Builder in Staplehurst

Homes in Staplehurst

The historic heart of the village lies between the crossroads and All Saints Church on top of the hill, and Staplehurst grew as a line of houses along the main road. Many of the houses around the church are believed to date from the 16th and 17th centuries and were given new fronts and windows in the 18th and 19th, and the conservation area appraisal notes that only Crown Cottages, a mid 16th century row, still shows the close studding of its timber frame. It describes the smaller cottages as mostly painted weatherboarding, slightly larger ones as soft red brick or painted render, and roofs as almost all red plain tiles. At 1, 2 and 3 High Street the first floor is weatherboarded at the front and tile hung on the gable, and Lime Terrace has bands of plain and fishscale tiles over brick.

The station opened in August 1842, and the northern part of the village around Station Road grew up after the railway arrived, with Victorian brick villas and smaller terraces that sit outside the conservation area, while the Hoare family of Iden Manor built red brick model cottages at The Quarter.

Most development stayed along the main road until housing areas were built east and west of the A229, mainly in the 1960s and 1970s; the neighbourhood plan dates South Bank to the early 1950s, Bathurst Road to the early 1960s, Hurst Close and Corner Farm to the mid 1960s, Oliver Road to the mid 1970s, Poyntell and Slaney Road to the late 1970s and Lime Trees to the early 2000s. More recently the Hen and Duckhurst Farm development off Marden Road has been completed, and about 400 homes are allocated at Fishers Farm. At the 2021 Census, about 43 per cent of households in the parish lived in a semi detached house and 31 per cent in a detached one, compared with about 32 and 23 per cent across England.

Extensions and Loft Conversions for Staplehurst Homes

Three bedroom homes are the most common size in the parish, and on the estates built since the 1950s, rear and side extensions and loft or garage conversions are practical ways to gain space. Where walls come out for an open plan kitchen we fit steel beams to an engineer's calculations, with building control approval.

For older houses in the conservation area, the appraisal adopted in November 2024 asks for extensions in sympathetic materials that stay subservient to the house, normally no more than one or two dormers on an elevation, no large box dormers and no roof lights on front elevations. Its list of suitable materials includes red brick, ragstone, clay plain Kent peg tiles, weatherboarding and timber windows.

Planning, Conservation and the Neighbourhood Plan

Planning applications in Staplehurst are decided by Maidstone Borough Council against the Maidstone Local Plan Review 2021 to 2038, adopted on 20 March 2024, and the Staplehurst Neighbourhood Plan, made on 7 December 2016 and remade with updates on 6 August 2020. A reviewed plan for 2024 to 2038 was submitted in 2026 and must still pass examination and a referendum.

The Staplehurst Conservation Area covers the historic core along the High Street, Chapel Lane and around All Saints Church, and since November 2024 it has also taken in Iden Manor and The Quarter to the south; there is no Article 4 direction on the conservation area at present. In a conservation area, side extensions, rear extensions of more than one storey, roof enlargements and external cladding are not householder permitted development, so each needs planning permission.

Staplehurst is not in a National Landscape, though the High Weald National Landscape lies beyond the borough boundary to the south. The River Beult, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, runs along the northern edge of the parish, and the local plan only permits development here that will not have an adverse effect on it. We suggest confirming the position with Maidstone Borough Council before plans are finalised.