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Buildings and Materials

Distinctive buildings

Unusually for a village, the church is Queen Anne. Constructed in 1716 of brick and stone it features arched windows, box pews and a gallery on Tuscan columns.

It is close to the church that three of the larger old houses are to be found. The Old Manor, close to the south side of the church, is in part over 300 years old, and there are later additions of 18th Century appearance. Looking more like a farmhouse than a manor, the older parts of the building are of stone, brick and flint with small casement windows and a tiled roof. Opposite is The Manor, with a Georgian style front of white painted brick, a slate roof and a projecting, bowed, columned porch. The Old Rectory, to the east of the church, is a fine example of a mid 18th Century house with later additions. Built of mellow red brick with blue headers it has a steep, hipped, tiled roof, with leaded dormers as well as large sash windows.

Other distinctive houses in the village include Manor Farm House in Dunkirt Lane, built in 1783 with mellow red and blue brick, and Abbotts Hill House, which is early Edwardian. There are two public houses in the village; The Poplar Farm Inn, which has a thatched roof and part rendered walls, and The Eagle, built of Victorian red brick and featuring the date 1865 on its adjacent barn.

More recent development

Of the 517 houses in Abbotts Ann, 107 have been built within the last 20 years. Whilst many are small developments and individual new houses, often almost hidden from the main roads, there are several larger developments.

In Little Ann there is St. Mary's Meadow, where the cottage style and sensitive use of some reclaimed bricks and flints screen the large and rather overpowering houses of Abbotts Hill. Off Duck Street, the development of Hillside would have created a dominant feature if it were not partly screened by a terrace of four sympathetically designed white houses along the main road.

Adjacent to Bulbery with its spacious layout, the recently completed housing association development at Criswick Close could have employed materials that blended more sensitively with the village, and now requires the growth of trees to soften its appearance.