Sandy Lane Cottage

Sandy Lane Cottage

Cottage built between 1727 and 1767, with a twentieth-century outshut to the rear and some twentieth-century modifications.

The building is constructed of chalk blocks on a greensand plinth, with a thatch roof and brick chimneys. A weatherboard outshut stands at the rear.

The cottage follows a simple two-bay plan with two rooms up and two down, plus a rear outshut. The south bay serves as the kitchen and the north bay as the parlour. The smaller of the two bedrooms sits above the rear end of the parlour, while the master bedroom runs transversely across both the kitchen and parlour at the front. A loft room occupies the space above.

The front elevation is symmetrical, with a central wooden porch and plank door of later date, flanked by casement windows at ground and first floor levels. The ground floor casement windows have leaded lights with square panes, while those on the first floor feature diamond patterning. Originally, windows existed in both north and south gable ends; the north gable window is now bricked up, while the south gable window survives as a two-by-two casement. The gabled thatched roof extends over the rear outshut as a catslide roof, descending to within 1.22 metres of the ground. Brick chimney stacks stand at each gable end.

Internally, the central front door opens into a large ground floor space. Originally, a passage ran from front to rear door, dividing the kitchen and parlour, but the partition walls have been removed whilst original ceiling beams and joists remain. The kitchen features a large fireplace in the end wall with an oak bressumer, now an alcove. The parlour contains a mid-nineteenth-century iron hob grate.

The rear door gives access to the later outshut, which contains two further rooms: a utility room with a garden door on the south side and a bathroom on the north side. Modern stairs rise from the rear of the parlour to a landing serving the smaller bedroom and the front bedroom, which retains a small Victorian fireplace. Both bedrooms show exposed beams and joists.

A rustic ladder from the landing provides access to the loft, used as an additional bedroom. The roof structure comprises A-frame principal rafters and staggered trenched purlins to each side.

According to documentary evidence, the cottage appears on an 1862 Ordnance Survey map with an outshut and outbuilding present, though whether the current outshut is the same structure or a mid-twentieth-century rebuilding is unclear. The porch is not shown on this map and is a later early-twentieth-century addition. Sandy Lane Cottage is the only building remaining on Sandy Lane, now a footpath leading to the downs from North Street, the historic core of Brighstone village.

Sandy Lane Cottage represents a good example of a small early-to-mid-eighteenth-century cottage constructed of chalk blocks and thatch, retaining its character, plan form, and much of its original fabric and features. The outshut is of lesser architectural interest.