Numbers 15-28 And Attached Railings

Terraced houses numbered 15 to 28, most now converted into flats, located on the east side of Lewes Crescent in Brighton. The facades were completed between 1823 and 1828. They were designed by Amon Wilds and Charles Augustin Busby for the developer Thomas Read Kemp, with builder Thomas Cubitt known to have erected 10 houses of the total number in Lewes Crescent. The buildings are rendered in stucco; painted brick in Flemish bond appears on the first and second floors of the first through third window ranges of No.28. Roofs are of slate to all but No.22, which is obscured; No.23 has slate turnerised to its roof.

The exteriors display three storeys and attic over basement. Nos 20, 21, 26 and 27 have three dormers each instead of an attic storey; Nos 17 and 18 have a twentieth-century storey above the attic. Nos 17-27 have three windows each. No.16 has a nine-window range and No.28 has a six-window range. The east and west halves of Lewes Crescent are laid out as arcs forming the debouchment of Sussex Square to the north and acting as transitions to Chichester Terrace and Arundel Terrace to the south. To provide a transition, the end units (Nos 15-16 and 28) are convex in plan, reversing the curve along which the intermediary units are laid out.

Every third unit is treated as a porticoed bay: Nos 15-16 (which have a continuous portico), 19, 22, 25 and the first through third window ranges of No.28. The centre of the terrace, No.22, is marked by a slightly stilted attic storey. There are straight joins between every three units (17-19, 20-22, 23-25, and 26-28), with a corresponding level change thus negotiating the slope of Lewes Crescent from north to south. Features common to each unit are repeated throughout. The roof of each entrance porch is enclosed by an extension of verandahs or balconies; broad areas are enclosed by cast-iron railings of similar design. All openings are flat arched, except for the dormers, which are segmental arched. All entrances have overlights and are reached by a short flight of stairs set within porches designed as variations on prostyle and tetrastyle porticoes, the latter being found on Nos 18-19 and 21-22 which are paired.

No.16 has a prostyle porch of fluted Doric columns with straight side walls in the same plane as the columns, ending in antae just short of them; the entablature has a projecting cornice. There is a four-panel studded door of original design set in a doorcase of four Tuscan pilasters with sidelights; the entablature has a cornice cast in a leaf and dart pattern, this same moulding being used as the springing band for the segmental vaulted roof of the porch. A stucco cement balustrade encloses a first-floor balcony on the roof.

The porch and door of No.17 are similar to that of No.16 except the right-side wall is pierced by a round-arched opening. Paired entrances to Nos 18 and 19 are set under a tetrastyle portico of unfluted Doric columns, the centre pair of which are coupled to make broad gaps for the entrances; straight side walls run from responds to antae stopping just short of the columns; the wall on axis with the party wall is pierced by one round-arched window. No.18 only has a door of original design.

The porch of No.20 is prostyle with fluted Doric columns on the same plan as that to No.16; each side wall is pierced by one round-arched window. Entrances to Nos 21 and 22 are paired and set under a single tetrastyle portico with fluted Doric columns following the same plan as that to Nos 18 and 19; the side walls are pierced by one round-arched window each; the entablature has a triglyph and metope frieze; the ceiling of this porch is coffered with its cornice moulded with a palmette and lotus pattern; each six-panelled door is of early to mid nineteenth-century design and set in doorcases of four Tuscan pilasters.

Porches to Nos 23 and 24 each have fluted Doric columns and follow the pattern established by No.16; each side wall of No.23 is pierced by one round-arched window with a sill band below. The right wall of No.24 porch also formed the left wall of No.25, the porch of which follows the pattern established by No.16. The porch of No.25 has the same plan, with the right wall reduced to a parapet and glazed to the underside of the entablature. The porch to No.27 is similar to that of No.16, with each side wall pierced by one round-arched window. The porch to No.28 is unique in the terrace: distyle in antis with Ionic columns attached to antae in the plane of the front wall; banded rustication appears on the interior walls of the porch which is nearly square in plan, the corners near the door being chamfered; the right-side wall is pierced by a round-arched window with margin glazing of original design; a sill band to this window runs between antae and responds; the door is six-panelled of early to mid nineteenth-century design.

Many windows in the group have architraves: ground through second floors of Nos 16, 19, 20, and 21; ground and first floor only of No.26; second floor only of No.25; and to No.27 there are remains of an architrave to the transoms of the first-floor windows only. All these windows have projecting sills, with the obvious exception of the first-floor windows. Each second-floor window of No.22 has a moulded sill supported by a pair of console brackets.

A considerable number of sashes of original or early to mid nineteenth-century design survive. Basement sashes are of 6 by 6 design to Nos 23, 25, 26 and 27; of 8 by 8 design to Nos 19, 22 and 24. Ground-floor sashes are of 1 by 1 with margin lights to Nos 19, 23 and 28; of 2 by 2 design to Nos 20, 21 and 22. French doors to the first floor have three panes under a two-light transom to Nos 19 and 23; the transoms only of No.26 have margin lights. Second-floor windows have sashes of 3 by 6 design to window-ranges one through three and seven through nine of No.16; of 2 by 2 design to Nos 20, 21 and 22. Attic windows are of 3 by 3 design to the same window ranges of No.16; of 2 by 2 design to No.22 only. The attic window in the fifth-window range of Nos 16 and 28 is blocked.

The interiors were not inspected at the time of listing.

Lord Frederick Elwyn-Jones (1908-1989), a Labour MP, prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials and Lord Chancellor in the 1970s, lived at No.17. No.18 bears a commemorative plaque inscribed: "Dame Anna Neagle, 1904-1986, Actress, and Herbert Wilcox, 1890-1977, Film Producer, lived here, 1953-1969".