Old Soar Manor

En un regard

Le château en bref

In the wooded Kent countryside, about two kilometres east of Plaxtol, Old Soar Manor offers rare evidence of the home of an English knight at the end of the 13th century. The site does not preserve the original great hall, which was of timber, but the stone wing that housed the lord's private apartments. Built around 1290 of ragstone rubble, this wing brings together three raised spaces above vaulted undercrofts: the upper chamber or solar, crowned with a king-post roof, a small domestic chapel and a garderobe tower. The thick walls and the cross-shaped arrow slits on the ground floor show that the house could also serve as a defensive refuge. The chapel, the only fully glazed room, retains a finely carved early 14th-century piscina. The manor belonged to the Culpepers, a great landowning family of medieval Kent, until 1601. In 1780 the hall was replaced by the brick farmhouse that still adjoins the lodging. Given to the National Trust in 1947, the site can be visited freely in the summer season.