Grand Victorian houses standing handsomely side by side in Lewes remind the local residents that their town is steeped in history.

But as you walk down one particular street, Grange Road, you will come across a building which is quite different.

The Villas is box-shaped with modern slatted windows and a distinctively contemporary design.

People have objected fiercely to it and other modernist homes scattered across the town but Lewes District Council planners say they are attractive and "respond well to their local context".

Now the architect who designed The Villas has been declared the overall winner of the highly regarded Ibstock Downland Prize for Architects 2005.

Lap Chan, who works for the Morgan Carn Partnership in Brighton, was praised in particular for designing a house that does indeed fit in with its traditional surroundings.

The Ibstock Downland Prize jury's report said: "Lap Chan has made excellent use of a relatively small footprint to produce a building that is very spacious, feels light and airy and has great views, without sacrificing privacy.

"The issues of fitting ultra-modern new-builds into a traditional streetscape are addressed in a fresh and sophisticated way.

"We were aware of local concern about how the building fits into the street.

"Approached from the town, it is fairly prominent and pleasing but from the other end of the street, it is unobtrusive.

"The whole sits very well into the slope of the land.

"The neighbouring buildings are in a variety of styles, ranging from traditional double-fronted Georgian, through to red-brick Victorian and a couple of Seventies town houses.

"We feel that neither the overall size of the building, nor its palette of materials is at odds with its surroundings.

"The villas are modern, they are different, they are a bold addition to Lewes. But they work.

"The planners as well as the client and architect are to be congratulated on the creation of the worthy overall winner of this year's prize."

But Nicholas Roe, a journalist who lives in Grange Road, was so incensed by the property two doors from his home that he wrote an angry piece which was published in The Daily Telegraph a few months ago.

He wrote: "I live in a beautiful conservation area in ancient Lewes in an atmospheric street where Victoriana predominates wonderfully.

"Here, for the past two noisy years, developers have been building a pair of 'exclusive' modernistic homes in a once fine garden two doors along.

"The houses remind me of a vast Atlantic cruise liner, dwarfing and bullying the neighbourhood.

"Passers-by stop and gawp. The houses have an utter lack of sympathy with the place and it is like having a monster next door."

Similar developments are under way or have been recently completed in other parts of town, including Windover Crescent, Castle Ditch Lane, St Martin's Lane and Albion Street.

Sparrow House in Windover Crescent is the result of three years of planning rejections before architect Duncan Baker-Brown and his wife Kate finally got the go-ahead to build on a plot of land between two bungalows on the Twenties' estate.

The house is a sustainable property and his design won last year's Ibstock Downland Prize for new buildings, as well as the accolade of a regional Civic Design Award.