Built / Designed For: Sir Basil Dixwell, 1st Bt.

House & Family History: Broome Park was built for Sir Basil Dixwell in an H-style that is completely symmetrical. Broome was part of a very cosmopolitan and limited movement of the time that disdained the Tudor architecture that was then popular, but also found the rising Palladian style too cold and severe. Broome and other buildings like it (Cromwell House, London, and Kew Palace, Richmond) blended Renaissance and Inigo Jones styles with a little panache. In the 18th century the saloon was done up by James Wyatt in the Neoclassical style of Robert Adam. Pevsner, writing in "The Buildings of England: North East and East Kent," says "the Saloon is one of the finest late 18th century rooms in Kent..." The war hero Lord Kitchener purchased Broome in 1911 and lived here until his death in 1916. He commissioned the architects Blow & Billerey to redecorate the house, the high point of which was the hall, complete with a plaster ceiling modeled on one at Gilling Castle and two huge chimneypieces that were copied from those in the gallery at Hatfield House. (Kitchener is best known, when, as secretary of state for war during the First World War, he appeared on the famous recruitment poster with his heavily mustachioed face and hand pointing over the phrase "Your Country Needs You"—see scan of poster in "Images" section). In the early 1930s the Broome Park Estate was purchased by Mr. G.C. Jell, who converted the house into a country house hotel. During World War II the estate was requisitioned by the Ministry of Defence.

Comments: Pevsner, writing in "The Buildings of England: North East and East Kent," says of Broome: "There is no more amazing display of 17th century cut and moulded brickwork than the gables of Broome."

Country Life: XXII, 18, 1907. LXXXVI, 494, 1939.

House Listed: Grade I

Park Listed: Grade II

Past Seat / Home of: Sir Basil Dixwell, 1st Bt., 1636-68; Sir Basil Dixwell, 2nd Bt., 1668-1750. Sir George Oxenden, 5th Bt., 1750-75; Sir Henry Oxenden, 6th Bt., 1775-1803; Sir Henry Oxenden, 7th Bt., 1803-38; Sir Henry Chudleigh Oxenden, 8th Bt., 1838-89; Sir Henry Montagu Oxenden, 9th Bt., 1889-95; Sir Percy Dixwell Nowell Dixwell-Oxenden, 10th Bt., 1895-1911. Field Marshal The Earl Kitchener, 1911-16; Henry Franklin Kitchener, Viscount Broome, 1916-28. G.C. Jell, 20th century.

Current Ownership Type: Corporation

Primary Current Ownership Use: Hotel

Ownership Details: Today Broome Park Hotel and Golf Resort

House Open to Public: By Appointment

Phone: 01227-831-701

Fax: 01227-832-591

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://www.broomepark.co.uk/

Historic Houses Member: No