Burstow Gallery And Hall, Brighton College

BRIGHTON

TQ3204SW EASTERN ROAD 577-1/42/237 (North side) Burstow Gallery and Hall, Brighton College

II

College hall and art gallery, with rifle range and armoury in basement. 1913-1914; added to in 1926. Designed by FT Cawthorne. Brick in English bond to ground floor; split flint and split flint with brick panels above; stone and brick dressings; roof of tile. Rectangular in plan with 7-window range to main and rear elevations; right return of one-window range and left- of 2. Gothic Revival style. EXTERIOR: basement with 2-storey hall above. All windows are 4 centred with reticulated tracery, those on right return with 5 lights, the rest with 2. The main entrance is through a single-storey porch to the left of the hall; it is flat arched with 4-centred blind arch surround with carved spandrels and an overlight; the wall above is a mix of flint and brick panels, a motif picked up from Jackson's buildings of the 1883 to 1887. In the centre above door a stone plaque carved with the College's coat of arms. A short flint and brick wall ties this to the main of Chichester House (qv). The wall, added by Cawthorne in 1926, is pierced by a 4-centred diaphragm arch leading back to the Woolton Building to which this listing does not apply. A flat-arched entrance to hall in the fifth-window range; in the first-window range a 2-light window. Otherwise the lower area is plain. Setting off the hall is a sill band. The hall windows are further tied by a continuous springing band, above which the split flint wall gives way to a wall of flint and brick chequers. Corner buttresses of 2 set backs. 2 stone lacing courses to right return of brick. The walls of returns rise above the facing gable to form parapets, which terminate in the long walls as short plinths giving the end gables a set back effect. The rear elevation is nearly identical to the entrance facade, except for the fact that it is all of red brick in English bond. The architect, once again, picking up Jackson's theme of using red brick without flint to the outward facing walls of the College buildings. INTERIOR: inside the hall roof is of 6 bays; king post roof of 3 sections: shallow flat soffits to long sides while the main span is a wood boarded elliptical barrel vault. Each bay is subdivided into 3 compartments by shallow ribs. To either side of ridge piece are a line of trefoil openings. Each tie beam supported by a pair of arched struts which rise from wood wall posts carried on large, plain corbels. The walls are topped by a crenellated cornice. Wood panelling to shoulder height on side walls. At rear of hall a single-storey wooden gallery reached by 2 flights of stairs; elevated stage at the far end.

Listing NGR: TQ3232404085