Orange Row
Orange Row
is all that is left of the area called Pimlico which, up to the 1870s, consisted
of Orange Row, Thomas Street (now replaced with Tichborne St) and two little
streets called Pimlico East and Pimlico West that lay between Pym's Gardens and
Bread Street. The whole area was about the worst slum in Brighton. In the late
1860s much of the area that included Pimlico and Thomas Street was cleared and
rebuilt as Tichborne Street.
In 1849, in
his report on the health and condition of the inhabitants of Brighton, Edward
Cresy paid particular attention to this part of Brighton. Of the nearby streets
in North Laine, he wrote that Orange Row, Pimlico, Foundry Street, Spring
Gardens and Thomas Street were areas where diseases prevailed, often the result
of sulphurated hydrogen "which arises from the excrement retained in
cesspools. It pervades all the breathing places found at the back of buildings.
Many of the houses are wretchedly damp, constructed with inferior bricks and
mortar made of sand. No methods are available for getting rid of the rain
water. The walls are covered with lichen, and with the decomposition of
vegetable matter the inmates seek the imagined restorative powers of the public
house."
In the early
1870s much of Pimlico was pulled down and Tichborne Street was created from
what had been Pimlico east and west, and the former Thomas Street.