Ivy Cottage
Shoreham has several “Wealden hall houses” such as this, all reflecting the upward mobility of small farmers around 1500. This one has a slightly unusual L-shape, with its private living quarters (the “solar”) set at 90 degrees to the hall section, traditionally a large space for cooking and socialising. In more recent times the building was divided into two cottages until becoming one again at the end of the 20th century.
Its shape was very similar two hundred years ago, as seen in a picture by Samuel Palmer, who apparently lived here for a time with his brother William before moving into Water House. He called it “the Old Cottage” and rented quarters from the Tooth family. In his picture, we can see Mr Tooth standing in a tall hat by the fence, with his family off to the right as if heading up to church. It could be that William Blake visited Palmer here, and may even have stayed here.
A little later, Palmer suggested Ivy Cottage as lodgings for his artistic friends from London. To one of them he wrote: “Mr Tooth (the old gentleman) [has] our old room beautified and I believe a new turn up bedstead 3s 6d a week”.
Although we enjoy timber-framing on the outside of old houses today, that wasn’t always the case in the past, and from the 18th century homes were sometimes encased in brick. At Ivy Cottage they employed another device, “mathematical tiles”. These were tiles made to imitate bricks, and you can see them on the side of the house facing the church. In the early 1900s, there was a tea room at Ivy Cottage hoping to ensnare cyclists as they entered Shoreham from Station Road – one of many such places of refreshment then dotting the village, showing that the Shoreham tourist boom was in full swing at least a century ago.
Text by James Saynor
For more on Shoreham’s buildings, see our publications “Shoreham Past and Present” and “A Stroll Around Shoreham”