Description

MAZE HILL
1.
5204
(West Side)
St Leonards
The Clock House
TQ 7909 21/200B 19.1.51.
II*
2.
Designed by Decimus Burton or otherwise built by James Burton as part of his original
layout of St Leonards in 1828. A very curious house in early Gothic revival style.
Its main front faces the original subscription gardens, now St Leonards Gardens,
and backs up against the hill. The entrance is on the east side, and the difference
between the levels on the east and west sides is so great that the front door is
actually on the 2nd floor. The ground plan consists of a centre portion of 3 storeys
with a small projection in the centre and 2 flanking wings. But the latter are
only 2 storeys high and are not visible from the east side. Seen from this entrance
side the building is designed to give the appearance of a cruciform church wider
than it is long with a small tower at the west end. It is built of sandstone
ashlar. The east front of which only one storey is visible above ground, is surmounted
by a parapet enriched with quatrefoil ornaments and with diagonally set buttresses
at corners carried up to pinnacles with a plain parapet sloping up from these to
the centre parapet. Dripstone and shield over the doorway. There are no windows
in this front but the recessed transept portions have blocked pointed window spaces
with dripstones over in their east walls. On the west front facing the garden
there are 3 storeys with the tower forming a small projection in the centre. This
has buttresses at its angles rising to tall pinnacles (only one of which remains)
a 2-light pointed window on the ground floor, a shield and quatrefoil panel above
this, then on the 2nd floor a 3-light pointed window with a panel above it of arcading
containing 5 pointed arches and at the top a clock face in a diamond panel. The
north and south faces of the tower are similar. On each side of the tower is a
recessed portion of one window bay containing a 2-light pointed window on the ground
and 2nd floors, and a square-headed casement window on the 1st floor, with a cornice
over it. These window bays are flanked by buttresses carried up to pinnacles.
Flanking these window bays are the "transept" portions not on this side further
recessed but flush with the latter. They have no windows, a cornice above the
1st floor carried out to form a corbel bracket on each side, on which stands a
statue in a niche with a pointed head and dripstone over; cornice and parapet
above.

Listing NGR: TQ7992409053

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17555462

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)