Ightham Mote (pronounced "item moat") is a medieval moated manor house close to the village of Ightham, near Sevenoaks in Kent (Grid reference: TQ58395346). Ightham Mote For the London district, see Manor House, London. ... The village of Ightham (pron. ... Sevenoaks is a town in the Sevenoaks district of Kent in South East England and forms part of the London commuter belt. ... coat of Arms of Kent For other uses, see Kent (disambiguation). ... The British national grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references commonly used in Great Britain, different from using latitude or longitude. ...

The name "mote" derives from "moot", "meeting [place]", rather than referring to the body of water.

Description

Ightham Mote: the gatehouse rebuilt in the 1480s

Originally dating to around 1320, the building is of note as, after the completion of the quadrangle with a new chapel in the sixteenth century, its successive owners effected relatively few changes to the main structure. It was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1985 by an American businessman, Charles Henry Robinson, who had bought it in 1956. The house is now a Grade I listed building, and parts of it are a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2592x1944, 1772 KB)Source: Personal photograph taken 15/07/2005. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2592x1944, 1772 KB)Source: Personal photograph taken 15/07/2005. ... The standard of the National Trust The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as The National Trust, is a British preservation organization. ... Buckingham Palace, a Grade I listed building. ... A Scheduled Ancient Monument is defined in the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 and the National Heritage Act 1983 of the United Kingdom government. ...

There are over seventy rooms in the house, all arranged around a central courtyard. The house is surrounded on all sides by a square moat, crossed by three bridges. The earliest structures on the site include the Great Hall, the Chapel, Crypt and two Solars. The courtyard was completely enclosed and the battlemented tower constructed in the 15th century. The structures include unusual and distinctive elements, such as the porter's squint, a narrow slit in the wall designed to enable a gatekeeper to examine a visitor's credentials before opening the gate, and a large kennel which was built in the late 19th century for a St. Bernard named Dido. The kennel is the only Grade I listed dog house. A great hall was the main room of a royal palace, a noblemans castle or a large manor house in the Middle Ages, and in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries. ... A chapel is a private church, usually small and often attached to a larger institution such as a college, a hospital, a palace, or a prison. ... Crypt is also a commonly used name of water trumpets, aquatic plants. ... The solar was a room in many English medieval great houses and castles. ... Wikimedia Commons has media related to: St. ...

The moat of Ightham Mote

It therefore remains a snapshot of how such houses would have looked in the Middle Ages. Nikolaus Pevsner called it "the most complete small medieval manor house in the country". During the 19th century a female skeleton was found walled up behind a blocked service door. Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1600 × 1200 pixel, file size: 645 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Ightham Motes mote. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1600 × 1200 pixel, file size: 645 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Ightham Motes mote. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... Sir Nikolaus Pevsner CBE (January 30, 1902 – August 18, 1983) was a German-born British historian of art and, especially, architecture. ...

In 1989 the National Trust began an ambitious restoration project which involved dismantling much of the building and recording its construction methods before rebuilding it. The project ended in 2004 after uncovering numerous examples of structural and ornamental features which had been covered up by later additions. It is estimated to have cost in excess of £10million.

Ightham Mote and its gardens are open to the public.

References

• Christopher Simon Sykes, Ancient English Houses 1240-1612 (London: Chatto & Windus) 1988

External links

• Ightham Mote information at the National Trust
• Time Team, a television programme on the restoration of Ightham Mote

Coordinates: 51.25830° N 0.26855° E Map of Earth showing lines of latitude (horizontally) and longitude (vertically), Eckert VI projection; large version (pdf, 1. ...