Preston Manor And Attached Railings / Preston Manor

Description

This information is taken from the statutory List as it was in 2001 and may not be up to date.

BRIGHTON

TQ3006 PRESTON DROVE, Preston 577-1/12/1038 (South side) 13/10/52 Preston Manor and attached railings (Formerly Listed as: PRESTON ROAD, Preston Preston Manor)

GV II*

Manor house. 1250, rebuilt 1738, altered 1905. Stucco, roofs of Welsh slate. EXTERIOR: some remains of a house of c1250 in basement; the house was substantially rebuilt in 1738, probably to the designs of Thomas Western, then Lord of the Manor, and is of 2 storeys over basement with dormers in attic, and has 5 windows to the centre on the northern, entrance front, with wings blank on the upper storey apart from a single window introduced into the east wing; this house was altered and enlarged in 1905 to the designs of Charles Stanley Peach who added a 2-window range west of the original house, and a 3-window range north and west of that. Steps up to enclosed Doric porch with paterae over columns and mutule cornice, double panelled doors with sidelights, and flat-arched windows to the sides with aprons; the porch dates from c1800 but was recast in 1905. Long and short quoins to sides. All windows flat-arched, with simple dripmould and louvred shutters; the ground-floor windows on the central portion have 6/6 sashes of original design, those to first floor 3/3 sashes; in front of the wings on either side are enclosed verandahs which act as corridors within the house: they have cast-iron work in a revived early C19 style, large windows of small panes, and tented copper roofs; the western verandah dates from 1905 and extends across the front of the first 1905 range; the eastern verandah was designed in 1910 by WT Cripps, surveyor to the Stanford Estate, as a duplicate of that of 1905; parapet, upswept to the centre, double hipped roof to central part with stack between the ridges, hipped roofs to the rest, those to wings set transversely to the main roof. Railings to porch steps. The garden front has broadly the same arrangement of wings and ranges. Steps up either side of a central enclosed porch of dressed flint with stone dressings: flat-arched entrances to either side with keystones under open segmental pediments on consoles; south-facing window with architrave and pediment, and carved coats of arms in a recessed panel below the window; the cornice over the window is that of the porch as a whole; parapet; this porch is a Classicised adaptation of a tower in an Elizabethan manner which was erected on this front in the late C19. On the central part, the windows are as for the entrance front; the wings to either side have broad French windows under a segmental arch, and balconies with iron railings; the western extension has tripartite French windows with engaged Doric columns and pilasters, entablature, and pediment over the central window; parapet overall, upswept between wings and centre; side stacks to all parts on this side. Single-storey extension to east with a C18 round-arched entrance, introduced from a house in London, with fanlight with decorative glazing, panelled door of original design, and doorcase of partly fluted Doric columns supporting an entablature and open pediment with dentil cornice. Plain single-storey extension to west. INTERIOR: entrance hall formed in 1905 from 2 rooms and now divided by a screen of paired cast-iron Ionic columns distyle in antis, with capitals of Greek Revival design; chimneypiece at the east end of late C17 date and in situ, the cornice at this end of 1738; chimneypiece at the west end of early C19 date with scrolled brackets, pulvinated frieze and modillion cornice to mantelshelf; modillion cornice at this end probably of early C20 date. To the east of the entrance hall is the Macquoid Room which has panelling designed by Percy Macquoid after the model of a room from Clifford's Inn now in the Victoria and Albert Museum; a marble chimneypiece designed by Macquoid, the bolection-moulded surround modelled on one at Belton House, the rest, with putti to the pilasters and cornice breaking forward, Macquoid's invention; cast-iron grate in the Georgian taste with imitation coals lit by electricity, designed by Macquoid to emit light but not heat, and an early example of such illusions. These fittings came, originally, from No.8 Palace Court, Bayswater, designed for Macquoid by Ernest George, and were bequeathed to Brighton Corporation as part of the Macquoid Bequest in 1939. In the north-east corridor, panels of Flemish, Swedish and English glass of the C15-C18, inserted in the glazing, from the Macquoid Bequest. On the south front and east of the staircase is the Morning Room with an early C18 cornice and a marble chimneypiece of late C17 or early C18 date. On the south front and west of the staircase is the Cleves Room, which has a chimneypiece of c1800 formerly in the drawing room, with reeded architrave and an oval panel of fruit; the east and west walls are covered with a fine example of Dutch or Flemish leatherwork of 1675-80, formerly supposed to be associated with Anne of Cleves; the coverings on the north and south walls, and the frieze, are of Tynecastle canvas made to match. The drawing room, immediately west of the entrance hall, is of 2 storeys in height, with dado rail, dentil and egg-and-dart mouldings to cornice, coved ceiling of 1750-60 decorated with arabesques, and oval dome of 1770-80; late C18 chimneypiece with inlays in the form of fluting and panels of Classical figures, the whole installed in 1905; 2 entrances on the east wall have C18 architraves and panelled doors, but the bracketed pediments and pulvinated frieze are of 1923 by Messrs Fox of Brighton. The dining room is in the first, western range added in 1905 and has dado rail, modillion cornice, and a chimneypiece of c1770 in green and white marble with flanking engaged Ionic columns and festoons to the architrave. The north-west corridor has Doric pilasters at its west end, and pilasters with scrolled brackets half-way along its length. The principal staircase, in the centre of the south front, is taken from a pattern-book by Abraham Swan and dates from about 1738 and is of open well type with curtail step, turned newel, column-on-vase balusters, wreathed, ramped and moulded handrail, carved string and panelled dado. Alcove at the foot of the staircase by JL Denman. The landing on the first floor has a Vitruvian scroll to the cornice. There are 4 bedrooms and a dressing room in the central block, all with C18 fielded panelling and cornice, except for the north-east room where the panelling appears to have been covered over. The south-east room has a cast-iron fireplace of c1900 and is fitted with night-bolts; the south-west and north-west rooms have similar fireplaces; the north-east room has a fireplace installed in 1911 from Acacia House, Preston village, of late C18 or early C19 design and possibly a reproduction, with fluted and cabled pilasters and panels of Classical figures, and a ceiling light of petal form in copper and brass by WAS Benson, of late C19 or early C20 date. The east wing at this level contains 2 bedrooms, each with a Vitruvian scroll cornice of 1738, fireplace surround of C18 date and cast-iron grate of 1840s; the west wing is taken up by the upper part of the drawing room. The basement retains, under the central block, the vestiges of the plan of hall, screen and parlour from a house of c1250; a chamfered round arch perhaps of that date to the servants' hall; a partly-obliterated late C16 flat-arched doorway in the west wall of the kitchen and a fragment of a similar doorway beyond the servants' hall; and a late C16 or early C17 brick fireplace in the boot hall. (Beever D: Preston Manor: Brighton).



Listing NGR: TQ3035006407

Content

This is part of the Series: IOE01/0563 IOE Records taken by Chris Dawson; within the Collection: IOE01 Images Of England

Rights

© Mrs Chris Dawson. Source: Historic England Archive

This photograph was taken for the Images of England project