ISSN: 2632-6523

Brighton College BUILDING AMBITIONS

REGENCY SOCIETY OCCASIONAL PAPER 1 SPRING 2019 Regency Society 1 College BUILDING AMBITIONS

LESSONS IN AMBITION The Buildings of Brighton College

This is the first of our new series of hope other institutions in our city will more Occasional Papers about the built Occasional Papers. It replaces the learn from. heritage of Brighton and Hove. Raising Regency Society Journal. We are grateful to the many members awareness and promoting excellence of Brighton College past and present in design are core to our purpose. We who have helped make this publication look forward to hearing from potential Brighton College is a fine example of possible, giving generously of their time, authors of future issues in this series. an ambitious approach to building thoughts and research. We are also Contact [email protected] success in every sense. The history of its grateful for the college’s partnership in buildings recounted here demonstrates the cost of publication. Roger Hinton, Chairman of the Regency that the college has not always been the Society, March 2019 leading institution it is today. Vision, I would like to thank John McKean for top quality design and a refusal to producing this first issue of what we hope compromise have contributed centrally will be a successful new venture for the to its transformation. This has clearly not Regency Society. The Regency Society always been easy, and is an example we would like in the future to produce

Introduction This construction of Brighton College Tudor gatehouse but added a very programmes of the past decades, from its beginning in 1845 to its very contemporary asymmetry to the begins on page 23. successful present day is quite a story. ground level, which for those with One learns much about how an The college’s attempts to define itself eyes to see, is typically Victorian. The institution sees itself from the way in built form offer a complicated, project ran out of steam when only it builds itself. The story of Brighton though illuminating journey, involving half built. Remaining truncated for 130 College has lessons not only for as much failure as success. years, it was probably easy to forget institutions but for the city. Pride in Our front cover, the gateway to that they job was half done. place and ambition for excellence our tale, immediately raises the issues The College’s 21st-century, needs much more than money. Put at at the centre of informed debate on historically-aware architect recreated its simplest, to achieve an articulate, any institution concerned with quality the 19th century memory of the 16th attractive and sophisticated building in its built environment. How are its century tower. The top half of what you need an articulate, attractive and buildings read? How do you add new we see in this picture is 21st century. sophisticated client. building to complement and enhance But the proudly completed gateway But buildings are not just an existing estate? What happens is in no way diminished by its crisp, reflections of their institution. As when, for one reason or another, that stone double-glazed windows making Winston Churchill wisely noted, grip falters? no pretence to be draughty old leaded we create our buildings - and our The great ‘whoosh!’ of this panes. It could only be of our time, for buildings create us. picture is of the towering entrance to those with eyes to see. the college, with its battlements and Rather than dwell on this pointed arches. Though designed in parable, we invite you to ponder this the late 19th century, features like tale yourself. Presented as a simple these were already a theatrical conceit chronology, it falls into three parts. in the 16th century when Ann Boleyn’s Part One, its first sixty years begins on Gateway at Hampton Court was built. page 3 opposite. Part two, virtually its The College’s 19th century, historically- 20th century, begins on page 15. aware architect recreated the famous Part Three, the great building

Regency Society Occasional Papers. No 1: Spring 2019 ISSN: 2632-6523 Views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Regency Society of Brighton & Hove, © 2019. Published by the Regency Society of Brighton & Hove, 12 Abbotts, 159 Kings Road, Brighton BN1 2FA Designed and printed by reprintbrighton.com

2 Regency Society BUILDING AMBITIONBrighton College BUILDING AMBITIONS By John McKean Brighton College’s efforts to define itself in built form, have waxed and waned over its nearly two centuries. Had it not been for its renaissance in the 21st century, this might have been a tale too depressing to tell. Today there are important lessons here for all concerned with the quality of our built environment.

meet in the National School building PART ONE 1845 – 1907 on Church Street (where Carluccio stands in the 21st century) to plan Being a tale of high ambition defeated by circumstance, of for ‘a college on Church of England hubristic architectural ideas and clients blind to the value of principles’. Moreover, it will not be a forming high quality places; of concerns easily lost amidst financial beneficent foundation, but a business; a company built of its shares. mismanagement and bankruptcy. In November 1845 a meeting For any institution, its foundation process is always very revealing. Were I to is held in Brighton Town Hall to establish what now becomes the imagine the opening of a new school, I’d presume an educational purpose last of England’s urban ‘proprietary’ driving it, the funds raised to get it going, a site purchased and the buildings rather than private, endowed schools, erected. Then, with staff in place, off it goes. This innocent presumption the first Sussex ‘public’ school. (This would fit with my having written quite a lot about the beginnings of new confusing term was adopted later, English universities in the early 1960s. after the 1864 Clarendon Commission forced reform on the old beneficent Brighton College, in the 1840s, begins After the debauched decades of establishments - such as Eton, Harrow rather differently. When it opens, it has Georgian England, the moral tone has or the Bluecoat schools – founded no land, no buildings and certainly not to be raised. In Brighton, only half the on generous legacies for local poor enough money; neither bequests and population even attends the national children but by then deeply corrupt generous legacies nor funds from any church (as the shocking 1851 census and abusive – by opening places to the civic or public purse. shows), while the English average ‘public’ after a competitive entry exam To ensure the moral fibre of the is a deplorable enough 60 per cent. in the classics; one unlikely to be won gentlemen who would take the civic Things must change. by a local poor scholar.) and national reins on behalf of their Symbolically, the queen is even We need not concern ourselves pious young queen, private schools intending to sell off the Royal Pavilion with what the ‘Provisional Committee’ are being founded in towns across estate. A group of the Brighton great formed that afternoon ‘to Prepare the land in the 1830s and 1840s. and good, mostly entitled ‘Rev.’, a Plan for the Proposed College at

Occasional Paper 1 3 Brighton College BUILDING AMBITIONS

Brighton’ intended to happen within their college. The subject of this study is the shells this institution grows, in which to house and identify itself, and to represent it within our town through the subsequent 175 years. But its foundation process is the seed from which grows both its strengths and its problems. While the founding committee includes a few senior army officers and members of the nobility and gentry, almost half are Anglican clergymen. They have to sell shares, each linked to a (not automatically guaranteed) place in the school; they have no buildings, far less a site. But they, who became the council of the nascent college, appoint a principal (an evangelical Rev in their Portland House, the first home of Brighton College. own image) six months later and, within a further six months, in January Above: in a print published in 1829, showing the county hospital beyond, to its north east. 1847, are open for business. And ‘the Right: in a photograph of 1855-60, showing St George’s Church to the east. school’s first business,’ as its historian Between the publication of these images, to the college it is known as Lion House. A model Martin Jones so nicely puts it, is ‘to be of the lion surmounting its facade, is ceremoniously dragged from here to the foundation a nursery of Christian gentlemen.’ laying of the college’s first new building. Their organisational structure needs them to be in business smartly We know that Portland House, the within St Dunstan’s and then the NHS to make their shares attractive and to grand mansion topping Portland Place, to this day—dates from the 1840s. That attract the fees. They quickly take a designed by Charles Busby for Major second rebuild dates from a decade three-year lease on ‘Lion House’ at the Villeroy Russell, had been burned down later, once Brighton College has moved head of Portland Place (around where before completion in 1825; the fire is on. In 1846 the first rebuilt grand other schools are also starting to fill undisputed and usually described as mansion (planned, like the original, with up the new buildings), as they begin total destruction. I suspect, however, its two wings as separate and side- to consider premises appropriate to that at least the masonry shell stands entered) houses the nascent college. this new college. Strangely perhaps, pretty firm, following press mentions We know that Lion House is their first thought had been to buy of ‘severe damage to internal walls.’ occupied by the new College in May the vacated Royal Pavilion or at least It seems that, when rebuilt in 1829, 1846 and that it employs, as its some part of it. Lord Alfred Hervey, the original building was recreated; first architect, Amon Henry Wilds Treasury minister and one of Brighton’s and I would guess that at least the to make various ‘alterations.’ The two MPs, in a long letter in September Corinthian portico and surmounting building referred to in all early college 1846 writes ‘if any part of the existing lion, the central top lit hall and main documents as Lion House can only be structure could be available for the layout, survive the fire. this which everyone else, including the college it might, at the proper time, be The print of the Whittock drawing engravers of street maps of Brighton, purchased at a very moderate sum as it is clearly dated 1829 but may have know as Portland House. Clinching stands; as the materials, if the Pavilion been drawn before the fire. The evidence is an article written by a should be pulled down, would fetch a photograph in James Gray’s collection teenage college pupil in Lion House very small price…’ is printed from a waxed paper negative (signed T.E.H. and most likely the We can gasp at that extraordinary of between 1855 and 1860. Gray future international jurist, Professor Sir observation today, but for the College says ‘It shows the splendid mansion, Thomas Holland) which describes Lion this is a byway. The Crown raises Portland House. As far as I know this House inside and out with precision the price further beyond what can is the only surviving photograph of and in charming detail. be afforded; the borough buys it for this building. Rebuilt in the same ‘The entrance up a broad flight of £50,000 and the college continues form but split into three separate stone steps under a portico supported to search for its own permanent houses, it was reconstructed soon by a row of tall columns’ fits no other built image. But first, it settles into a after this photograph was taken.’ building in the area. This leads to the building which we see today through Historic England’s calling it rebuilt main hall, from which ‘a spiral staircase a strange historical miasma: indeed, in 1847 cannot be right. But equally whose well extends from the ground various texts - including Nick Antrim’s the Brighton Pevsner is not alone in floor to a circular lantern in the roof, recent Pevsner Guide - suggest it didn’t erroneously telling us that the ‘plainer’ leads to successive semi-circular even exist at the time when Brighton replacement—when it became the landings on the first and second College signed a lease on it. centre of a terrace sort-of-surviving floors…’.

4 Regency Society Part One 1845 - 1907

of capital to build. But no time is wasted. They focus on land just to the west of Barry’s hospital which has been growing from 1828 to 1841 in downland between Brighton and Kemp’s new ‘town’. Early in 1848 they choose a ‘nearly 11 acre’ location in the furlong of Baker’s Bottom. Like the hospital, it stands just to the north of the former trackway to Black Rock, now newly developed as the road to Kemptown, and first recorded as Eastern Road with eight residents in the 1845 street directory. Buying from the three owners, Attree, Cooper and Whitfield, 8.5 acres are acquired at first, and that on a 99- year lease, as the college lacks further funds. (The freehold is only bought some years later.) From the start, it is a very tight site for the projected 600 pupils. But cash is equally tight and, Here is indeed a reconstruction of building, when engulfed in fire, was over the next generation, when they Busby’s mansion for Russell. The not insured. Major Russell has had will be able to afford expansion north long, fascinating text, with details of to bear the estimated £12,000 loss and east, William Percival Boxall of ‘passages and back stairs and deserted himself and, borrowing to rebuild, it Belle Vue Hall – the only building on chambers’ and descriptions of the eventually bankrupts him. Russell now this downland between the hospital school opening, of masters, houses and inhabits one rebuilt side unit and sells and Brighton – and who owns land at outbreaks of mumps, is reproduced in the porticoed central portion. This Bakers Bottom, for reasons unknown the 1957 history of Brighton College. is where, in January 1847, Brighton will constantly impede them. The college’s building, the young College opens for business. But it is, they say, a good location, author notes is ‘familiarly known as They hope to attract 600 pupils. in ‘the healthiest part of Brighton’ (an the “Lion House,” in virtue of a Lion in They start with 147, it is 40 years important consideration in this pre- effigy on the roof, the arms of some before they even reach 200, and for antibiotic era for institutions packed nobleman for whom it was built but much of its first 40 years the roll is with people easily swept with deadly who has not taken it’. actually smaller than that first 147. infectious diseases). It is probably chosen, For now, in 1846, leased from a Whatever the education offered, the nevertheless, because most of the John Fearon of Regents’ Park, , lack of an original endowment seems governors live close by. Even before this this fine mansion at the head of the not the best business model for the land deal is concluded, in January 1848, Villeroy Portland Place development, creation of an estate which, from the an advertisement is placed in The Times seems no longer to belong to Villeroy start, and regularly with changing for an architect to design them a fine new Russell. Two decades earlier, the Busby circumstance, will need large injections college.

The only competition entry, other than Scott’s winner, which seems to have survived remains anonymous. It displays the prevalent taste for ‘not quite classical symmetry’ within a neo-mediaeval skin, and spatial arrangement remarkably similar to Scott’s less grandiose but more dynamic layout.

Occasional Paper 1 5 Brighton College BUILDING AMBITIONS

Two views of the winning design by , looking north east and north west across its little mediaeval town square, clearly showing the cloister running from chapel (right) across the main block to a covered undercroft below the school hall (left). This is the architects’ competition entry drawing. Opposite: as published the following year in Illustrated London News, with the college desperate to attract patrons.

By the 1840s, the architectural from the acadēmē of Plato’s Athens. In THE DESIGN COMPETITION competition was becoming recognised England by contrast, they now seek a Many architects apply for competition as the route to achieve the best building. heritage in the monasticism which had details, and 21 projects are finally ‘With a competition, you can source generated the Oxford and Cambridge submitted. It is and motivate the best design talent, colleges. But the new Brighton unspoken by 1850 and you are on the way to winning.’ College, just as it is establishing itself, that for Anglican These ambitious words from the chair takes form within one of the finest education buildings of Brighton College’s development classical mansions in the region. as for parliament, committee in 2018 echo the mid Such institutions’ efforts to define the designs will be 19th century mood. But they were themselves often began with their built neo-monastic. About sadly forgotten by the college for an clothing and the motto emblazoned the same moment, intervening century and a half. on their uniform. Here, under Busby’s R. C. Carpenter is Charles Barry’s competition entry in Corinthian temple front and lion starting to build the 1836 won him the Palace of Westminster rampant, they choose the motto: monastic quad at which, right through the 1840s, slowly ΤΟ Δ’ΕΥ ΝΙΚΑΤΩ. Lancing (though its gloriously hubristic rises in London. By now classic and It is not uncommon for the great chapel remains a dream for some years to symmetric forms, though still dominating new 19th century Academies north of come). By the 21st century Harry Potter the great Scottish cities, are seen in the the border to have mottos in ancient has embedded this private school within south as un-English and even (like the Greek. Edinburgh Academy and us all. White House and US Federal Capitol, or Kelvinside Academy, for example, each Brighton College is not rich, but its the newly opened Madeleine in Paris) to of which has a fine neo-classical stone brief calls for space for 600 boarders connote revolution and republicanism. buildings (designed by Burn, 1823, and and day boys aged nine to 20. Not long Today it is gothic design which embodies Sellers,1878, respectively) also both before the entry date for submissions, the true, Anglican, conservative values. have the motto ΑΙΕΝ ΑΡΙΣΤΕΥΕΙN (‘ever the college changes its requirements at Indeed the House of Lords has demanded to be the best’); and the one where very short notice, and various architects’ of the competing architects that this writer was a pupil surmounts that annoyance is recorded. parliament’s new palace be ‘Gothic or carved inscription by the entrance with One, furious young Harry Ralph Elizabethan’. a helmeted Athēnē in a laurel wreath. Ricardo, pulls out, writing: At Brighton, Barry has built a still- Only one school in England ‘These radical changes have been expanding if mediocre, plain, classical ever has its motto in classical Greek. made involving loss of time, trouble hospital on the field close to the College’s Brighton College chooses ΤΟ Δ’ΕΥ and expense to every gentleman who site. Amon Henry Wilds, an unwelcome ΝΙΚΑΤΩ. Strangely, perhaps, it is has been induced to engage in the reminder of Regency days, luckily gave up this college, the most marinated in undertaking, many of whom, like myself, practice in 1846. At Westminster, Barry’s Anglicanism of 19th century schools, will now be compelled to abandon it, instinctively classical palace only won due soon to move into its neo-mediaeval without even a word of apology from to its glorious wrapping, outside and then and deeply anti-classical built those whose inconsequence has caused so in, with Augustus Pugin’s gothic filigree. environment, where the motto ‘let much trouble and loss, or even assigning In Scotland, the great new schools right prevail’ remains in ancient Greek. a reason for such material alteration.’ ache to be in a classic tradition, even

6 Regency Society Part One 1845 - 1907

Ricardo had an original spark, and his said, of being the most important long time to recognise the principles scheme might have been interestingly second-rank architect of the 19th rather than simply their decorative different from the more conventional century. He follows his own advice: wrapping. And so as architectural project of the immensely competent ‘Go in for whatever is on offer,’ he development elsewhere moved with architect who was placed first. (Ricardo would say. the age, the college’s new buildings, died a decade later, still only 37, while When he submits his Brighton through much of the 20th century, his son Halsey Ralph Ricardo become College entry, Scott has already seem ever more to lag behind. But I am one of the most interesting and original designed numerous houses, asylums, jumping ahead. designers in England by the end of the workhouses, some schools and, within The projects in 1848 are presented century.) the previous decade, an astonishing 23 and chosen anonymously, and Brighton On 9 May 1848 the competition is churches. Since the publication of True College council enthuses over the one awarded to 37-year-old George Gilbert Principles by the equally workaholic, revealed to be from Scott’s studio. It Scott, with second prize, according to similarly aged but temperamentally combines ‘so many excellencies and the college history, going to George very different Pugin a few years earlier, so completely realis[es] the[ir] wishes.’ Somers Clarke. As David Fisher points Scott has studied ‘pointed’ architecture It is estimated to cost £58,000. That out, this almost certainly is George more seriously and at least partly now is equivalent to £57.5 million today, a Somers Leigh Clarke, who had trained follows Pugin’s principles of ‘honesty’: very similar cost to their science and as an architect with Barry. (Clarke, ‘The two great rules for design are sport complex we see appearing at with his runner-up premium of thirty these: First, that there should be no the college in 2019. Scott’s college, guineas, is not to be confused with the features about a building which are not however, aims for the superficial not-quite-eponymous George Somers necessary for convenience, construction appearance of a rather domesticated, Clarke, two decades his junior. The or propriety; Second, that all ornament charming, late 13th century institution: younger Clarke, who later trained as should consist of enrichment of the more small town-hall square than an architect with Scott, designed the essential construction of the building.’ monastery. gorgeous and quirky little Swan Downer Building shapes should reflect how Competitors were warned that school at the bottom of Dyke Road, they are occupied, not hide how they it will not all be built at once. They now the Rialto theatre. Though he was are made, but might display the phases were told £12,000 will be available, commissioned in the 1870s by Brighton of their development. This is the but they are unaware of quite how College, nothing by him would be opposite of fitting all required activities precarious are the college finances. Its built. With such similar names, the two into a pre-determined classical or shares are not selling. Now, as Scott designers must be related, but David symmetrical envelope. We call it is preparing working drawings, he is Fisher has yet to find the link.) ‘gothic revival’ because Pugin claimed told in December that only half of that Scott is a prodigious worker and only ‘Pointed’ architecture followed sum—just a tenth of the estimated businessman, and