North, south and west garden walls, vault and garden structures comprising the Secret Garden, Kemp Town, Brighton

Walled garden known as the Secret Garden, Kemp Town, which was planned and laid out from the mid-1820s, and which was built to serve 32 Sussex Square. Given its association with Laurence Peel, a circa 1830 date for the garden walls seems likely.

MATERIALS: walls and vault built of William Ranger's Artificial Stone.

The garden is enclosed on the north and west by a tall wall fronting the road some eight to ten feet high at street level. The ground slopes down from the north-west corner of the garden to the east and south, whereas the garden floor is levelled, and below street level the garden is also contained by Ranger Artificial Stone retaining walls. The walls are constructed of blocks of Ranger Artificial Stone, with a projecting stone and concrete coping. At the northern end of the west-facing wall is a rectangular entrance with a wooden door which leads to later steps which descend to the garden. As the steps descend from a platform cantilevered into the wall, it is possible that the entrance may be original. The southern wall, also of Ranger Artificial Stone, is visible from within the garden and forms property boundaries to the south.

Finely jointed blocks, roughly 2' by 9", are laid horizontally and are exposed within the garden. The roadside elevations are rendered, but in places, particularly on the north-facing wall, the fine surface layer or render, which is lined as ashlar, has eroded to reveal the coarser matrix of the blocks beneath. Copings, where visible beneath foliage, are of coarse aggregate concrete and Ranger Artificial Stone slabs.

Beneath the northernmost section of the west wall a vaulted entrance in Ranger Artificial Stone extends beneath the pavement, and leads presumably to the passage to the house. Adjacent to it is a lean-to, open-fronted, timber-framed loggia and to the south, a timber-framed garden room with a canted bay with six-over-six pane sash windows.

The lower, much altered and repaired eastern wall, in the position of the cross wall shown on the 1875 Ordnance Survey map, constructed of brick and bungaroosh, and containing a blocked entrance, is excluded from the listing.