BAH P067-081.Qxd:Brightonprelims
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Walk 1. Brighton Old Town This walk covers the area of medieval Brighthelmstone, which is defined by East, West and North streets, with Middle Street running n–s. From the late c16 this grid was infilled by a complex network of narrow alleys (in Sussex called twittens), which are partly preserved, most memorably in the area known as The Lanes [44]. Very few of its buildings, however, are older than the mid c18 when the town began its transformation into a resort. The old town continued to maintain a separate character as a working centre, with its market, town hall and N ORT Former Holy H STR Trinity Church EET Friends DUKE ST Meeting House T Royal Pavilion E E BRIGHTON R T T SQ E S E R T ON S HT T T G E I L T S P E R P CASTLE E R I B REE R SHIP SHIP N T T S W T ST C N ILE E S S GARDENS E S T K Q BLACK A R E E L A L B N LION LA E M I D RT T ST E D E BART T I E HOLOMEW S Synagogue M R T S S D E L A N Town Hall O S O I T L S K BAR THOLOM T C R A EW POOL VALLEY SQUARE E KIN L G’S ROAD B E T GR AN D JU Royal Albion NCT ION RD Hotel Sample pages only N Not for resale 0 100 200 metres 0 100 200 yards 37. Walk 1 68 Brighton and Hove 38. Late c19 photograph of the N front of the Royal Albion Hotel commercial life and in the c20 The Lanes became a tourist attraction. Today, although parts are scruffy and neglected, the Old Town is still a vibrant mix of domestic and commercial activity. A walk can start in Old Steine at the Royal Albion Hotel of 1826 by Amon Henry Wilds (built on the site of the house erected in 1752–3 for Dr Richard Russell of Lewes, an early advocate of sea bathing, see p. 70). At this date the important aspect was still towards the Steine rather than the sea. The original stuccoed frontage is four storeys with five giant Composite columns in the middle and three plus three giant pilasters. The pilasters are taken round to the e side as well. In the attic storey shells set in blank arches above the windows, one of the hallmarks of Wilds. To its right, continuing the theme of giant orders, is an extension – perhaps c. 1847 when the hotel was granted the epithet Royal: three bays treated as a distyle in antis with fluted Ionic columns. Top-heavy c20 additions to the upper parts and, at the rear, ungainly Edwardian embellishments, by Clayton & Black, for a lounge overlooking the sea. The hotel has incorporated its neighbour, formerly the Lion Mansion Hotel built in 1856, also with fluted Composite pilasters and stacks of canted bays. Set forward to the road at this point is the Royal York Hotel (on the site of the oldSample manor house pages of Brighthelmstone), only converted in 1819 from two houses, the name was adopted with the permission of the Duke of York, a frequent visitor to the town. Enlargements of 1827 and later leave a somewhatNot incoherent for façaderesale but the centre (dated 1819) has three-storey bows, highly glazed and divided by Roman fasces prettily reeded, a motif used in French Empire design and seen elsewhere in Brighton’s early c19 domestic buildings. c20 cast-iron porte cochère. Nos. 44–6 to the right, despite being drastically rebuilt as an office block in the 1990s, is a striking late c18 group with bold canted bays and nice doorcases. For the rest of the Steine, see Walk 2. Walk 1. Brighton Old Town 69 Sea Bathing and Bath Houses 39. Brill’s Baths, c. 1869 Sea bathing as a pastime, first for the wealthy, has its origins in the popularity of spa towns where mineral waters were drunk and bathed in for their health-giving properties. Popular first in Continental Europe, by the late c17 spas were already well established in England (Bath, Epsom and Tunbridge Wells) and the chalybeate spring at St Ann’s Well, Hove, was an attraction to visitors long before Brighton became a resort. The first reference to bathing in the sea at Brighton dates from 1641 when the burial is recorded of Mary Askall who came for ‘the cure’. Dr Richard Russell’s A Dissertation on the Use of Sea Water in Diseases of the Glands (1750) promoting the health-giving properties of bathing and drinking seawater, was crucial to the future of Brighton as a resort. Russell, a doctor in Lewes, first sent patients to drink the water at St Ann’s Well but in 1752–3 built his house by the sea on the Steine for their benefit. Horse-drawn bathing machines (for discreet changing) quickly became a familiar site on the shore, as were the ‘dippers’ – men and women who submerged bathers in the sea. The career of the best- known dipper, Martha Gunn, spanned well over half a century. Several purpose-built bathing establishments followed. The first seawater baths were opened in 1769 by Dr Awsiter at Pool Valley, providing six cold baths, a hot bath, a showering bath and a sweating bath. Awsiter also advocated the drinking of seawater mixed with milk and cream of tartar. In 1787 Sake (Sheikh) Deen Mahomed opened Turkish baths on theSample seafront (the pages Queen’s only Hotel now stands on the site), the first in the country, with the novelty of a ‘shampooing’ (massaging) service. George IV appointed Mahomed his ‘Shampooing Surgeon’. Nearby inNot East forStreet resale were Lamprell’s (later Brill’s) baths, opened in 1823, which contained the first communal swimming pool in the town. Bruce’s 1834 Brighton guide lists five baths in the town but their pop ularity waned from the mid c19 – William’s Royal Hot and Cold Baths, on Old Steine, were demolished in 1856 but Brill’s was not demolished until 1929 (to make way for the Savoy Cinema). 70 Brighton and Hove A passage between the two hotels leads to Pool Valley, today an unprepossessing backwater, serving since 1929 as Brighton’s coach station. Originally an inlet or small pool, it was paved over following the culverting of the Wellesbourne stream in 1792–3. Several bathing establishments were clustered here, including Brighton’s first baths, in 1769 (see Topic Box). Older buildings survive only on the nw corner of Pool Valley, notably Nos. 9–10 built in 1794, although the big hipped roof perhaps suggests earlier origins, with a façade of black mathematical tiles – the Brighton speciality. For many years it was Cowley’s Bun Shop and to Goodhart-Rendel it was ‘as charming a relic of the Brighton that was called Brighthelmstone as anyone could wish to see’. The view to the sea was obscured after the embanked Grand Junction Road was created in 1829. Before then, the main access between the Steine and western town was along the narrow paved passage which cuts through to East Street and was ‘occupied by gay shops of fancy dealers of every description’ in 1833 (Parry’s Guide). King’s Road led w onto the cliff- top road before it was bypassed by Grand Junction Road. No. 6 (s side) is of c. 1825 by A. H. Wilds, with giant fluted pilasters and Wilds’s usual motif of ammonite shell capitals. By the early c19 (Great) East Street, running n–s, was a densely populated commercial street, servicing the large houses on the Steine and in Castle Square. Today little tells outwardly of a pre-c19 date. Nos. 5–6, Scoop & Crumb, has a painted cobbled front of a kind seen on several early buildings within the Old Town and visible tiled roof, suggesting an c18 date. Big Victorian first-floor shop window. No. 10 (Long Tall Sally) has a pair of early c19 bows, with tall first-floor win- dows and bold entablature. From here the scale of the buildings steps up to four storeys, several with bows above the shopfronts, often replaced in the mid c19 by canted bays. A few later c19 façades dominate on the e side, e.g. No. 67 (Reiss), dated 1883, red brick Queen Anne, typical for its date, and No. 63 (Cargo Home Shop), also brick, but overpainted and with a cheerful timber loggia beneath the gable, dated 1888. At the point where East Street becomes pedestrianized there are views through to the onion domes of the Pavilion (for the n end of East Street see below). Nos. 20–1 East Street (Jones the Bootmaker) has an early c19 stucco front with an upper floor divided by Doric pilasters. It turns the corner into Bartholomews, a street which takes its name from the medieval priory of St Bartholomew.Sample Of this pages nothing remainsonly and the street is now entirely dominated by the Town Hall, but before considering it we can turn left into Little East Street which runs along the Town Hall’s e flank. Here a Notfew early for relics, resale including The Cottage, of tarred cobbles with brick quoins and gambrel roof; a small group beyond, including No. 6 (Strand Restaurant) with two original bowed Regency shopfronts; and closing the street, No. 8, a rather grim cement-rendered front but evidently a once fashionable Early Georgian town house.