Trevin Towers Including Attached Summer House, Terrace Walling And Steps

Trevin Towers is a large house built in 1894 for the travel writer James John Hissey (1847–1921). The architect is not known, though Hissey himself designed much of the layout. The building is constructed in Vernacular Revival style, with the ground floor mainly of brick laid in stretcher bond and the first floor hung with curved tiles. Multiple gables and dormers feature eclectic timber-framing with plastered infill. The roof is tiled with numerous tall brick chimneystacks, including blank arches to chimneystacks on the east and west elevations and a large conjoined chimneystack with an arch that formerly held a large bell. Windows are predominantly wooden casements, many with mullions and transoms, some with sandstone dressings. The plan is roughly L-shaped, with the east wing functioning mainly as a service wing. A Tudor Room was added to the east before 1921, and some small later twentieth-century additions have been made.

The west or entrance front features an elaborate projecting porte-cochere, a three-tier staircase window, and two projecting towers—one with a gable and one with a hipped roof—both with timber-framed attic storeys. The south front has a projecting gable with timber-framed attic displaying herringbone patterning supported on wooden brackets, a five-light bay to the first floor and a further projecting seven-light bay to the ground floor. An attached brick summer house with stone mullioned windows and tiled roof adjoins this side, alongside attached brick terrace walling featuring stone arcading, rusticated piers with ball finials, console brackets and steps descending to the garden. The east elevation displays a gabled dormer divided by a large external chimneystack serving the Drawing Room, which has a gable and side windows at its base, together with a doorcase featuring a flat hood on brackets. A large projecting gable to the north, supported on substantial wooden brackets, features timber-framing with trefoil patterns. The south side of the L-wing has a projecting large gable with timber-framing to the first floor and tile-hung attic. A 1925 photograph shows the gable was originally fully timber-framed (which may remain beneath the tile-hanging) and originally featured a tall square tower with timber-framed first floor and ogee-headed cupola to the west of the gable; only the brick ground floor of this tower now survives. The south front terminates with a one-storey pebble-dashed section with timber-framed gables. Two small brick flat-roofed sections were added after 1925. The north side of the L-wing features similar treatment with pebbledash to the ground floor and tile-hanging to the first floor, except for the gable which is timber-framed.

The interior contains a wooden half-glazed screen to the vestibule and a Jacobean-style entrance hall with an oak well staircase featuring twisted balusters and elaborate carved square newel posts with finials, the lowest dated 1894 with the owner's initials. Oak panelling rises to dado height by the staircase but to full height elsewhere, except where a later twentieth-century glazed reception panel has been inserted. The original corner fireplace may survive beneath later twentieth-century boarding.

The southernmost room was originally the Drawing Room and contains a large inglenook fireplace with Jacobean-style oak fireplace featuring a four-centred arch, pilasters and strapwork decoration to the overmantel, full-height oak panelling and a plastered ceiling with geometrical panels. The adjoining room, possibly originally the Dining Room, has fine full-height oak panelling with moulded cornice, carved band, reeded Ionic pilasters and a segmental-arched recess with carved panels to the north wall. The eastern end of the ground floor contains the former Tudor Room, which has a very wide inglenook fireplace with a chimney lined with herringbone brick tiles incorporating a four-centred arched stone fireplace and two side windows. A circa 1925 photograph indicates there were originally wooden settles. A huge wooden bressumer with a cupboard to the right, oak panelling up to plate shelf level, a chamfered spine beam supported on a stone corbel and massive square-cut floor joists are present. The adjoining room to the west has an alcove and oak fireplaces with pilasters.

The first-floor rooms are decorated in Georgian style. A southern room has a bolection-moulded fireplace with overmantel featuring wheat-ear drops, two display cupboards either side and full-height panelling with a dado rail. The adjoining room also features full-height panelling with two round-headed alcoves with wheat-ear drops and a fireplace with paterae. A further room to the north has panelling up to the coved cornice and a segmental-headed alcove with a tiled fireplace featuring reeded pilasters. Another room retains a bolection-moulded fireplace with a blank central panel.

James John Hissey was a prolific travel writer whose publications include "An Old-fashioned Journey", "A Drive Through England", "On the Box Seat", "A Tour in a Phaeton", "Over Fen and Wold", "Untravelled England", "An English Holiday", "The Charm of the Road", "A Leisurely Tour in England" and other topographical works. The house was sold in 1925, subsequently became a nursing home for many years, and then became part of the University of Brighton. Trevin Towers is an exuberant example of 1894 Vernacular Revival architecture with good and complete interiors.