Bandstand, Colonnade And Two Covered Viewing Decks

Bandstand, Colonnade and Two Covered Viewing Decks, Grand Parade, Eastbourne

This bandstand with attached colonnade and viewing decks was built in 1935 to designs by Leslie Rosevere, the Borough Council Engineer, as part of a seafront improvement scheme. The building is constructed in Neo-Grec style using cream faience with decorative blue, green and black faience detailing.

The structure employs a symmetrical design that responds to the change in level between the promenade and seafront. The circular bandstand, truncated on the seaward side, sits within a sweeping open arcade and faces two covered viewing decks topped with an open viewing area.

The bandstand features a deep blue shallow saucer roof in two steps, surmounted by a conical finial now replaced in glass reinforced plastic. A moulded cornice incorporates a strip of opaque brown and yellow glass providing integral lighting. The roof is supported by four giant fluted composite columns set on a raised fluted podium, with flights of steps at each side. Sliding hardwood doors run in channels behind the columns. The ceiling supports a contemporary square clock, and a date tablet is set into the southern elevation.

The open colonnade and two covered viewing areas are constructed with Tuscan columns supporting raised walkways protected by railings replaced in the late twentieth century. A band of mosaic work also dates to the late twentieth century. The colonnade and lower viewing areas feature an identical strip of opaque glass for illumination. The columns to the colonnade on the sea elevation have largely been replaced in fibreglass, and the original water drainage, which once ran through the columns, has been altered to run externally. During concerts, sliding doors set inside the curved colonnade protect the lower level viewing area; these are stored in adjacent ancillary buildings when not in use.

The upper viewing platform is built of brick with a flat roof, open-fronted on the seaward side and supported on seventeen faience columns and two end piers. The interior contains four wide steps for accommodating deckchairs. The rear wall is hung with green faience tiles with a reeded top band in cream and black and a dark blue band near the base with black plinth. Late twentieth-century replacements include the roof railings and the triple globular lights on columns.

The lower viewing area, identical in size, features an open colonnade at the front and similar multi-coloured faience tiling, but contains no steps. The central courtyard, lower viewing area and colonnade are paved with granolithic paving incorporating geometrical designs in red, green and yellow, with some cement repairs.

The lower colonnade contains a bronze and granite memorial to a local orchestral musician who died on the Titanic in 1912.

This complex replaced a Victorian bandstand documented in an 1899 Frith photograph. It represents a stylish and ambitious seaside improvement scheme of 1935 in Neo-Grec style using several different colours of faience tiles.