Home Cottage

Home Cottage, Church Lane, Ryde

Home Cottage is a purpose-built solicitor's office, later converted to residential use, built in 1839–40 in the Italianate style. The architect is not presently known. The building was refurbished circa 2002.

Construction and Materials

The building is constructed of red brick. Where visible on the north side, the brickwork is laid in Sussex bond. The entrance front to the west was always stuccoed with incised lines to imitate masonry, and the east and west sides are rendered. The shallow pitched slate roof was replaced in 2002.

Plan and Layout

The building comprises two storeys with two unequal-sized bays to the front elevation. Internally, the ground floor contains two rooms, originally solicitors' offices, with a narrow staircase hall to the south. The upper floor may originally have been one large room with two large roof lanterns but has since been subdivided.

Exterior

The principal elevation faces west. It features bands at cill level on both ground and first floors, with brackets below the lower cill, and rusticated ground floor. Three round-headed arched windows with moulded impost blocks are present on both floors, with taller arches to the ground floor. The original sash windows have been replaced with uPVC within the original openings. The southern entrance bay is notably narrower and slightly recessed, with a first floor cill band and a round-headed arched window with moulded impost blocks and wooden sash window retaining vertical glazing bars only. The ground floor features higher rustication and a doorcase with incised voussoirs and keystone, with a four-panelled door.

The south elevation has a short return of quoins and cill band but is otherwise plain, with four small modern windows. The rear (east) elevation features three modern windows in later openings and a 20th-century door. The principal architectural interest lies at the front.

Interior

Access from the west leads to a narrow hall with a 20th-century staircase. The western ground floor room, originally the front office, contains two shallow round-headed alcoves in the internal partition. The upper floor west room appears, from diagonally placed floorboards in one corner, to have previously had a corner fireplace. The upper floor ceilings have been replaced, though a section of earlier lath and plaster ceiling was visible through a loft hatch.

History

Records from the Isle of Wight hold a lease dated 4 December 1851, made following the death of the original owner, Mr Thomas Frederick Cole, which references an earlier lease dated 6 January 1838 between the landowners and Mr Cole. Mr Cole was a solicitor in Ryde who lived in the newly built Brigstocke Terrace across the lane. The property's first documented mention appears in the February 1840 Poor Rate Book, where the owners are described as Cole and King and the building is described as an office. No. 30 Church Lane was thus built as a solicitors' office.

Thomas Cole died in 1851. The 1852 Post Office Directory of Hampshire lists "Solicitors to the Gas Company, solicitors to the Conservative Association and Solicitors to the Royal Victoria Yacht Club, Cole and Ratcliffe, Near the Arcade". The 1859 White's History, Gazetteer and Directory of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight lists William Edward Ratcliffe, Church Lane, among attorneys. From October 1862 through the 1899 Kelly's Directory, the building was occupied by Frederick Blake, solicitor and Registrar of County Court. By the 1914–15 Kelly's Directory it is described as "McMin James, apartments (Home Cottage)", and the building appears to have functioned as a residence from that point onwards.