Talks – Brighton before the Pavilion

By Dr. Geoffrey Mead, 11th September 2020

In September Dr. Geoffrey Mead from the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex  enlightened us on an overlooked period in Brighton’s history, that is, before the Regency era with which the Town is usually connected. He started by showing how the geology of the county had led to Brighton with its shingle beach becoming the pre-eminent fishing town in its area of coastline,  before declining in the early 18th-century. In 1703, when the population had sunk to  its lowest point of about 2000 souls, a storm wiped out a large part of the Old Town which was lost to the sea for all time.

Going back to earlier times the Wellsbourne stream flowed from Patcham southwards through the natural valley roughly following Marlborough past the Pavilion to Pool Valley now underground. The route from the north to the sea avoided the low marshy land adjoining the Wellsbourne  and diverted to the West above the valley, the present-day Dyke Road. As well as its suitability for fishermen cargo could be landed on the shingle beach and it was also the best choice for those wanting to travel from the English capital to France and its capital city.

Market gardening was another economic activity and with some large areas of brickearth to the west of the Steine area brickmaking was an industry while the resource lasted. In the early 1700’s, for instance, 500,000 bricks were made and sent from Brighton to build Stanmer House. Sea sand and flints taken from the town’s beaches were also a valued resource for building purposes. The early 19th century saw fishermen fishing for shrimps along the coast and cargoes being landed for onward transport to London such as timber from the Baltic. Brighton would have been a comparatively big and noisy place in these times with business at sea being controlled by the tides work carrying on 24 hours a day. It would have been very different in character from that of its farming neighbours.

From 1750 on, visitors started leaving spa resorts such as Tunbridge Wells and began to flock to seaside resorts such as Margate and Brighton, looking to improve their health. In 1750 Dr Russell of Lewes was encouraging people to use sea water as the treatment for a wide range of ailments, both by sea bathing and by drinking the salt water. This caused a surge in Brighton’s own local population as they rose to the challenge of servicing the visitors. The Town began to spread north, out of the old walled fishing town with its East, Middle, West and North Streets, into an area known as ‘the north laines’ (‘laines’ were “strips of arable land’) where they had farmed the land in scattered narrow strips  since Anglo-Saxon times.  A 1792 map shows this grid layout of the ‘North Laines’, and the area is still known by that name today. In comparison, building land for incoming new residents was mostly found in Hove where much of the agricultural land was owned by large landowners. One of the first developments was ‘Brunswick Town’, but they would eventually dispose of large areas of it to create the fine squares, avenues and drives of the Hove we know today.