Westernhanger Castle

The history of Westenhanger Castle dates back as far as Norman times. Today the castle is a scheduled ancient monument and the manor house is grade 1 listed.

The repair and conservation of Westenhanger Castle was undertaken as a rolling programme of works between 1997 – 2003. The works comprised repair and conservation of the ancient ragstone curtain walls to the castle. The castle walling had decayed and collapsed in some instances. The works include the recording and taking down of unstable masonry and reconstructing as original. Fallen ragstones were used to build up missing areas of walls.

The repair of the Mediaeval Great Barn was undertaken in 2003 - 2006 . The roof tiles had been removed by the previous owners following the great storm in 1987 and the roof timbers had suffered severe decay as a result. Careful repairs to the old oak roof timbers using traditional jointing methods and consolidation of high level masonry and wall heads was carried out prior to the reinstatement of hand made kent peg roof tiles. The barn has one of the finest hammer beam roofs in the country.

The works at Westenhanger Castle received generous grant aid from English Heritage. Therefore, it was necessary to demonstrate that best value was achieved on each phase and we were required to work closely with the English Heritage quantity surveyors to satisfy their requirements.