaeological Society) p. 185
  Newman, John, 1980, Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald p. 575
  Morewood, Caroline C., 1910, 'Introductory Chapter' in Rait, R.S. (ed), English Episcopal Palaces (Province of Canterbury) (London; Constable & Co) p. 8 online copy
  Hasted, Edward, 1798 (2edn), The history and topographical survey of the county of Kent Vol. 4 p. 549- online transcription
Periodical Articles
- Norman, P., 1920, 'The palace or manor-house of the Bishops of Rochester at Bromley, Kent' The Archaeological Journal Vol. 77 p. 175
  Pearman, A.I., Tait, G.H. and Thompson, H.P., 1918, 'Residences of the bishops of Rochester' Archaeologia Cantiana Vol. 33 p. 131-54 online copy
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Wharton, H., Anglia Sacra: sive Collectio historiarum, partim antiquitus, partim recenter ... Vol. 1 p. 371, 372 online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Payne, Naomi, 2003, The medieval residences of the bishops of Bath and Wells, and Salisbury (PhD Thesis University of Bristol) Appendix B: List of Medieval Bishop's Palaces in England and Wales (available via EThOS)

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

Data >	PastScape	County HER		Listing	I. O. E.
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio