Marlborough House And Attached Railings

Marlborough House and attached railings

House, now office. Originally built in 1765 and remodelled in 1786 by Robert Adam for William "Single-Speech" Hamilton, M.P. The building is constructed of stucco with a basement area faced with pebbles and a slate roof. It is Neo-Classical in style.

The exterior presents a five-window range across two storeys with an attic above the basement. The first and fifth window ranges project slightly to form end pavilions topped by shallow pediments. At the centre of the elevation, accessed by a short flight of steps, is the round-arched entrance with decorative glazing in the fanlight. The double three-panel doors are of original design and set within a moulded casing. Above sits an aedicule consisting of a pair of fluted Tuscan columns supporting an entablature with a strigilated frieze and round shield above each column. A pediment with raking cornice crowns the composition, its tympanum fielded.

To either side of the entrance is one flat-arched window. All ground-floor windows are floor-to-ceiling. Each end bay contains a Venetian window, each light bordered by an attached Tuscan column with a balustrade across the bottom, set within a round-arched recess. A first-floor sill band is moulded in a running guilloche pattern. The first-floor windows in the pedimented bays are tripartite. All upper-floor windows are flat-arched. A dentil cornice runs continuously across the top of the elevation and in the raking cornices of the pediments, with a low parapet above. Stacks occupy the end walls and the space between the first and second window ranges. Railings flank the stairs and areas.

The interior retains several rooms with original features and decorative schemes. The entrance hall is square in plan, with one flat-arched door opposite the entrance and another to the left; doors have moulded architraves with bracketed cornices above. Two additional doors are of plain late twentieth-century design. The cornice features a triglyph and metope frieze topped by broad coving, with the ceiling divided into compartments by flat ribs; a central acanthus rosette ornaments the ceiling.

The room to the left, most likely designed as a drawing room, has an elaborate entablature and cornice below a plain flat ceiling. Two flat-arched doors near the corners of the north wall have doorcases treated as Composite pilasters with responds, supporting an entablature with decorated frieze. The Venetian window in the east-facing wall has an entablature and architrave carried on four Tuscan pilasters.

To the right of the entrance hall is the original dining room, with an apsidal serving alcove just off the entrance hall. The apse contains two shallow niches and a shallow half-dome roof. The rectangular room's ceiling is divided into a groin-vaulted square with pilasters at each corner; to the north and south are shallow barrel-vaulted bays. An elaborate mantelpiece of original Adam design occupies the north wall. The architectural features throughout employ a wide range of mouldings characteristic of Adam's decorative vocabulary.

Behind the entrance hall is an octagonal room with round-arched niches in most of the walls; decorations applied to the ceilings, walls and mantelpiece are characteristically Adam.

Historically, the first house on the site dates to 1765, built for Samuel Shergold, owner of the Castle Inn, for use by wealthy visitors. It was three storeys with dormers and constructed of red brick. In 1771, the 4th Duke of Marlborough purchased the house. In 1786 he sold it to Hamilton, who engaged Adam to remodel it completely. In April 1789 the Prince of Wales stayed here with Hamilton; the Prince returned in 1795 to occupy the house for nearly three weeks with his legal and publicly recognised wife, Caroline of Brunswick. When Hamilton died in 1790, the house was sold, ending the Prince's association with the property. In 1870 a new owner leased the ground floor and upper storeys to the Brighton School Board for use as offices. The Board purchased the building in 1891. The building served as education offices until 1974, when the county assumed control of education.