The Sussex Tavern

The Sussex Tavern is a house, now a public house and restaurant, dating from the 18th century, with extensions from the early 19th century, located on East Street in Brighton. It is stuccoed, with a parapet obscuring the roof of the main block, and a tile roof to the low wing at the rear.

The building is three storeys and an attic over a basement, with a two-storey extension to the right. The main block steps down to a two-storey return, and up to three storeys in the rear extension on Market Street. The main elevation has a two-window range, as does the rear block, with scattered fenestration to the return. The main elevation is treated as a full-height, nearly full-width, segmental bay. A short flight of steps leads to a flat-arched entrance in the right-hand quadrant of the bay. Each ground-floor opening has a projecting cornice supported by console brackets; this feature is repeated on two windows to the return. A long cornice spans two windows and the entrance in the right-hand wing. The first-floor windows facing the setback are segmental arched, while all other windows are flat arched. A 20th-century dormer is visible on the roof of the low block. Upper-floor windows all have projecting sills. A broad sill band is present to the second-floor windows of the main block, and another just below the attic windows. A projecting cornice tops the attic storey and continues around the return. A shallow aedicule of Tuscan pilasters with an entablature, originally an entrance, is now filled by a window on the ground floor of the return. Some windows on the return are blocked. The corner range of windows on the return is also blocked, as are the left-hand windows on the top floor.

The Market Street elevation, dating from the early 19th century, is applied to an 18th-century building, and the outer wall of the present top floor masks a gable-facing roof. A segmental bay with tripartite windows features on the ground floor, and its semi-domical metal roof is prominent. A cornice is present to the second floor.

The interior was not inspected during the listing process.

Railings with fleur-de-lys heads are present at the right-hand entrance on East Street and to a rear alley.

Historically, the public house was known as The Spread Eagle until 1816, and was reportedly used by smugglers. The building occupies a site that, according to local legend, was formerly a small wharf on an inlet of the sea, situated within a small square formed by the widening of East Street.