Challoners And Little Challoners

Challoners and Little Challoners, Rottingdean

A detached house with dairy, now divided into two houses.

Challoners is built of flint with red and yellow brick dressings and stone quoins, partly replaced by brick at the top of the south-east corner. The western and return wing to the north are rendered. The roof is Horsham slab to the main building and tiles to the single-storey western extension. Little Challoners is of flint with brick quoins and dressings, topped by a half-hipped tile roof.

Originally a 15th-century two-storey, four-room house, Challoners now forms a two-storey, five-bay structure with extensions to the north-east, north-west and west, the last connecting it to Little Challoners. Little Challoners, situated to the north of Challoners but linked by the western wing, is a two-storey, two-bay cottage.

The cellars of Challoners are said to date from the 15th century, with internal timbers possibly from 16th-century alterations. The front dates from around 1805. The dairy extension was added in the 18th century, along with a wing to the rear. The end chimney-stack to the east has been rebuilt, but the multiple stack towards the west end appears to be 18th century. The flat-arched entrance in a canted porch dates from around 1805; there is a subsidiary entrance in the second bay towards the west end of the main block. The windows to each bay are segmentally arched, including the one over the subsidiary entrance. A glazed polygonal conservatory over the porch with dentil cornice, known as the 'Trafalgar' window, was described as the house's chief feature with diamond-shaped glass, now replaced by single sash windows with glazing bars.

Little Challoners is dated 1804 between the first-floor windows. It has an end chimney-stack at the north end, with its principal entrance in the southern extension. The former entrance in the centre of the façade is now a window. All windows are flat-arched casements.

The interiors were not inspected, but Challoners is known to contain a number of reused beams.

Challoners was originally a medieval yeoman's cottage that evolved into a manor house as its owners became more prosperous, acquiring more land and extending the building across almost every century. The farming estate managed from Challoners employed most of the population of Rottingdean until the 1920s.

The house takes its name from the 15th-century Sussex Challoner family. John and Alice Osbarn of London first conveyed land in Rottingdean and Balsdean to Thomas Challoner in 1456. In 1541, Thomas's grandson William Challoner conveyed the manor to Hugh Ockenden, and it remained in the Ockenden family until 1614. Challoners is thought to date from 1591. By 1616, Richard Srase held the house with its land, outbuildings and eight vigrates of land (a vigrate being a quarter of the notional amount of land to support a household). In 1689, John and Jane Head along with Thomas and Cicely Beard conveyed it to Edward Head and Richard Beard. Richard Beard was listed as owner when he died in 1713. James 'Brasser' Cooper (1845–1924), a former member of the 'Copper family' singers, was farm bailiff or general manager in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The farm was sold around 1938, and in 1956 the house was divided into three properties. The houses were brought into single ownership in 2007 and are retained as two separate properties, Challoners and Little Challoners, although Little Challoners could be incorporated into the main house by opening a door in the shared inner wall.