Kingsway House Kingway Cottage

House, now 2 houses. Circa 1740, with alterations of the 19th and 20th centuries. Constructed of rubble, rendered, with slate-hanging at the second and third floors; slate roof, hipped over Kingsway House, with a brick stack to the front of the rear block. Kingsway Cottage has a slate and bitumen roof with a brick gable end stack to the left.

The original building was a single-depth plan house with an entrance to a central passage. Kingsway Cottage, to the left, and Kingsway House, containing the passage and a room to the right, formed the two halves. Kingsway Cottage is entered through a porch wing to the right and is of one-room plan. Kingsway House has a principal room to the right with a stair well to the rear; service rooms are positioned to the rear of the stair well. A two-storey block was added to the front, extending the front room. The rear block over the service rooms and principal room is four storeys.

Kingsway Cottage is of two storeys with one window, both of 20th-century date. There is a single-storey porch wing to the front right, with a two-pane light and a pointed arched Gothic glazed overlight. Kingsway House, to the right, has a two-storey block to the front and a four-storey block to the rear. The front block appears to be an addition of the late 18th century, with a door and 20th-century window at ground and first floor levels. There is a coved moulded string course over the ground floor, which may indicate that this was originally part of a late 18th-century fortification. The rear block has 20th-century windows at the second and third floors and a 20th-century two-light casement at the third floor to the left side.

The interior of Kingsway Cottage comprises the rooms which would originally have been to the left of the entrance passage of Kingsway House. There is a dog-leg stair with vertical panelling along the party wall; at first floor level is one two-panelled door. The interior has been much altered in the 20th century.

The interior of Kingsway House is entered through a passage along the left side of the front block. There is a blocked doorway to the left (to Kingsway Cottage) and panelled cupboards to the left with H hinges, set under the stairwell of the stair to Kingsway Cottage. The ground floor front room has a fireplace to the outer side with a late 18th-century hob grate. The stair hall, to the rear of the front room, has a dog-leg stair of mid-19th century date; a service room is to the rear. At first floor, the 18th-century dog-leg stair survives, with stick balusters and square newels with wave-moulded string. At the second floor, the rear room has a two-panelled fielded door and a chimneypiece with eared architrave and moulded mantel, with panelled cupboards to the right and left. The front room has a fireplace with reeded pilasters and cupboards with glazed doors to the right and left. At the third floor, the front room has a four-panelled door, dado panelling and a chimneypiece with eared architrave and the typical Kingsand/Cawsand fretwork frieze below the moulded mantel. A panelled partition wall separates the rear room, which has a two-panelled door.

The house is said to have been used as an inn or mess-room for officers from Maker Barracks in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The building's position makes it possible that it was originally part of the fortifications defending the Kingsand/Cawsand beaches, subsidiary to the Amherst Battery, now part of the Grey House and No. 2. It is possible that the four-storey rear block was added to the front block, and that the whole building was altered at the time of its division into two houses, probably in the mid-19th century.