Buying or selling a house in
Wrotham
Wrotham is a village in west Kent below the North Downs, with 63 listed buildings, a Grade I church of the early fourteenth century and three conservation areas. Coursed Kentish ragstone and Elizabethan red brick define the older stock, much of it behind Georgian rendered frontages. Its station is a mile away, in Borough Green, and runs direct to two London terminals. Vine Estates handles a small number of sales here personally.
What it’s actually like
Wrotham rewards a second look. Behind the Georgian fronts along the street there are seventeenth-century frames, and the church has a vaulted passage running right through the base of its tower. It sits under the downs with sixty-three listed buildings, a secondary school in the village, and the quickest run into London round here. The transmitter on the downs above the village sent Britain's first FM broadcast in 1955.
“Georgian at the front and seventeenth-century behind it. Wrotham is a good deal older than it lets on.”
David Johnston
The houses
Coursed Kentish ragstone is the historic material — the Old Palace is coursed ragstone on a wide plinth, the church random rubble under plain tiles. Wrotham Place of about 1590 is Elizabethan red brick with ashlar quoins. The classic local pattern is a Georgian front masking an earlier frame, and The Bull Hotel is the textbook case: a mid-eighteenth-century front over a seventeenth-century structure. There are 63 listed buildings in the parish, one Grade I and four Grade II\*.
Getting to London
Wrotham is served by Borough Green & Wrotham station, about a mile south of the village in Borough Green. Southeastern run four trains an hour off-peak, two of them to a London terminus — one to London Victoria and one to London Charing Cross.
Schools
Wrotham School is a coeducational non-selective secondary with a sixth form, an academy since April 2013. St George's CE Primary School serves the village, and Grange Park School is a special school in the parish.
Common questions
Does Wrotham have its own station?
Not quite. Borough Green & Wrotham station is about a mile south of the village, in Borough Green. It opened in 1874 named after Wrotham alone, was renamed Wrotham & Borough Green, and the word order was later reversed as Borough Green grew. The name is a historical residue, not a location.
What is the Old Palace at Wrotham?
A sixteenth-century house believed to incorporate part of the Archbishop of Canterbury's medieval palace, which stood here as a resting place on the way to London. The palace was demolished and its stone used at Maidstone; the ruins were restored as a manor house by the Byng family. It is Grade II\* listed.
Why is there a transmitter above Wrotham?
The Wrotham transmitting station on the North Downs was the first in the UK to broadcast on VHF/FM, starting on 2 May 1955. Its mast stands 176.6 metres tall and it still carries BBC Radio 1 to 4, Classic FM, BBC Radio Kent and KMFM West Kent.
Thinking of moving from Wrotham
If you're weighing up a move here, a short conversation now costs nothing and commits you to nothing. I can tell you honestly what's realistic and when.