Chichester House School House And Dawson Hall Brighton College

Chichester House, School House and Dawson Hall at Brighton College comprise public school dormitories and administrative offices. The main buildings were constructed between 1883 and 1887 to designs by Thomas Graham Jackson, with an easternmost range added in 1929–1930 by F.T. Cawthorne. The terracotta moulds were made by Farmer and Brindley and cast by Doultons.

The buildings are constructed in Gothic Revival style with a roughly L-shaped plan. The Eastern Road elevation is faced in red brick laid in English bond with dressings of terracotta and diaperwork of squared, knapped flint. The courtyard-facing ranges of the original buildings employ flint as the primary wall material with terracotta and brick dressings. All roofs are tiled.

The Eastern Road elevation rises to 3 to 3-and-a-half storeys over a half basement and is articulated by a series of shallow-projecting gabled bays with scattered fenestration. All windows feature pointed arches—either acute or 4-centred—and range from single lancets to 4-light windows with mullions and transoms. The most elaborate window form, repeated throughout, is the cinquefoiled head. Many windows are enriched with floral ornaments cast onto the terracotta blocks, and segmental brick relieving arches appear above most windows. Enriched terracotta storey bands run throughout the elevation.

The focal point is a recessed entrance range which was designed to terminate in a square tower with bell cupola rising above the eaves line, though this was never completed. The main carriageway passes under a 4-centred arch, with a pointed-arch walkway entrance to the right. Both arches are subordered in stone, with elaborate Tudor-style diapering above each. Above these lies a double-height hall lit by a pair of 2-light, transomed windows set in an aedicule in florid Gothic style. A band of blind crenellation and a traceried and crenellated parapet top the range. Octagonal buttresses frame the entrance range, intended to serve as the base for the proposed tower but terminating at the eaves line. Narrow recessed ranges flank the entrance group, each topped by a gablet. Stack locations were planned to be incorporated within the upper walls of the intended tower.

The early 20th-century range reproduces Jackson's designs almost exactly, with the original terracotta moulds being reused for this extension. The rib-vaulted ceilings of the carriage- and walkways feature webbing of brick, with rib corbels carved by Farmer and Brindley representing typical school activities in deliberately archaic style. Roof stacks occur between gabled bays, with some ridge stacks in intermediate ranges.

The north-facing courtyard range reproduces the several types of pointed-arch window found on the Eastern Road elevation. The entrance lodge is ornamented with diaperwork, and traceried windows light the upper-floor hall. The left return of the Eastern Road elevation has scattered fenestration with brick window trim and segmental-arched windows set in pointed-arched recesses.

A brick wall bounds the Eastern Road elevation, with iron railings to areas on the courtyard.

Jackson's scheme was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1885 and published in The Builder on 6 June of that year.