Eastbourne Heritage Centre

623/0/10063 CARLISLE ROAD 14-AUG-03 2 Eastbourne Heritage Centre

GV II Manager's house and flagstaff tower, later heritage centre. Built in Italianate style for the Devonshire Park and Baths Company. May have been designed by George Ambrose Wallis, the town's first mayor and an engineer who was the duke of Devonshire's Eastbourne agent and designed the adjoining baths. Possibly Henry Currie the Duke of Devonshire's architect may have had a hand. Built of red brick with stuccoed dressings and slate roof. Comprises three storey octagonal corner tower and lower two storey and basement villa of two bays. EXTERIOR: Tower has iron cresting to roof, paired bracket eaves cornice and three windows which are paired round-headed windows with blustrading underneath to second floor, rectangular windows with stops and band to first floor and round-headed windows with stops and band interrupted at impost level to ground floor. The attached villa has a hipped roof with cast iron cresting, end quoins and paired bracket cornice, Two rectangular sashes with stops to first floor and round-headed windows to ground floor , band interrupted at impost level with a round-headed doorcase with keystone to soouth side approached up a flight of steps with brick piers with pyramidal caps. INTERIOR: Originally three rooms to each floor with central staircase but circa 1983 a staircase was inserted in the flag tower and a large room created on each floor. HISTORY: The Devonshire Park and Baths Company were established and financed by the 7th Duke of Devonshire as part of his development of Eastbourne. The adjoining Devonshire baths of 1874 were at the time the largest heated salt water baths in the country but now only the outer perimeter walls remain.