A View of the Future

June 2023 by Trevor Dale

Cranleigh old hospital cottage has not been used for clinical purposes for over 100 years, but before falling into disuse in 2006 it had latterly been used for administration and rest for the staff.

Soon after coming into use as the village hospital in 1859, the ground floor plan was as shown here. The bathroom was right behind the fireplace and no longer exists. It and the scullery has mostly gone too, when the hospital was added to in the early 20th century. Now just a small, empty office remains next to the car park.

Source : Burdett, Cottage Hospitals, General, Fever and Convalescent (1880)

As you can see just through the front entrance porch the main downstairs room was divided into a kitchen and sitting room each containing an inglenook fireplace. That division was removed some years ago

Source : courtesy of Gary Prior, Admin Facebook Group – Cranleigh, Ewhurst & Surrounding Areas History

This image shows you the kitchen area of the floor plan looking towards the front of the cottage and shows the porch area that was previously the main entrance but today is closed off as windows. One of the possible options for refurbishing the cottage is to reopen this entrance.

Today the sitting room and kitchen areas are one open space with the inglenook fireplaces on the back wall. Here is an artist’s impression of how it could be used as a unique meeting space once refurbished. You can just see the window porch area on the left of the image with the inglenook fireplaces centre right.

Source : Copyright Edward Onions 2023

Originally published in The Cranleigh Magazine