North Laine History
The flagpole on the Drill Hall
The former Argus Building in Robert St
The Drill Hall
5 Kensington Gardens
North Laine in 1826
Kensington Gardens was developed from 1808 when it was at the very edge of the town. It was the first street northwards from North Road. Originally the houses did have gardens as can be seen by looking at the houses on the eastern side which were built after the western side. No 5 was the Kensington Gardens Institute for Working Men from 1865 until 1920 and it still retains its early c19th bow windows. Nos 7-
Gloucester Road
Just 50 years ago you would have found 58 different trades in the street.
Juju was once the Charleville Arms and after that Gigins, a bread and cake shop. Now known
as the Zebra Shop it would make the former Manageress of Gigins turn in her grave if she hadn’t have been cremated.
The Military in Gloucester Road
North Laine has been a home for the military ever since in 1796 barracks were built between North Road and Church St. The former barracks were built from 1796 at a time when there was a danger of invasion from Napoleon’s forces. The barracks were wooden huts built on brick foundations and within a walled enclosure. Conditions were pretty grim and the soldiers often suffered from depression and got into fights. The soldiers acted as a guard for George IV but after 1830 the barracks fell into disuse and were eventually demolished in 1869. For the last ten years of its existence the barracks were occupied by the Sussex Artillery Volunteers that had been formed in 1859 when there was a scare of war with France when English radicals has conspired with Orsini to assassinate Napoleon III of France.
The castellated building was originally the Eagle Foundry but after its closure Lieutenant Colonel Hannington of the Sussex Volunteer Artillery, needing new accommodation after being told that the barracks in Church St were being sold off, acquired the building and in 1869 it was refurbished for use by the artillery volunteers. The volunteers were regarded as a joke by the govt at first but eventually grants for kit were given. Because of this attitude they were usually funded by local businessmen.
Colonel Hannington lived in Hurstpierpoint having bought an estate in the 1840s on the basis of the money he was making from the family department store. His son James, famous as the first Anglican missionary in East Africa was a major in the Sussex Volunteer Artillery and two other sons also were commissioned officers in the Volunteers, Captain P Hannington and Captain S Hannington. Charles made available the land on which St Lawrence was built. Lieutenant Colonel Hannington did a great deal for the Artillery Volunteers and even after he retired in 1872 the regimental band would go and play outside his home in Hurstpierpoint. In 1873 as a recognition to his services he was given the title of Honorary Colonel in Chief of the First Sussex Regiment of Volunteer Artillery. The hall was associated with the Royal Artillery until after WW2 and would have been where soldiers bound for the military conflicts assembled. The Sussex Volunteer Rifles also had a home in North Laine establishing their drill hall at the top of Church St in 1890.
Robert Street and Printing
On the eastern side of Robert Street is a long row of three storey terraced houses built from the mid 1830s with full development by 1851, in the middle is what once was the Jireh Calvinistic Baptist Chapel, which opened in 1846. It later became the Central Auction Room, then a bedding manufacturer and upholsterer and in 1998 was converted into flats.
Along the whole of the western side of the street, is what was once the Argus newspaper building, known now as Argus Lofts. Southern Publishing appears on the Robert Street site in 1915 and printing moved there in 1926 where it stayed until 1992 when the Argus opened its new headquarters in Hollingbury.
Beermaking in the Gloucester Road area
Brighton was known as the Southern Queen of Watering Places (Scarborough was the northern equivalent) and North Laine was doing its bit to ensure it kept the title.
The Beer Act of 1830 did much to encourage the proliferation of pubs enabling any ratepayer to pay 2 guineas and then open up a beer house. The applicant did not have to show good character or financial stability. The act abolished beer duties and established opening hours; 5am to 10pm. In 1869 beer houses came under the same licensing regulations as pubs and taverns and the 1872 Licensing Act gave magistrates powers to grant licences, fixed closing times from 11pm to 6pm and prohibited the sale of spirits to under 16s..
By the early 1890s there were nearly 600 licensed premises in Brighton but the numbers fell between 1900 and 1935 (the result of WW1 and DORA). DORA required that beer be watered down, opening hours cut and the banning of rounds of drinks.
In North Laine in the mid-
The Basketmakers was occupied by a T. Knight, a basket maker in 1854 who then took out a beer licence and called his premises The Broker’s Arms and then by 1864 changed the name to the Basketmakers, so from 1864 this has had the same name. The Eagle pub was named after the foundry and the brewery and stands on the site of an earlier police station .
The Great Eastern Pub
This pub at the bottom of Trafalgar Street has a rather fine sign giving us a clue as to when it was built. 'The 'SS Great Eastern' was an iron sailing steam ship designed by Isambard Brunel. She was by far the largest ship ever built at the time of her 1858 launch, and had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers from England to Australia without refuelling. With five funnels (later reduced to four), she was one of a very few vessels to ever sport that number. Brunel died in 1859 shortly after her ill-
The three-
15-
The one remaining building associated with the meat industry in the c19th can be found at No 15-
Redcross St
As you walk up Trafalgar Street glance at City College through Redcross Street. Just a few houses remain of what was once one of many terraced streets stretching north from Trafalgar St.
Houses first began to appear in Kensington Place in the 1820s. A glance at J.Pigot.Smith’s 1826 map of Brighton shows a number of houses on the west side of the street.
The land for Nos 28,29 was bought by Michael Smith from John Field in 1830. Smith, a builder, built two houses and then took up residence with his family. By 1877, Smith was able to buy the freehold of the property jointly with his neighbour, William Wood, who bought the freehold to No 28.
The cottages on the western side were built in the 1820s whilst the land on the eastern side was acquired in 1846 by Henry Schilling for £950. Schilling had been born in Jena, Germany and subsequently migrated to England where he settled in Brighton where he developed a mineral water factory in Middle Street. Within a year of buying the land he was selling on plots of land for £70 a plot.
The residents of the street have generally been skilled artisans. The 1851 census refers to drapers, beer shop keepers, tailors, bootmakers, printsellers, cabinet makers, laundresses, general servants whilst the 1883 census makes reference to the Hearts of Oak beer house at no. 17 and a lodging house at no. 8. The street has always had its share of teachers with the 1900 census mentioning a teacher of music at no. 31 and a day school at no 34.
The link with culture and education at no. 34 was to last into the 20th Century for this was the home of the famous West End literary agent, Peggy Ramsey, who had a weekend home in the street from the 1960’s. Peggy was to be made famous in the 1987 Alan Bennett-
Peggy would spend many a weekend in Kensington Place, leaving London at 4pm on Fridays to travel down by train. She did not involve herself in the literary scene in the town (not liking one of the town’s leading lights of the time-
She must have enjoyed the bric-
Behind Kensington Place there is a little lane, Trafalgar Lane, where Peggy had bought a small cottage (which she called her hut) which she let her clients use. David Hare write most of ‘Licking Hitler’ here as well as ‘A Map Of The World’. Having no telephone and being so close to London was ideal for writers
Other notable residents of the street include William Moon, who published books for the blind and was Master of a Blind School in Church St. Moon lived for a short time at no 44 Kensington Place. Also Robert Shelton lived in the street for a time in the 1980s. Shelton was a music critic whose claim to fame was that his review of a Dylan gig in Greenwich village led to his getting a recording contract to record 'Blowing in the Wind'.
Kensington Place continues today to be one of Brighton’s most attractive residential streets. It has been chosen as the set for TV dramas (in 1980 the street was used as the set for a TV serial ‘ A Little Silver Trumpet’) and it now has a number of houses(on the eastern side ) that have been given grade II listed status by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
The Prince Albert
The Prince Albert public house is a listed building of the 1840s with three storeys, round headed windows, and Corinthian and Ionic pilasters, the capitals highlighted in gold paint. Now famous for the portrait of John Peel and the a copy of the former Banksy 'kissing policemen'. Probably one of the oldest public houses still existing in this part of Brighton, the Albert is a listed building dating from the 1840s or 1850s. Standing on the corner of Frederick Place it formerly had a neighbour on the other corner, where the tall commercial is seen. This was the Holly Bush Inn, probably of about the same age.
In the climb up to Brighton Station you will find on the right hand side the Toy Museum which is also an official information point.
A Self-
A typical North Laine pub, the Basketmakers
The former ginger beer brewery, later a grain store
The Great Eastern
Pelham Square
15-
Kensington Place, east side
Kensington Place, west side
The Prince Albert