St Clere, Kent

St Clere is a Grade I listed 17th-century country house in Kemsing, Kent, England.

St Clere
Location within Kent
General information
TypeCountry house
LocationKemsing, Kent, England
Coordinates51.30936°N 0.26105°E / 51.30936; 0.26105
Completed17th century

The house is built in brick in 3 storeys plus basement and attic. It has a 5 bay front facade with a l9th-century central porch and a parapet. The high pitched hipped slated roof is surmounted by a row of linked tall brick chimneys. Extensions have been built to the side. Within the house is a chimneypiece by Sir John Soane, which was brought from the old Bank of England.[1]

History

In the 13th century the property was known as Aldham and owned by a family of the same name, later passing to the St Clere family. Aldham became Aldham St Cleres and eventually St Cleres. The St Clere family died out in the 1400s and the estate was acquired by Henry Lovell, who built a new house there. In 1625 it passed to Sir John Sedley, 2nd Baronet (of Great Chart), who built the present house. By the death of the 4th baronet in 1702 the house was somewhat neglected and was sold to William Glanville, MP (formerly William Evelyn), High Sheriff of Kent for 1757.[2]

The house passed down in the Evelyn family via William Evelyn, MP and his son-in-law Alexander, who took the surname Evelyn and was High Sheriff of Kent for 1816. He left it to a cousin Lt-Col William John Evelyn, who rarely used the house and occasionally rented it out and in 1878 it was finally sold to Sir Mark Wilks Collet, Bt., a London merchant and later a Governor of the Bank of England.

Collet carried out a series of renovations to the buildings and grounds, as did his son and successor Sir Mark Edlman Collet. When the latter moved abroad in 1935 the estate passed to Montagu Norman, 1st Baron Norman, in whose family it remains.

The Mirror Crack'd, a 1980 British mystery film directed by Guy Hamilton based on Agatha Christie's thriller used the house as its main location. It stars Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple, Kim Novak, Elizabeth Taylor, Geraldine Chaplin, Tony Curtis, Edward Fox, Rock Hudson.

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References
  1. Historic England. "St Clere (1258564)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  2. "The Kent Compendium of Historic Parks and Gardens for Sevenoaks District" (PDF). Kent Gardenss Trust. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
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