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Open day at Bunny’s pad
It’s strange that one of Lewes’ finest townho<strong>us</strong>es,
with intact interior design features from two distinct
periods and a highly flamboyant and exotic history
of residents and visitors, should <strong>now</strong> be the main
offices of a body as unglamoro<strong>us</strong> as the Lewes
District Council. Strange, but perhaps fortuito<strong>us</strong>.
Beca<strong>us</strong>e the Council is clearly extremely proud of its
headquarters, has kept its main features intact, and
provides guides every year to show visitors round as
part of the Heritage Open Day scheme.
I manage to blag a private look around the building,
courtesy of Ann Spike and Philip Pople, Council
employees who have been showing visitors round
every September since 1994, learning, they say,
something new about the building every time.
We’ve already covered the story of the building’s
most famo<strong>us</strong> and eccentric resident, Edward
Warren, a rich American who formed a
‘Brotherhood’ around the turn of the 20th century
which <strong>us</strong>ed the ho<strong>us</strong>e as a home and a base for
the collection of ancient (mainly Greek) artworks,
which were stored there before being transported to
m<strong>us</strong>eums as far afield as Boston.
Warren leased the ho<strong>us</strong>e in 1890, buying it outright
in 1910, and filling it with lavish furnishings and
fittings, including a great Elizabethan oak table at
which he entertained accomplished guests, such
as the painter Roger Fry and the French sculptor
Aug<strong>us</strong>te Rodin, whose sculpture The Kiss was
commissioned by Warren, and spent a number of
years in Lewes.
The ho<strong>us</strong>e m<strong>us</strong>t have looked extraordinary in
Warren’s time, but there is little evidence of his
tenure in what’s left there – save for some panels
w w w. V I VA l E w E s . C o M
picture courtesy of Lewes district Council archive
B r I C k s A N D M o r tA r
and beams in the former stable next to the old
Thebes Gallery which he <strong>us</strong>ed as his private office,
modelled on the Western end of the library at
Corp<strong>us</strong> Christi College, Oxford. He bequeathed
the ho<strong>us</strong>e to his colleague Asa Thomas, and the
furnishings were sold in their entirety in 1929 by a
new company that established its reputation on the
transaction – Gorringes.
The building dates back to the 14th century, when
it was k<strong>now</strong>n as Bugates, and formed part of an
estate that stretched back to Friars Walk, bordered
by Broomans Lane and Walwers Lane. Its first
major restoration occurred around 1733, which
accounts for the heavy Georgian features in the
two-storey back part of the present building. The
ho<strong>us</strong>e then featured a walled front garden, which
was built over in 1812, a date which accounts for the
neo-classical style of the building’s grand stepped
entrance, the high-ceilinged rooms of its threestorey
frontage, and the ornate interior decorations
in the grand dining room on the ground floor
overlooking School Hill, where Warren entertained
his guests.
Nowadays the building is filled with the
paraphernalia of a government office, and you have
to imagine its more exotic ho<strong>us</strong>eguests of the past,
mentally replacing b<strong>us</strong>y workers with French artists,
photocopiers with Greek b<strong>us</strong>ts, and office desks
with four-poster beds. But Ann and Philip are fine
guides, who open your eyes to every nuance, and
help turn a tour round an office building into a trip
back in time. Alex Leith
Heritage Open Days, 10th & 11th Sept. For more
information, check out www.heritageopendays.org.uk
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