St Clere is a

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

17th-century country house in

Kemsing Kemsing is a village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, England. The parish lies on the scarp face of the North Downs, 20 miles south east of Central London, north east of Sevenoaks. Also in the parish are the hamlets of Heave ...

, Kent, England. The house is built in brick in three storeys plus basement and attic. It has a five bay front facade with a 19th-century central porch and a parapet. The high pitched hipped slated roof is surmounted by a row of linked tall brick chimneys. Extensions have been built to the side. Within the house is a chimneypiece by Sir

John Soane Sir John Soane (; né Soan; 10 September 1753 – 20 January 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neoclassical architecture, Neo-Classical style. The son of a bricklayer, he rose to the top of his profession, becoming professo ...

, which was brought from the old Bank of England.

History

In the 13th century the property was known as Aldham and owned by a family of the same name, later passing to the St Clere family. Aldham became Aldham St Cleres and eventually St Cleres. The St Clere family died out in the 1400s and the estate was acquired by Henry Lovell, who built a new house there. In 1625 it passed to Sir John Sedley, 2nd Baronet (of Great Chart), who built the present house. By the death of the 4th baronet in 1702 the house was somewhat neglected and was sold to William Glanville, MP (formerly William Evelyn),

High Sheriff of Kent The high sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown (prior to 1974 the office previously known as sheriff)."Sheriffs appointed for a county or Greater London shall be known as high sheriffs, and any reference in any enactment or instrum ...

for 1757. The house passed down in the Evelyn family via William Evelyn, MP and his son-in-law Alexander, who took the surname Evelyn and was High Sheriff of Kent for 1816. He left it to a cousin Lt-Col William John Evelyn, who rarely used the house and occasionally rented it out and in 1878 it was finally sold to Sir Mark Wilks Collet, Bt., a London merchant and later a

Governor of the Bank of England The governor of the Bank of England is the most senior position in the Bank of England. It is nominally a civil service post, but the appointment tends to be from within the bank, with the incumbent grooming their successor. The governor of the Ba ...

. Collet carried out a series of renovations to the buildings and grounds, as did his son and successor Sir Mark Edlman Collet. When the latter moved abroad in 1935 the estate passed to

Montagu Norman, 1st Baron Norman Montagu Collet Norman, 1st Baron Norman DSO PC (6 September 1871 – 4 February 1950) was an English banker, best known for his role as the Governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1944. Norman led the bank during the toughest period in m ...

, in whose family it remains. ''

The Mirror Crack'd ''The Mirror Crack'd'' is a 1980 British mystery film directed by Guy Hamilton from a screenplay by Jonathan Hales and Barry Sandler, based on Agatha Christie's Miss Marple novel ''The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side'' (1962). It stars Angel ...

'', a 1980 British

mystery film A mystery film is a genre of film that revolves around the solution of a problem or a crime. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur Detective, sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of an issue by means ...

directed by

Guy Hamilton Mervyn Ian Guy Hamilton, DSC (16 September 1922 – 20 April 2016) was an English film director. He directed 22 films from the 1950s to the 1980s, including four James Bond films. Early life Hamilton was born in Paris on 16 September 1922, wh ...

based on

Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictiona ...

's thriller used the house as its main location. It stars

Angela Lansbury Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury (October 16, 1925 – October 11, 2022) was an Irish-British and American film, stage, and television actress. Her career spanned eight decades, much of it in the United States, and her work received a great deal ...

as Miss Marple,

Kim Novak Marilyn Pauline "Kim" Novak (born February 13, 1933) is an American retired film and television actress and painter. Novak began her career in 1954 after signing with Columbia Pictures and quickly became one of Hollywood's top box office stars, ...

Elizabeth Taylor Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. ...

, Geraldine Chaplin, Tony Curtis, Edward Fox, Rock Hudson.

References

{{reflist Country houses in Kent Grade I listed buildings in Kent