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Royal Crescent Brighton (C.1796–1805) – an Early Seaside Crescent’, the Georgian Group Journal, Vol Sue Berry, ‘Royal Crescent Brighton (c.1796–1805) – an early seaside crescent’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. XXV, 2017, pp. 237–246 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 2017 ROYAL CRESCENT BRIGHTON (c.1796–1805) – an eaRLY SEASIDE CRESCENT SUE BERRY Brighton’s Georgian legacy includes some distinctive visual contribution to Brighton’s townscape, and and elegant projects, one of the most impressive of newly-discovered evidence from Court cases provides which is Royal Crescent. Built between c.1796 and valuable information about building costs, rare in 1805, this speculative project of fourteen terraced Brighton, and insights into a developer’s desire to houses faces the sea on Brighton’s eastern cliffs. Its control quality, in this case the provision of superior façade of black mathematical tiles makes a striking water closets. The Royal Pavilion facing east overlooking the Steine Byam House Belle Vue House Royal Crescent Fig. 1. Marchant’s map of Brighton in 1808 showing the location of Royal Crescent. (Private Collection) THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXV ROYAL CRESCENT BRIGHTON ( c . 1 7 9 6 – 1 8 0 5 ) – AN EARLY SEASIDE CRESCENT Fig. 2. Royal Crescent today from the east. (Author) etween the late 1770s and the mid-1820s there soldiers. The government decided to garrison the Bwas a building boom in Brighton, during which town because the shallow water and gently shelving Royal Crescent, still a landmark on the eastern foreshore, characteristic of Brighton and the bay cliffs, was built (Fig. 1). The demand for houses to the west of the town, were not only convenient and services that drove the resort’s expansion for bathing machines, but could also enable troops out of its old boundaries onto the surrounding to embark and disembark easily. The pressure on arable farmland was a consequence of Brighton’s accommodation boosted the demand for housing regeneration between the early 1750s and the and, from this came Royal Crescent.1 1780s, when it was transformed from a declining Royal Crescent consists of fourteen elegant maritime town into England’s most fashionable terraced houses facing the sea – unusual in seaside resort. From the later 1790s this boom Brighton before 1815 – with shiny facades of black was boosted by the presence of large numbers of mathematical tiles (Figs. 2–3). Though not on the THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXV ROYAL CRESCENT BRIGHTON ( c . 1 7 9 6 – 1 8 0 5 ) – AN EARLY SEASIDE CRESCENT The tiles could be easily attached to bow and bay windows, giving the appearance of brickwork rather the less weather-proof stucco (Fig. 4). Many buildings faced with mathematical tiles have been demolished, but some older streets and a couple of squares (Bedford Square and New Steine), built about the same time as Royal Crescent, still have small groups of houses remaining faced with black tiles – albeit mostly hidden under paint. A few houses with red or cream mathematical tiles also survive (for example along Grand Parade) but no other project had, or has, the coherence of the Crescent. A few tiles survive behind later facades on buildings, such as the Royal Pavilion, which was at first faced with cream tiles.2 Most new houses in late-Georgian Brighton (and other resort towns) were built for buyers who let them and not for owner-occupiers. Both sexes bought new houses to let, and in 1800 Isabella Pullen was one of the principal owners of lodging houses in the town.3 But before 1818 it was uncommon in Brighton for the facades for even fourteen houses to be broadly similar in height and design. In much of the resort, once the land was sold for houses, covenants included in conveyances were not enforced, which is why so much of the small area of Fig. 3. Rowland Otto Bayer’s own house townscape surviving from between 1770 and 1818 at the east end of Royal Crescent. (Author) is less uniform than that of Royal Crescent. Here the uniformity of height, width and overall design suggests some control by the first developer during scale of Royal Crescent in Bath (begun in 1767 the entire period of construction, even though at and completed in 1775), or the grand Crescent at least two more developers built ten of them. Long- Buxton of the 1790s, it is one of the biggest surviving term control of new developments did not begin developments from the short period when brick until after 1815, and Royal Crescent was a precursor or mathematical tiles were commonly used in the of later, larger-scale developments, the best example resort. The building costs for several of the houses of which is Brunswick Town in Hove. are known, which is rare for Brighton before 1840. Royal Crescent was one of the first examples of Mathematical (also called brick) tiles were widely investment from the sugar trade in the West Indies used in Brighton between about 1780 and 1815, at a time when pressure to abolish the ownership of, possibly because they were cheaper than brick and trading in, slaves was growing. Ever since 1862 and certainly required less skill, but the Crescent historians have recorded a myth first published in is the only complete surviving row of such houses. 1862 by J.A. Erredge, a local historian who believed THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXV ROYAL CRESCENT BRIGHTON ( c . 1 7 9 6 – 1 8 0 5 ) – AN EARLY SEASIDE CRESCENT of sources is more complex than either Erredge or Dale thought. ‘Otto’ was in fact Rowland Otto Bayer, and he did not develop the entire terrace but bought plots once John Hall had begun the project. Sea facing crescents were uncommon in Brighton. The majority of the older suburbs consisted of high-density streets running south- north, following the lines of the ancient unenclosed field system within which land was sold for development in strips. When a developer managed to assemble a group of adjacent strips this rigid north-south pattern could be over-ridden to give a development more space for a fashionable communal garden to overlook. The Paragon, long demolished, a small sea-facing crescent to the west of the old town, was also laid over land assembled in the same way. New Steine, to the west of Royal Crescent, and begun at about the same time, is another example. Edward Thunder, the developer, bought strips of land from several owners and chose to lay out a square to ensure that all of the development shared the crucial sea view and that all the land was used for Fig. 4. Mathematical (or Brick) Tile with black glaze houses, without a dead area behind the main project, 5 on section which is visible (Author). These tiles as happened at Royal Crescent. were nailed on to battens attached to the framework The fourteen houses of Royal Crescent each of the house and lime cement was used to both had either a full height bow or a canted (angled) secure them and give the impression of bay window. Although they made houses lighter, grouting between bricks. both styles of window were harder to build than the sash windows inserted directly into the façade of a house, and they used more building materials. From 1779 Brighton had by-laws which prevented that a man from Antigua called ‘Otto’ built three the intrusion of windows onto public roads, and houses in 1798 at each end of Royal Crescent and some which did so were removed by order of the bolted, leaving his creditors ‘in the lurch’. In 1947 Town Commissioners. So, by the 1790s, most Anthony Dale wrote in Fashionable Brighton that windows of these types had shallow profiles and ‘Otto’ built the entire crescent. He observed that were constructed so as not to intrude into the street, anyone who had left creditors, as Erredge believed, remaining within the boundaries of the house plot, was unlikely to reappear as he thought happened in as in the case of Royal Crescent. The shallow design 1807, when the Brighton Herald reported the return of these bays also accommodated the need for of ‘Mr Otto’ from Barbados. However, ‘Otto’ was access to the semi-basements typical of the resort the son of the developer of part of the Crescent.4 and many other towns, in spaces commonly called The story which has emerged from a combination ‘areas’ and marked by a cast iron railing and gate THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXV ROYAL CRESCENT BRIGHTON ( c . 1 7 9 6 – 1 8 0 5 ) – AN EARLY SEASIDE CRESCENT East LainE new Steine Cliff Furlong site of the Royal Crescent Fig. 5. Brighton’s common Fields showing East Laine Cliff Furlong, the site of Royal Crescent. (East Sussex Record Office ACC 9642 with permission of the Archivist) owned by the householder who had to maintain it the residents of Royal Crescent to see Beachy Head (Fig. 2). A discreet door in the ‘area’ was essential for (near Seaford) in the east, and to at least Worthing to deliveries to the kitchen and stores which could be the west. He also remarked that the lack of privacy made directly down stairs to the basement under the from neighbours caused by such windows was made house and cellars under the street. It also separated worse in Royal Crescent by the curve of the crescent. the coal-hole and wood store, commonly under the In spite of that caveat, he regarded the Crescent as pavement from the house and could offer a route to among the best lodging houses in the town.7 the cess pit when emptying was required.6 To build Royal Crescent, John Hall, a local The houses were well regarded.
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