11, Dyke Road

BRIGHTON

TQ3004SE DYKE ROAD 577-1/39/205 (South West side) 05/07/73 No.11

II

School, now a night club. 1867. By George Somers Clarke Senior for the Swan Downer School, which was founded in 1816 for the education of 20 poor girls; the foundation stone was laid by the Rev HM Wagner in 1867. Brown brick laid in English bond with dressings of red brick and stone, now painted to the level of the springing of the entrance; roofs of tiles and lead. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, 2-window range to Dyke Road. There is an entrance wing to the left, under a steeply hipped roof, and a main wing to the right under a higher, pitched roof. Flat-arched entrance under a pointed arch with an ogee hoodmould, the tympanum filled with a shield and scrolls. 2 pairs of lancets in the main wing, each pair divided by a column which supports part of the vaulting below the first-floor oriel; chamfered corner to first floor with a traceried niche at the head. Oriel window to first floor in the form of a broad bay supported on shafts and vaulting, the larger, central shaft in the form of a squat column with capitals of interlaced foliage, the subsidiary shafts rising from between the ground-floor windows; the vaulting and the lower part of the oriel window have lost their details; the bay itself has 4 windows to the front and one to each side, divided by exceedingly slim columns with spiral fluting to the lower part and tiny capitals; above them toplights with mouchette tracery of great inventiveness; cornice with ballflower ornament and gargoyles to the corners; hipped lead roof to the bay, divided into 2 so as to give place to a lozenge window with original mouchette tracery and a crocketed hoodmould with foliage finial. 3-light window over the entrance, its blank toplights decorated with mouchettes, quatrefoils and shields; cornice with now decayed heads above; parapet decorated with S-scrolled openwork; the principal gable has tumbled-in brickwork and openwork stone crowstepping terminating in a finial; external side stacks corbelled out below the eaves with tumbled-in brickwork and offsets; the roof to the entrance wing has leadwork apparently for a finial, now missing. INTERIOR: not inspected. (Carder T: The Encyclopedia of Brighton: Lewes: 1990-).

Listing NGR: TQ3074204378