The Chequers Inn is a public house in the village of

Smarden Smarden is a civil parish and village, west of Ashford in Kent, South East England. The village has the Anglican parish church of St Michael the Archangel which, because of its high scissor beam roof, is sometimes known as ''"The Barn of Kent" ...

in Kent. It has been listed Grade II on the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

since February 1967. It was built in the 16th-century and is

timber framed Timber framing () and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs. If the struc ...

. It was subsequently refronted in red brick and features extensive

weatherboard Clapboard (), also called bevel siding, lap siding, and weatherboard, with regional variation in the definition of those terms, is wooden siding (construction), siding of a building in the form of horizontal boards, often overlapping. ''Cla ...

ing. The 1886 ''Memories of Smarden by Rev. Francis Haslewood relates an incident in which a gang of smugglers held a gun to the head of an excise officer who entered the Chequers and demanded their surrender before riding off. The Chequers is one of a number of pubs where the ghost of highwayman

Dick Turpin Richard Turpin (bapt. 21 September 1705 – 7 April 1739) was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York for horse theft. Turpin may have followed his father's trade as a butcher ear ...

and his horse Black Bess have allegedly been sighted. In 1886 the Court Nil Desperandum society of the Ancient Order of Forresters were registered at the pub and had 90 members. The sign of the Chequers Inn was traditionally garlanded with leaves and berries from ''

Torminalis glaberrima ''Torminalis'' is a genus of plants in the rose family, Rosaceae. The genus was formerly included within the genus ''Sorbus'' as the section ''Torminaria'', but the simple-leafed species traditionally classified in ''Sorbus'' are now considered ...

'', a tree popularly known as the Chequers tree, every autumn. In 2024 permission was granted by Ashford Borough Council to turn the Chequers Inn into a single-family residence.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chequers Inn, The Borough of Ashford Grade II listed pubs in Kent