Falmer House Including Moat Within Courtyard

FALMER HOUSE INCLUDING MOAT WITHIN COURTYARD, UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

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Overview

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
I
List Entry Number:
1381044
Date first listed:
30-Aug-1993
List Entry Name:
Falmer House Including Moat Within Courtyard
Statutory Address:
FALMER HOUSE INCLUDING MOAT WITHIN COURTYARD, UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX
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Date:
2005-08-04
Reference:
IOE01/14542/16
Rights:
© Miss Esther Harbour. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
I
List Entry Number:
1381044
Date first listed:
30-Aug-1993
List Entry Name:
Falmer House Including Moat Within Courtyard
Statutory Address 1:
FALMER HOUSE INCLUDING MOAT WITHIN COURTYARD, UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:
FALMER HOUSE INCLUDING MOAT WITHIN COURTYARD, UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:
The City of Brighton and Hove (Unitary Authority)
Parish:
Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:
TQ 34590 08940

Details

BRIGHTON

TQ3408 UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX
577-1/11/1131 Falmer House including moat within
30/03/93 courtyard

GV I

Central communal building for the university. 1960-62.
Designed by Sir Basil Spence. Red brick and bare, board-marked
concrete. Timber window frames. Flat roofs with roof-top
projections covered in copper.
PLAN/EXTERIOR: quadrangular form, with partly open ground
floor. Irregular facade of 3 storeys, 'chunkily' detailed,
with brick walls separated at floor height by deep, bare,
board-marked concrete strips. Ground floor arcades and many of
the windows have segmental arches set within the concrete
lintels. Former refectory (now a hall) on west, of 2 storeys
in height, dominated by segmental barrel vault which breaks
above the horizontal parapet of the building. Many 'cells' of
the building on the south and east sides are left unenclosed.
To north side, main staircase is flint-faced and is given
emphasis by V-shaped roof feature.
INTERIOR: contains double height former refectory with
mezzanine, and fine Ivon Hitchens mural; also debating chamber
with complex top-lit octagonally shaped roof and answering
octagonal sunken seating area with segmented timber cover;
also double height common room with 'chunky' timber staircase.
Falmer House was the first building to be constructed on
campus and was designed as its focus. Sussex University is
historically important as the first of the post-war generation
of universities to be founded, planned and built afresh, as a
totality.
(Architectural Review: Birk: Building the New Universities :
October 1963).



Listing NGR: TQ3459008940

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:
481388
Legacy System:
LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Birk, , Architectural Review in Building the New Universities, (1963)

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.

Ordnance survey map of Falmer House Including Moat Within Courtyard

Map

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End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

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