West Kent Local News
The Bottle House Inn, Smarts Hill, Penshurst, pictured before its current closure for renovation. Image: The Bottle House Inn.
15th-Century Bottle House Inn Wins Approval to Add Six Guest Rooms at Penshurst
Sevenoaks District Council has granted planning permission for the upper floors of the Bottle House Inn, a white-weatherboarded pub on Smarts Hill near Penshurst, to be converted into guest accommodation - a move aimed at putting the historic building on a steadier financial footing.
What's been approved
The application, reference 26/01673/FUL, sought permission to convert the pub's first and second floors into six guest bedrooms, add a dormer window and three rooflights to the rear elevation, relocate the first-floor fire escape door and balustrade, and make alterations to the building's windows. The application was received by the council on 29 June and formally granted on 5 October.
Closed while the work goes on
The pub is currently shut. Its own website tells visitors it is "temporarily closed" while "exciting renovations" take place, with the stated aim of turning it into "an inn in the truest sense of the word" once work is finished. No reopening date has yet been published.
Where it sits
The Bottle House Inn is on Coldharbour Road, Smarts Hill, Penshurst - administratively in Sevenoaks district, a few miles from both Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells.
Pub operators across Kent have been squeezed this year by the cut to business rates relief and rising energy and staffing costs, so turning spare upper-floor space into paying guest rooms is a fairly common survival strategy for rural, food-led pubs with no room to physically extend. Sources: Sevenoaks District Council planning portal (26/01673/FUL) and The Bottle House Inn
