SUPPORTERS of a bid to buy a cottage steeped in literary history claim they have been sidelined and that it will become a B&B.

Blake Cottage, formerly home to renowned painter and poet William Blake, in Felpham near Bognor was bought last year for £495,000 after The Blake Society launched a crowdfunding campaign.

But a former secretary of the Blake Society accused its chairman, Tim Heath, of setting up a separate trust to buy the cottage without keeping the society fully informed and pushing through his own plans.

Adriana Diaz-Enciso, who was Blake Society secretary until last year, told a national newspaper that Mr Heath initially hid the setting up of The Blake Cottage Trust from his fellow campaigners - something Mr Heath denies.

She said: "Tim Heath wanted to rent out rooms in the cottage and turn it into his particular idea of a Blakean B&B.

"This is not what we worked so hard for and not the project that people supported."

One resident, Rachel Searle, set up the Big Blake Project in 2012 and said the Blake Society had been "sidelined".

Mr Heath began the attempt to buy the cottage 23 years ago and has been chairman of the Blake Society for 12 years.

Mr Heath denied any conflict or having an agenda, and said The Blake Society could not own the property by law so a separate body - the Blake Cottage Trust - had to be set up. This was reported in The Argus last September and Mr Heath says the society's trustees were fully aware of this.

He told The Argus: "To say I want it to be a B&B is absurd. It definitely didn't come from my tongue.

"When we took on the responsibility for this project we had to make sure it was viable and that it would succeed in the long term.

"One way to attract people would be to let them stay in the cottage.

"It's a place where you can understand Blake. It would be a great privilege to sleep in a place where someone like Blake lived.

"The cottage is more than 400 years old. Part of the responsibility of the Blake Cottage Trust is to carry out restoration and repairs. It really does need that to survive for another 400 years.

"It was a wonderful achievement to buy it and we are now trying to raise the capital funds to restore it and then maintain it."

Blake lived at the cottage between 1800 and 1803 and composed much of his epic poem Milton, along with the poem which became the much-loved hymn Jerusalem, in it.

According to literary legend, Blake read Paradise Lost to his wife Catherine while the pair were sitting naked in the garden.