Old Fire Station

The Old Fire Station is a stable building, later adapted for use as a fire station, dating from 1865-1866, with a conversion occurring around 1900. It was designed by the Brighton architect and surveyor I Johnson for Henry Hill. Plans were drawn up on 28 November 1865, and a plaque on the central gable records the construction date as 1866.

The building is constructed of red brick with stone dressings in three colours: white, brown, and yellow. The roof is largely hidden by a parapet and gable coping. The exterior presents a two-story, eight-window range in a High Victorian Gothic style. The ground floor is treated as an arcade of seven bays, with a wider central bay serving as the entrance. The central arch is segmental, pointed, and moulded in brick, topped with a drip moulding in white stone. The other arches incorporate banded voussoirs in yellow and brown stone and jambs of moulded brick, also with brick drip mouldings. A carved frieze depicting conventionalised flowers in white stone runs along the arcade springing band. Overlights are pierced into the tympana of the side bays, and the central arch retains its original wood framing. A brick sill band, angled to resemble a medieval dogtooth moulding, runs across the first floor, with a brick drip course above. First-floor windows are flat-arched with cusped corners and chamfered mullions, resembling Tudor lights. The end bays have single windows, while the windows in the second, third, and fifth bays are paired to form double lights. A brick corbel table and parapet culminate in the large gable above the central range, which features a dated plaque encircled by a drip moulding. Shaped brick and a brick drip moulding trace the gable's line. Remnants of octagonal brick pinnacles and finials are visible on the gable kneelers. Later, in the late 19th or early 20th century, two canted bays were added to the first floor above the central arch and the sixth window range. One is supported on wooden brackets, while the other has spandrels covered in a pebble dash finish and terminates in a wooden cornice; both bays have tripartite, flat-arched windows. The interior was not inspected at the time of listing.