From 'The Little Guides' By Ronald F.Jessup. Published 1957

 

 

 

Only 50 miles from London by rail, the largest and most important watering-place on the south coast, grew from small beginnings to its present gigantic size in the course of a century. Originally a fishing-place called Brighthelmston and referred to as Bristelmestune in Domesday, the place did well enough in a humble and pottering way for many years in spite of attacks from the French and the ravages of the sea, to both of which it was subject just as much as its more important neighbours. Mackerel and herring were its livelihood.

 

A touch of romance was brought to it by the escape of Charles II after Worcester. After a month or so of wandering, the King arrived at Brighton on 13 October 1651, and stayed at the George Inn (now the King's Head in West Street, although one local tradition prefers the George Inn in Middle Street, since demolished), the night before he sailed for France in a Shoreham coal-brig called the Surprise. Nicholas Tettersell, owner and master of the brig, in later years found it convenient to remind the King of his services, upon which he received a pension, a commission in the Navy, and had the honour of having his ship renamed and embodied in the Royal Navy. His epitaph in St. Nicholas's churchyard is a masterly piece of self-praise.

 

Early in the 18th century the sea made considerable inroads, and the prosperity of Brighton declined until the first introduction of sea-bathing about 1750. By 1754, Dr. Richard Russell, a physician from Lewes, had fully established his new sea-bathing and medical spring cures, and so laid the foundation of the modern health resort. Somewhat later the inspiring patronage of George IV, who had first visited it as Prince of Wales in 1783, created the fashionable watering-place.

 

Its two great natural assets have always been a bracing air and sunshine. Its growth was rapid and especially so after the opening of the London and Brighton Railway in 1841 gave an alternative to the five-hour journey by fast mail coach. At the opening of the century the population was 7,000 odd. By 1901 it had grown to 123,000. Instead of the humble fishing settlement there is now a 'London-by-the-Sea' with a front stretching 5 miles from Saltdean to the Hove boundary and houses running back so far inland that the actual country seems almost as remote as in London.

 

Its throng of literary visitors has left many accounts of Brighton at various stages in its development; it has been said that Browning was the only man of letters of his day who did not visit the town. Among them, Macaulay, in the third chapter of his History of England, gives a characteristic account of the fishing village.

 

'The sea was gradually gaining on the buildings, which at last almost entirely disappeared. . . . So desolate was the place after this calamity that the vicarage was thought scarcely worth having.

 

A few poor fishermen, however, still continued to dry their nets on these cliffs, on which a town more than twice as large and populous as the Bristol of the Stuarts presents mile after mile its gay and fantastic front to the sea.' The hospitable Thrales were here in West Street in 1765, and perhaps before. The letters of Dr. Johnson and Fanny Burney describe the town about 1782 when it was becoming fashionable. The Doctor latterly complained that it was dull and called it 'the World's End', but Miss Burney always found it lively enough, especially when the military arrived.

 

The Brighton of 'the beloved George' was sketched by Conan Doyle in Rodney Stone, and for the earlier part of the 19th century Thackeray provides abundant material, especially in The Newcomes and in the pages of Punch. Certainly his 'kind, cheerful, merry Doctor Brighton' is something of the gay place we all know.

 

Less convincing is Dickens, 'where the waves are hoarse with the ceaseless repetition of their mystery, and the white arms beckon in the moonlight to the invisible country far away'. For in truth there is no reserve or mystery about the sea or anything else at Brighton; all is bright and sparkling. And to end this brief uncritical recital we may recall the dour Cobbett who was moved to say that Brighton 'surpassed in beauty all other towns in the world';

 

Richard Jefferies, who thought that here there might be seen 'more handsome women than anywhere else in the world'; and Jane Austen's Lydia Bennet, who imagined that 'a visit to Brighton comprised every possibility of earthly happiness'. Sir Osbert Sitwell and Miss Margaret Barton's Brighton (London, 1935), and Edmund W. Gilbert's Brighton: Old Ocean's Bauble (London, 1954) are fascinating biographies of the town.

 

The main industry of Brighton, of course, is tourism, and even those visitors who profess to be shocked at its ramifications must be impressed by its organization. Pleasure amenities are many, varied, and altogether in a class by themselves, and there is just as careful catering for those of artistic, scientific, and antiquarian tastes.

 

One of the chief delights of Brighton and of Hove, its 'West End', is the magnificent seaboard prospect of open Regency terraces and squares, from Lewes Crescent and its accompanying Sussex Square on the east., to the ramp of Adelaide Crescent with Palmeira Square on the west. Some of these late 18th century and early 19th century houses with their delicate iron balconies, bow-windows, and mellow stucco facings unspoilt by smoke or grime, are unfortunately threatened by new buildings, and indeed the eastern part of Brunswick Terrace, one of the most notable, has already for its neighbour a modern block of concrete flats.

 

Of ecclesiastical buildings, the church of St. Nicholas (approach via Upper North Street) is the most interesting. It was rebuilt in 1853, but the Decorative tower contains re-used tufa and Early English masonry from an earlier church. The fittings include a heavily gilded Perp. screen, and at the west end of the north aisle a mock-Gothic Eleanor Cross to the Duke of Wellington, who was at school here.

 

The especial interest of the church lies in its Norman font of Caen stone, the bowl of which has four sculptured panels with the Baptism, the Last Supper, and scenes from the Legend of St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, bordered by zones of conventional ornament. Its history is obscure, but it is of foreign workmanship and the Byzantine influence in the sculpture may give a hint of its origin. In the south part of the overgrown and neglected churchyard is the stepped base and stump of a 14th century churchyard cross with modern shaft and finial; and fenced by wooden palings are three graves of interest, that of Nicholas Tettersell (close to the porch), owner of the brig in which Charles II escaped to France, of Martha Gunn, most celebrated of the bathing 'dippers', and of Phoebe Hessell, who died in 1821 aged 108, after serving as a soldier.

 

The roof of St. Michael's church (modern, Victoria Road), and some of the glass in St. Paul's (modern. West Street) were the work of William Morris and his company. In a window in the latter church Morris himself was the model for the King and Swinburne for the shepherd. The church generally is Gothic revivalist at its peak.

 

The famous Royal Pavilion was the marine palace of George IV, who as Prince of Wales and later as Regent had become almost the patron saint of Brighton. It was begun in 1784 on the Old Steine where the fishermen used to dry their nets, and altered at various times in later years to the designs of John Nash in a variety of fantastic lndo-Chinese styles, and even forty years later it was still unfinished. After much of its interior beauty had faded, this extravagant folly was sold by Queen Victoria to the Commissioners for Brighton for £50,000, and it was turned into a show-place and social centre. Writers have never quite known what to make of the Pavilion. Cobbett's and Sydney Smith's descriptions are well known. In 1823 it was 'this terrestrial paradise . . . the most original, unique, and magnificent structure in Europe', but it was nevertheless generally known as 'Florizel's Folly'.

 

By 1900 taste had altered. 'Architecturally,' said the first edition of this Little Guide, 'it is contemptible', but then went on to admit that 'its bizarre effect is not without a certain charm'. This charm has been fully restored by careful cleaning in recent years, and with the replacement of many of its original decorative features, the Pavilion has once more come bravely into its own, so that once again it may be judged as the seaside setting for the court of 'the First Gentleman in Europe'.

 

The state apartments may be visited daily for a small fee when they are not in private use, and here in the saloon may be seen panels of fastidiously delicate Chinese wall-papers, and in the splendid music and banqueting rooms dazzling chandeliers of crystal and gilt. In the upper rooms is a large collection of Brighton topographical prints, specimens of Chinese wall-papers, and a screen of sketches by R. H. Nibbs.

 

The Dome, now converted into a concert hall, was designed as the royal stable for sixty-two horses, each stall being visible from the central point under the dome, and adjoining it is the Corn Exchange, at present an exhibition hall but formerly the royal Riding School. Near by, in Church Street, are the Art Gallery, Public Library, and Museum. The ingenious perpetual-calendar clock in the vestibule is of interest.

 

The art gallery contains a good catholic permanent collection, special collections of English water-colours, Victorian art, Brangwyn etchings and lithographs, Baxter prints, and the last two of Rex Whistler's mural paintings. Frequently there are special exhibitions. The reference library has a very complete and readily accessible Sussex section. The museum contains extensive fine art and natural history collections, and the archaeological galleries with finds from Whitehawk Camp and other notable Sussex sites will be of interest to the expert and casual visitor alike.

 

The Booth Museum in Dyke Road is devoted to British birds which are set up in their natural habitat. The art gallery and museums are open full hours on weekdays and on Sunday afternoons. The county borough of Brighton includes Ovingdean, Preston, Rottingdean. Saltdean, and parts of Hove, Falmer, Patcham, and West Blatchington, descriptions of which will be found under their respective names. Within its limits are some typical areas of downland which will be preserved from building for all time. Newtimber Hill (660 ft.) on the north of the Downs was a joint gift to the National Trust by Lady Buxton and the Corporation of Brighton.

 

To the east of the town on Whitehawk Hill is the race-course, on which is an earthwork camp of the Neolithic period, one of the four now known in Sussex and the most famous. It is oval in shape and has four concentric rings of causewayed ditches; the ramparts of the two outer ditches may be seen south-west of the stables, but much of the camp has of necessity been mutilated in the construction of new roads and the race-course and in allotment cultivation.

 

Systematic excavation undertaken in 1929, 1933, and 1935, before the successive destructions, revealed much important information regarding the Neolithic period in Britain: the relics, which include humao and animal bones, an antler comb, flint tools, and much pottery, are in Brighton Museum. Dr. Curwen, in his Archaeology of Sussex, says of Whitehawk that 'it appears to have been the permanent headquarters of a tribe of Neolithic people who were probable semi-nomadic herdsmen practising a little agriculture.

 

They may have been cannibals, though they fed very largely on the ox, and they buried their dead with the minimum of ceremony in any convenient corner or even threw them out with the rubbish. Such was the Brighton of Abraham's day. Hollingbury Camp (583 ft.), on the Downs 2 m. N. of Brighton (in Patcham parish), is an Iron Age hill city, the prominent ramparts of which may be easily seen.

 

It was skilfully excavated by the Brighton and Hove Archaeological Club in 1931, and the wooden posts then set up in the original post-holes are an authentic reconstruction of those of the timber skeleton which held the palisade to the earthen rampart. The two shorter posts stand in the original holes for the posts of the eastern gateway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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