Details
623/0/10067 GAUDICK ROAD
29-SEP-04 Trevin Towers, including attached summ
er house, terrace walling and steps
II
Large house, later nursing home and currently part of a university. Built in 1894 for a travel writer called James John Hissey (1847-1921). The architect is not known and the client designed much of the layout himself. The Tudor Room to the east was added later but before 1921. There are some small later C20 additions. Vernacular Revival style. Ground floor mainly of brick in stretcher bond, first floor hung with curved tiles but there are a number of gables and dormers with eclectic timber-framing with plastered infill. Tiled roof with a number of tall brick chimneystacks which include blank arches to chimneystacks to the east and west and a large conjoined chimneystack with arch formerly holding a large bell. Windows are mainly wooden casements, many with mullions and transoms and some have sandstone dressings. Roughly L-shaped plan form with east wing mainly a service wing.
EXTERIOR: West or entrance front has an elaborate projecting porte-cochere, three tier staircase window and two projecting towers, one with gable, one with hipped roof, both with timber-framed attic storeys. The south front has a projecting gable with timber-framed attic with herringbone pattern supported on wooden brackets, five-light bay to first floor and further projecting seven-light bay to the ground floor. This side also has an attached brick summer house with stone mullioned windows and tiled roof and attached brick terrace walling with stone arcading, rusticated piers with ball finials and console brackets and steps to the garden. The east elevation has a gabled dormer divided by a large external chimneystack to the Drawing Room which has a gable and side windows to the base. There is a doorcase with flat hood on brackets and a large projecting gable to the north supported on large wooden brackets which has timber-framing with trefoil patterns. The L-wing south side has a projecting large gable with timber-framing to the first floor and tile-hung attic. A photograph of 1925 shows that the gable was originally timber-framed (this may remain beneath the tile-hanging) and there was originally a tall square tower with timber-framed first floor and ogee-headed cupola to the west of the gable. Only the brick ground floor remains of this tower. The south front ends with a one storey pebble-dashed section with timber-framed gables. Two small brick flat roofed sections were added after 1925. The north side of the L-wing has a similar treatment with pebbledash to the ground floor and tilehanging to the first floor, except for the gable which is timber-framed.
INTERIOR: Wooden half-glazed screen to the vestibule and a Jacobean style entrance hall with oak well staircase with twisted balusters and elaborate carved square newel posts with finials, the lowest one dated 1894 with the initials of the owner. There is oak panelling to dado height by the staircase but full height panelling elsewhere, except where a later glazed reception panel has been inserted. The original corner fireplace may survive beneath later C20 boarding. The southernmost room was originally the Drawing Room and has a large inglenook fireplace with Jacobean style oak fireplace with four-centred arch, pilasters and strapwork decoration to the overmantel, full-height oak panelling and plastered ceiling with geometrical panels. The adjoining room, possibly originally the Dining Room, has fine full-height oak panelling with moulded cornice, carved band, reeded Ionic pilasters and a segmental-arched recess with carved panels to the north wall. The eastern end of the ground floor has the former Tudor Room which has a very wide inglenook fireplace with chimney lined with herringbone brick tiles incorporating a four-centred arched stone fireplace and two side windows. A c1925 photograph shows there were originally wooden settles. There is a huge wooden bressumer with a cupboard to the right, oak panelling up to plate shelf level, a chamfered spine beam supported on a stone corbel and massive square cut floor joists. The adjoining room to the west has an alcove and oak fireplaces with pilasters.
The first floor rooms are decorated in Georgian style. A southern room, no 102, has a bolection-moulded fireplace with overmantel with wheat ear drops, two display cupboards either side and full-height panelling with dado rail. The adjoining room, no 103, also has full-height panelling with two round-headed alcoves with wheat ear drops and fireplace with paterae. A further room to the north has panelling up to the coved cornice and a segmental-headed alcove with tiled fireplace with reeded pilasters. A further room retains a bolection-moulded fireplace with blank central panel.
HISTORY: James John Hissey was a travel writer whose publications includes "An Old-fashioned Journey", "A Drive Through England", "On the Box Seat", "A Tour in a Phaeton", "Over fen and Wold", "Untravelled England", "An English holiday", "The charm of the Road", "A Leisurely Tour in England" and other works on topography. The house was sold in 1925, it became a nursing home for many years and then part of the University of Brighton.
An exuberant 1894 Vernacular Revival style building with good and complete interiors.
["Who Was Who 1916-1928 p500 for information on James John Hissey.]
