Description

TQ 4110 SE LEWES HIGH STREET 10/139 (south side)

25.2.52 No 32 (Lewes House)

GV II*

House, now council offices. Circa 1720 to rear with front block of circa 1810. Grey headers with red brick dressings. Doubled brick quoins and plain parapet hiding roof; slate roofs with various end and rear brick stacks. 3 storeys; regular 5 window front, glazing bar sashes. Central entrance up eight steps. Rusticated plastered entrance arch, panelled door and arched overlight with octagonal lantern. Deep porch with Ionic columns and open triangular pediment. Paved space either side of door with iron arrow-head railed surround. Garden front: Early C18. Grey headers with red dressings, and red brick central projection. Plain tiled hipped roof with tall ridge stack to left. 2 storeys with plinth with roll-moulding, cornice-band and cornice to parapet. Central pedimented projection. 2 bays to left of projection, 3 bays on projection, the outer ones narrow, and 3 bays to right of projection, with 2 wide windows on ground-floor. Glazing bar sashes with gauged heads. Central panelled door with cast-iron dog-gate; moulded blocked surround with triple keystone supporting cornice moulding. 2-storey early C19 wing to left projecting forward with hipped roof and central hipped projection. Half-glazed door in round-arched surround to right. This wing, faced in knapped flints to the west, ends in brick gate-pier to stable court. Interior: Committee room: wide segmental arch recess with colonettes supporting surround. Panelled fire-surround. Coved cornice. Hall: groin vault on brackets with triglyph decoration. Screen to rear stair-hall with colonnade of attached Doric order with triglyph and metope frieze. Registry: Wide segmental arch recess at end with colonnettes supporting surround.Fireplace with doubled columns supporting decorative mantel with swags and rustic scene. all panelling and acanthus bracket cornice. Local land charges office: Bracketted cornice. Marble fire-surround with fluted pilasters and eared and kneed overmantel, flanked by pair of pier glasses in eared and kneed surrounds. Window shutters. Staircase: 3-flight rectangular newel.Turned balusters with square knops and fluted columnar newels. Ramped flat hand-rail and foot scroll. Greek key decoration on string of landing. Bracketted cornice. Chief executive's secretary's office: Eared fire-surround with bolection mould supporting mantel shelf and eared and kneed overmantel with greek key decoration. Moulded cornice. Chief executive's room: Eared fire-surround with dentilled mantel. Electoral Registration office: Late C18 fire-surround with swags and central panel of nymphs under mantel. District sectretary's office: Marble fire- surround with dentilled mantel. More fireplaces on 2nd floor of north block.

Listing NGR: TQ4166310147

External Links

• Wikidata Q17555860

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Recommended Books

• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)