HISTORY of SUSSEX
R.Thurston Hopkins (Printed around 1900)
West Street is intimately associated with many famous people and local
incidents, although to see it now, with its rows of cheap restaurants and
its shop windows gay with colour in order to attract the elemental instincts
of the day-trippers, one would never guess that even in 1862 the houses
here were occupied by opulent families, magistrates, clergy, and members
of the medical profession.
To-day the shops of West Street do not cater for the housewife and sober
shopper. 'Cheap! Quick!' they say. Tawdry—of course! The goods won't
last, but neither will you. Instead of boots and shoes, ironmongery and
provisions, they sell handkerchiefs embroidered 'A Present from Brighton',
trick cigars and nickel cigarette-cases with photographs of girls in tights
glued to the covers. 'Guaranteed for one year, money refunded if unsatisfied'
is a sign you do not see in West Street, for what tripper cares where he'll
be in a year's time?
It is hard to remember that in a stone-coloured building opposite the
'King's Head' lived Mrs. Thrale. In Erridge's History of Brighthelmston
we find the following notes on West Street: Amongst the general visitors
to Mrs. Thrale were Dr. Samuel Johnson and Madame d'Arblay - Fanny Burney
- the authoress of Evelina, who in one of her letters - Madame d'Arblay's
Diary - describes the residence as being at the court end of the town, and
exactly opposite the inn where Charles II lay hid previous to leaving the
kingdom. 'So I fail not', she adds, 'to look at it with loyal satisfaction,
and His black-wigged Majesty has from the time of its restoration been its
sign.'
Mrs. Thrale, who upon her second marriage was Madame Piozzi, the mother
of Mrs. Mostyn, who died recently at Sillwood House, has her name thus recorded
in the parish book:
'February 16th, 1791. - On application of Mrs.Thrale, it is ordered that
a poor boy proposed by her be received into the Poor House, during the pleasure
of the officers, on being paid by the said Mrs. Thrale 4s. weekly for his
board.'
It happened upon one occasion that while Dr. Johnson was visiting the
Thrales, he accompanied them to the Baths—those on the site where Brill's
Ladies' Swimming Bath now stands—at which public lounge he met the
Vicar, the Rev. Henry Michell, with whom, drawing their chairs close to
the fire in the ante-room, he soon got into conversation. For some time
their manner was calm and their language subdued; but at length some strong
difference arising in their arguments, the Vicar seized the poker, and the
Doctor the tongs, with which upon the grate they suited 'their action to
the word' with the utmost energy.
The general company present, who were enjoying a country dance, suddenly
ceased their evolutions, which could not be resumed till the Master of the
Ceremonies, Wade, with his proverbial politeness, pacified the heated debaters.
Foote, the comedian, one day dining at the house with Johnson and others,
finding nothing to his liking, for some time sat in expectation of something
better. A neck of mutton being the last thing, he refused it, as he had
the others. As the servant was taking it away, however, understanding that
there was nothing more, Foote called out to him, 'Holloa! John, bring that
back again, for I find it's neck or nothing.'
Several byways and blind-alleys are tucked away in inconspicuous corners
behind great and little houses in West Street. No visitor to Brighton ever
penetrates to these courts. Should the visitor wish to examine a corner
of Brighton's underworld he may turn into the opening of West Street Cottages
opposite the Brighton and Hove Gas Company, or Bunker's Hill near the top
of Duke Street. Here he will find collections of crumbling flint cottages
almost as ancient as any buildings in the town.
The 'Half Moon' public-house at the corner of Boyces Street takes its
name from a much older inn which fronted down the street immediately below
Bunker's Hill.
Erridge writes:
It was the general resort of gipsies and beggars, who so continued to
throng the house during the summer months, that on their taking their leave
at the termination of the previous autumn, the owner, Mr. Patching, demolished
the old premises and constructed the present building, known as the Brighton
Sauce Warehouse, to afford the wandering customers better accommodation
upon their return.
The winter of 1793-4 was very severe; to facilitate, then, the progress
of the building during the frost, the boulders of which the front is principally
composed were heated at the malt-kiln of the West Street Brewery, the men
employed in the work being principally of the militia regiments quartered
in West Street Barracks. The new building proved to be a great mistake;
as the migratory tribes, on their return in the summer, thinking that extra
charges would be made upon them, betook themselves to other quarters and
hence, from lack of custom, the licence was transferred to the present Half-Moon.'
As you walk down East Street to Pool Valley you catch the salt and savour
of the sea and feel a faint touch of romance tugging at your heart. By all
that's wonderful, the very ground beneath your feet was once a harbour where
the black ships of the Brighton mariners tossed free on the sea-tides. You
have only to glance at the cup-like depression in Pool Valley to understand
that salt water once filled this basin.
The visitor should not fail to notice the fine old house of Cowley, the
biscuit-baker, with its black glossy bricks, and roof of red tiles, softened
by a pale powdery deposit of brine. A sign painted on the roof is particularly
irritating, and one can only hope that the sea air and rain will one day
efface the huge white letters which disfigure the front of this old building.
The house-wreckers with their sledge-hammers, mauls and crowbars have
been very busy in Brighton for twenty years. All the interesting old houses
have vanished one by one. One day you see the sidewalk boarded off. Picks
swing from brawny shoulders. A warning cry comes from an upper story and
half a ton of plaster, stone dust and rubble come rattling down through
the half-demolished floorings. Windows are dismantled ; doors are unhinged.
Section by section the masonry is undermined; it totters and falls thundering.
Gaps appear in the shattered facade; pedestrians, taking the other side
of the street, pause to stare at that most melancholy sight—the once
inhabited interior of a house - its scarred wallpaper, dismantled furnishings,
a bent chandelier hanging from a ceiling, an uncared-for daguerreotype of
some old Sussex 'Gaffer' left to enjoy the lonely monarchy of the dining-room,
all now disembowelled and open to gaze of the lounger by the brutal surgery
of the man with the pickaxe.
An amusing instance of the tenacity of purpose and 'fore-rightness' of
one of them occurred many years ago, so I have heard, when Pool Valley was
flooded on July 17, 1850. A pretty woman wanted to cross the street, but
seeing that the water was quite above her ankles, she hesitated to ruin
her adorable little shoes. A sturdy fishman, seeing her predicament, seized
her without a word and carried her in his burly arms safely to the Albion
Hotel.
There, instead of thanks, the little lady, shaking with rage, tongue-lashed
him up and down the scale for his cheek. For a moment the simple sea-dog
regarded her with astonishment. Then, still without a word, he once more
seized the lady and carried her back to where he had found her.
In a small courtyard in Duke Street, walled snugly off from the main road,
stands a quaint little house with bow-windows and red weather-tiles. I was
informed by an old Brightonian that this house has an extraordinary number
of small rooms and was used as a kind of hostel for the coachmen during
the coaching era. I have not been able to verify this, but I should think
it very possible as Castle Square was the Charing Cross of coaching, and
this house would be close to their work.
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