The Ammonite Order is an architectural order that features fluted column

Column

A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a vertical structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. For the purpose of wind or earthquake engineering, columns may be designed to resist lateral forces...

s and capital

Capital (architecture)

In architecture the capital forms the topmost member of a column . It mediates between the column and the load thrusting down upon it, broadening the area of the column's supporting surface...

s with volute

Volute

A volute is a spiral scroll-like ornament that forms the basis of the Ionic order, found in the capital of the Ionic column. It was later incorporated into Corinthian order and Composite column capitals...

s shaped to resemble fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

 ammonite

Ammonite

Ammonite, as a zoological or paleontological term, refers to any member of the Ammonoidea an extinct subclass within the Molluscan class Cephalopoda which are more closely related to living coleoids Ammonite, as a zoological or paleontological term, refers to any member of the Ammonoidea an extinct...

s. The style was invented by George Dance

George Dance the Younger

George Dance the Younger was an English architect and surveyor. The fifth and youngest son of George Dance the Elder, he came from a distinguished family of architects, artists and dramatists...

 and first used on John Boydell

John Boydell

John Boydell was an 18th-century British publisher noted for his reproductions of engravings. He helped alter the trade imbalance between Britain and France in engravings and initiated a British tradition in the art form...

's Shakespeare Gallery

Boydell Shakespeare Gallery

The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in London, England, was the first stage of a three-part project initiated in November 1786 by engraver and publisher John Boydell in an effort to foster a school of British history painting...

 in Pall Mall, London

Pall Mall, London

Pall Mall is a street in the City of Westminster, London, and parallel to The Mall, from St. James's Street across Waterloo Place to the Haymarket; while Pall Mall East continues into Trafalgar Square. The street is a major thoroughfare in the St James's area of London, and a section of the...

 in 1789 (later the British Institution

British Institution

The British Institution was a private 19th-century society in London formed to exhibit the works of living and dead artists; it was also known as the Pall Mall Picture Galleries or the British Gallery...

; demolished in 1868).

Ammonite motifs were also used on buildings in Old Regent Street, probably by John Nash

John Nash (architect)

John Nash was a British architect responsible for much of the layout of Regency London.-Biography:Born in Lambeth, London, the son of a Welsh millwright, Nash trained with the architect Sir Robert Taylor. He established his own practice in 1777, but his career was initially unsuccessful and...

 from around 1818 (demolished in the 1920s).
Architect, geologist and fossil collector Amon Wilds

Amon Wilds

Amon Wilds was an English architect and builder. He formed an architectural partnership with his son Amon Henry WildsIn this article, Amon Wilds is referred to as Wilds senior and his son Amon Henry Wilds as Wilds junior. in 1806 and started working in the fashionable and growing seaside resort...

 used the Ammonite Order on the façade

Facade

A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....

 of his house in Castle Place in Lewes

Lewes

Lewes is the county town of East Sussex, England and historically of all of Sussex. It is a civil parish and is the centre of the Lewes local government district. The settlement has a history as a bridging point and as a market town, and today as a communications hub and tourist-oriented town...

, probably as a pun

Pun

The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...

ning reference to his forename. His architect son, Amon Henry Wilds

Amon Henry Wilds

Amon Henry Wilds was an English architect. He was part of a team of three architects and builders who—working together or independently at different times—were almost solely responsible for a surge in residential construction and development in early 19th-century Brighton, which until then had...

, also used the order on several early 19th century terraces in Brighton.