Lewes Signal Box

Type 5 Signal box, 1888, built for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway company at Lewes Station, by Saxby and Farmer.

MATERIALS: constructed of London stock brick in a Flemish bond with a timber superstructure, under a Welsh slate roof.

DESCRIPTION: a tall, narrow signal box with a shallow-pitched, hipped roof which has a broad overhang, supported by curved timber brackets. Brick pilasters divide the ground floor of the front (northern) elevation into four bays. Each has a bricked-up former window aperture, under a red-brick, segmental arch. There is a further doorway with matching red-brick, segmental arch to the ground floor of the eastern elevation. The lower southern and western elevations are blind and the southern is also divided by brick pilasters and relieved by a red-brick string course.

At first floor, both the front and side elevations are fully glazed with timber multi-paned horizontally sliding sash windows. The separate top lights have rounded ends, and the western elevation has a five-paned glazed door with timber panelling below. This doorway to the operating room is accessed from a cross-braced timber open landing which is reached by an external timber staircase, with metal treads. A shallow external metal gantry runs along the northern and eastern sides of the first floor. The rear (southern) elevation is blind, and to the western end there is a weather-boarded timber outshut at first floor level, supported by an open timber-frame. The outshut has a small casement window on the western and eastern elevations.

INTERIOR: the operating room is fitted out with late-C20 signalling equipment, and the outshut has a late-C20 toilet.