The Sussex Tavern

BRIGHTON

TQ3104SW EAST STREET 577-1/64/227 (West side) 20/08/71 Nos.33 AND 34 The Sussex Tavern (Formerly Listed as: EAST STREET The Sussex Hotel)

II

Formerly known as: The Spread Eagle. House, now public house and restaurant. C18, extended in early C19 to its present form. Stucco. Roof of main block obscured by parapet. The roof of the low wing to rear of tile. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys and attic over basement with an extension to the right; the latter has 2 storeys, its first-floor setting back; the main block steps down to a 2-storey return, and up to 3 storeys in the extension at the rear to Market Street. 2-window range to main elevation and the block to right. 2-window range also to rear block; scattered fenestration to the return. Main elevation treated as a full-height and nearly full-width segmental bay. There is a short flight of steps up to a flat-arched entrance set in the right-hand quadrant of the bay. Each of ground-floor openings has a floating cornice supported by a pair of console brackets; this feature can also be found on 2 windows to the return. A long cornice spans 2 windows and entrance in right-hand wing; the windows to the setback first floor are segmental arched. All other windows are flat arched. There is a C20 dormer to the roof of this low block. All upper-floor windows have projecting sills. On the main block, there is a broad sill band to second-floor windows and another just below the sills of the attic windows. Topping the attic storey is a projecting cornice which continues around the return. On the ground floor of the return is a shallow aedicule consisting of a pair of Tuscan pilasters with entablature; built as an entrance, this is now filled by a window. The corner range of windows on the return is blocked as are left-hand windows in top floor of return. The elevation to Market Street, which dates to the early C19, is a front applied to an C18 building; the outer wall of the present top floor masks a gable-facing roof. On the ground floor there is a segmental bay with tripartite windows; its metal roof is semi-domical. There is a cornice to the second floor. INTERIOR: not inspected. Railings with fleur-de-lys heads to the right-hand entrance on East Street and to alley. HISTORICAL NOTE: the public house was known as The Spread Eagle until 1816, and it is said to have been used by smugglers. Nos 26-31 and 33-36 East Street (qv) faces onto what is, in effect, a small square, which is formed by the widening of East Street at its northern end. Legend has it that this whole group was built on the site of a small wharf on an inlet of the sea. (Carder T: The Encyclopaedia of Brighton: Lewes: 1990-: 57).

Listing NGR: TQ3114804069