Fredville House, Fredville Park, Nonington, Dover: Additions

FREDVILLE - The following tenders have been received, by invitation, for additions to Fredville House, about to be occupied by C. J. Plumptre Esq. ; Messrs Stevens and Robinson, architects: Fry. and Pepper, Dover, £1,775; H. B. Wilson. Canterbury. £4,605 15s; Bogy, Folkestone, £4,580. Mr. Bogy's tender was accepted. [Canterbury Journal 17 December 1864]

Fredville House was inherited by Charles John Plumptre in 1864 and greatly extended in the 1880s. After the Plumptre family moved to the newly-built “Little Fredville House” in the 1920’s the original house became a girls’ boarding school. Main house demolished in 1945 after a fire. Some outbuildings remain.

The house Stevens built was fairly standard fare for him. It was ‘Jacobethan’ that is, a combination of classic Elizabethan and Jacobean features, then very popular with the elite. The entrance was on the three gabled west front, and was through a Gothic doorcase above which was carved, by Derby sculptor Joseph Barlow Robinson, the Bateman arms, quartering Sacheverell and Osborne. The gables were straight and coped, the house of two lofty storeys and attics and built of fine ashlar, squared from millstone grit quarried from Coxbench quarry nearby. The south front had canted end bays with a stepped gable between and the east front had two gables flanking a dormer, with a four-bay service wing ending in yet another gable and an arched loggia. The windows were mainly four light mullioned and transomed ones, and there were paired string courses above them. The whole was rounded off with impressive chimneys, reflecting the carved Gothic chimneypieces in the main rooms below. The staircase was also of stone with a gothic balustrade, and the rooms were plentifully panelled in oak.

Reference           Canterbury Journal 17 December 1864