Seaford College, Lavington Park

Description

The 1790s house now forms the e range. White stock brick and minimal Portland stone dressings with chaste intermittent crowning balustrade: a cool absence of ornament and an effect of deliberately cultivated understatement. Five bays and two storeys with basement and attic; s entrance porch with Ionic columns. Blow replaced its former service wing to the w and added a billiard room beyond with a porticoed entrance on the s side to match Lewis’s, cleverly maintaining the style of the earlier work externally. Blow also added curved bows with modified Venetian windows to Lewis’s n front. Next, his former assistant Owen Carey Little built the present nw wing including a ballroom, 1912–13; it is linked to Blow’s billiard room by a short first-floor columnar screen facing w, but its straight n front does not match Lewis’s. Finally, a new centrepiece was built by Lutyens from 1937. This has an imposing two-column Doric portico leading to a deep domed lobby with steps up to the house; it has the same feeling for geometry on a small scale as the architect’s grander classical buildings. Characteristic of Lutyens is the way in which the guttering is concealed above the eaves so as not to interfere with the cornice profile (cf. his Midland Bank in Piccadilly, London). The n front as a whole, however, remains too weak for its commanding position. Terrace and curved wall in front also by Lutyens. (Williamson et al, 2019, pp.366-7)

Bibliography

Williamson E, Hudson T, Musson J, Nairn I (2019) Sussex: West. The Buildings of England. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Also Cited In

Listing Grade

II

Listing Reference

1232490

Client

Mrs Barbara Wallace