Summary

Seafront shelter, 1890s.

Description

DATE: built in 1896, the roof re-tiled in the 1930s.

MATERIALS: it is a wooden structure on a concrete plinth with a tiled roof.

PLAN: the plan is an elongated decahedron with entrance on the south or seaward side.

EXTERIOR: the hipped roof has overhanging eaves with a scalloped valance and is supported on scalloped brackets with circular cutouts. The walls have chamfered piers and top panels with curved sides over vertical boards with small trefoil-shaped cutouts. Except for the two central panels on the seaward side, the wall panels have ornamental curved brackets and central piers which were later glazed over, and solid lower panels.

INTERIOR: the interior has a boarded wooden ceiling with carved ribs incorporating two moulded circular pendants. The lower wall panels are fielded.

History

This building appears on two photographs taken by Francis Frith in 1896. It formed part of the improvements undertaken by the 8th Earl De La Warr during the 1890s which also included the erection of monumental gates across Marine Parade, since demolished and the Kursaal, demolished in 1936. The building is shown on the 1899 six inch map of Sussex. There is a suggestion that it was built as the box office of the Kursaal but in fact the 1896 photographs show that there was a separate nearby box office building and this building was probably purpose-built as a shelter. It is shown in further photographs of 1899 and 1903 with a tiled roof with bands of ornamental tiles and cresting. In a 1927 photograph the structure is called a bandstand.

Reasons for Listing

A seafront shelter on De La Warr Parade, between the junctions of Sea Road and Brassey Road, is listed for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural: a well crafted and decorative wooden shelter with an unusual ten sided plan;
* Degree of completeness: substantially complete except for subsequent roof re-tiling and glazing in of the side panels;
* Historical: one of the surviving features of the 8th Earl de La Warr's development of Bexhill;
* Group Value: one of a group of four seaside shelters along De La Warr Parade.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26676318

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

• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)