Strand House

About

Strand House is nestled beneath the medieval town of Winchelsea in East Sussex. Once harbour side to an ocean besieged by France and cherished by smugglers, now overseen by any birds in need of rest. A 15th century house built in a time of small people,

Strand House tests your flexibility with its low beams, bendy stairs and garden paths, your imagination on its flagrant historical past and your wonder at the quiet stars on a clear night. Walk to a castle, a pub, café or museum, or simply surrender to the landscape.

On sunny mornings breakfasts are often served outside in the garden, on chillier mornings inside and on really chilly mornings the log burner provides a cosy feel. All our rooms have an ensuite and we have two triple rooms and we have private parking for our guests. If guests would rather stay in than dine out, take aways can be delivered and eaten in the breakfast room and drinks enjoyed from our honesty bar.

Strand House has had a diverse history. Originally a farmhouse, then possibly a medieval brothel for a period in the 15th/16th centuries, a hospital inhabited by monks in the 16th century, a workhouse in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries and in 1922 finally converted to a guest house by two sisters and named the Old Poor Houses. As a workhouse, Strand House served the parish of St Thomas the Apostle, and in 1777 a parliamentary report listed 24 inmates as being resident. With the foundation of the Rye Poor Law Union on 27th July 1835, it was closed and the poor moved to the main Union in Rye, which was on the site of Hill House Hospital, on the Peasmarsh road.

Strand House was used as a working farm into the 20th Century. Strand House is a grade 2 listed building which actually consists of two houses one behind the other. The front house was probably built in 1425.

The original building would have been an open hall with galleries at either end. The main brick chimney stack and the floors were added in the 17th Century, and the main layout of the building dates from this period. The ‘Crow's Nest’ cottage, which stands behind it and is now the managers' cottage, is older and was built in the 13th Century as a malt house. It may pre-date the building of Winchelsea “New Town” in 1288 and so may be one of the oldest buildings in the area.