The Former Motor House, The Croft (Adjacent to County Hall) is a Grade II listed building in the South Downs National Park local planning authority area, England. First listed on 22 February 2006. Motor house.

The Former Motor House, The Croft (Adjacent to County Hall)

WRENN ID
young-trefoil-sunrise
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
South Downs National Park
Constituency
Lewes MP: James MacCleary (LD)
Country
England
Date first listed
22 February 2006
Type
Motor house
OS grid reference
TQ 410 099
Coordinates
50.87195, 0.00287
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Former Motor House at The Croft, adjacent to County Hall, is a purpose-built motor house constructed in 1905. This single-storey building is made of red brick and features a gabled tiled roof. The main entrance, facing west, has wooden bargeboards on the gable end and is pierced by a hipped tiled pentice that supports a triangular three-light fixed casement window. Below this, there is a triple sliding door designed for vehicle access, which includes ten panes of opaque glass at the top and plank panelling below. On the south elevation, there is a battered brick buttress topped with a sloping tiled cap, a pedestrian entrance with a plank door, and a wooden casement window.

The interior has not been inspected. The adjoining main house, known as "The Croft," was built in 1899 by architect Samuel Denman as a family home for John Henry Every, the son of the founder of the Phoenix Foundry in Lewes. The motor house was built two years later, in 1905, marking a transition from horse-drawn transport, as indicated by the curbing stones at the sides of the main entrance and a stone mounting block located a few meters northwest of the entrance, which is listed separately. This motor house is an early and externally unaltered example of its kind and is part of a group of structures around The Croft that illustrate the shift from horse transport to motor transport.

Local climate

The Former Motor House, The Croft (Adjacent to County Hall) receives an average of 850 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 59% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 90% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 15 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 85% of listed buildings. Of these, 8 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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