Summary
A 1910 Arts and Crafts style house by Eastbourne architect Peter D. Stonham.
Reasons for Designation
* Architectural: it is a well designed, carefully asymmetrical Arts and Crafts-style house by a prominent local architect.
* Materials: good quality brickwork with tile-on-edge quoins, a timber-framed and stone porch, unusual lead panels to the window bays on the garden front and stained glass floral inserts to the windows.
* External intactness: the exterior is little altered.
* Interiors: partial survival of interior features of note including the panelled staircase-hall and former lounge, also original doors and cornices.
* Associated structures: includes an integrated contemporary garage and boundary walls, the front wall probably partly of earlier origin.
History
11 The Goffs, Eastbourne was designed by local architect Peter D Stonham, of MSA Architects and Surveyors, 123 Terminus Road, Eastbourne. The client was a local solicitor F H Stapley Esq., formerly of Sulton House, Cornfield Road, Eastbourne. Building permission was granted on 9 November 1909 and the building is dated 1910 on the rainwater heads and diamond-shaped panels between the floors of the bay windows on the rear elevation. The house was originally going to be named Harrington but in the end was called Hunningtons. The original plans show a staircase/hall the entire depth of the house with drawing room and dining room overlooking the rear garden with a servants' hall, kitchen and all the usual offices at the front and west sides. The first floor had three main bedrooms, a dressing room and bathroom with two separate servants' bedrooms and bathroom approached up a service staircase. The attic had a billiard room.
Peter Dulvey Stonham F. S. ARC, FISE (1877-1942) designed a number of properties within Eastbourne and a number of cinemas. This is the largest and the only surviving one of three detached houses he designed along The Goffs. The property does not appear on the 1910 Ordnance Survey map, probably because the survey was undertaken prior to that date, and is first shown on the 25 inch 1925 Ordnance Survey map. By that date the other two properties by the same architect along The Goffs had been replaced by a large block of flats. 11 The Goffs was converted into a number of flats in 1964. A small flat-roofed extension was added to the rear of the property in the later C20.
Details
Detached house with contemporary garage and boundary walls. Dated 1910, designed by local architect Peter Dulvey Stonham for a local solicitor F H Stapley in Arts and Crafts style. Refurbished after 1964 when it was converted into flats. The late C20 flat-roofed extension to the south west and late C20 porch to the former service entrance are not of special interest.
MATERIALS: Built of brown brick in stretcher bond with tile-on-edge quoins and occasional stone details. The gables are timber-framed with plaster infill and there is lead cladding between the floors of the two-storey canted bays on the rear elevation. The steeply pitched tiled roof has tall moulded brick chimneystacks with blank round-headed arches. Windows throughout (except for one attic uPVC replacement) are the original wooden casements with leaded lights and ornamental metal catches, although some windows have been repaired with false leads stuck on over the glass and some metal latches have been replaced.
PLAN: Asymmetrical house of two storeys and attics, 5 bays to the entrance front, 3 to the garden front. The service end was at the western end and terminates in the projecting garage.
EXTERIOR: The north-east or entrance front is of five bays. The eastern bay has a three-light casement to the ground floor. The penultimate bay to the east projects with a timber-framed gable with plain barge boards, a first floor four-light canted bay and a base which transforms into the hipped roof of the entrance porch. This has wooden piers over a brick and stone plinth, a round-headed arched stone doorcase and an oak panelled door of five panels with original ornamental hinges, letter box and handle. The central bay has a four-light dormer, a three-light first floor window and a three-light mullioned and transomed casement to the ground floor. The penultimate bay to the west projects with a large timber-framed gable supported on wooden brackets with a four-light canted bay to the first floor and a four-light mullioned and transomed casement to the ground floor. The western bay, part of the service end originally, has a catslide roof to the ground floor with a triple dormer and a service door, now behind a later C20 flimsy glazed porch. Connected by a wall and projecting further east is a projecting single-storey garage, also in brown brick with tile-on-edge quoins, a hipped tiled roof, wooden double doors with top-lights and a three-light casement window in the side elevation.
The east side has S-shaped iron eaves brackets, and a dated cast iron rainwater head, three small first floor widows and, on the ground floor, a canted bay window to the north and a curved bay window to the south.
The south-west or garden front is of three bays with unequally-sized projecting end bays. The central bay has a three-light attic window, a first-floor modified Venetian type staircase window and below a combined two-light window with stained glass rose decoration and a rear door under a flat hood and another single light window adjoining. On each side of the door are two original curved wooden benches with heart-shaped cutouts. The smaller eastern bay has a projecting timber-framed gable and a two storey six-light bay. Between the storeys are ornamented lead cladding with diamond panels, one including the date of construction, 1910. The western bay has the same features and date but the gable and canted bay windows are wider.
The north-west side has a projecting chimneystacks pierced by a hipped ground floor projection. There is a four-light dormer, S-shaped iron brackets to the eaves and mainly small first floor and ground floor windows. A flat-roofed late C20 single storey extension with sliding patio doors has been added at the south-west end.
INTERIOR: The front entrance leads into a vestibule with patterned tessellated floor and a glazed and wooden screen. The upper part of the screen has stained glass rose and foliate emblems, the lower part is panelled and there is a central pedimented doorcase. This leads into the staircase-hall which has almost full-height panelling with a moulded plate-shelf and slender ceiling beams. At the south end is a stained glass window with rose motifs and there are stained glass rose motifs to the rear door. The oak dogleg staircase has alternately two or three diagonally-placed stick balusters and there are octagonal moulded newel posts and some pendants. The attic window has foliate patterned stained glass. A former inner hall to the east on the ground floor leads into the former drawing room which retains original doors, panelled walls and moulded cornices but no fireplaces. The western dining room overlooking the garden could not be accessed. The remaining ground-floor rooms to the north were originally service rooms. The first-floor landing retains a round-headed arch and half-glazed door. The former first floor north-east flat bedroom retains the original cornice but the two former north-western bedrooms retain no original features. The two south-western bedrooms could not be accessed. The attic, unusually designed to include a billiard room, retains no original features. A number of original doors survive. Some rooms have received later partitions. The garage is reported to have received some internal alterations for mobility reasons.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: 11 The Goffs also retains the original property boundary wall. At the front on the north-west side this is about six feet high incorporating cobbles with a brick elliptical-arched pedestrian entrance at the west end with brick piers and pyramidal stone caps. At the east end there are similar brick piers to a vehicular entrance but the easternmost pier has been renewed.
