Brighton

	Place	Brighton
	Population	134,293
	Map	Brighton - Brighton and Hove dotpng
	District	Brighton & Hove
	Region	South East England
	Ceremonial	East Sussex
	Traditional	Sussex
	Constituency
	Euro	South East England
	PostalTown	BRIGHTON
	PostCode	BN1, BN2
	DiallingCode	01273
	Police	Sussex Police
	GridReference	TQ315065

Brighton on the southern Sussex coast is one of the largest and most famous Seaside Resort s in England . Brighton and Hove form a single Conurbation . Brighton's lively atmosphere is a direct contrast to its immediate neighbour, Hove which is popularly perceived to be quieter and more refined in character. The two boroughs were joined together to form the Unitary Authority of Brighton & Hove in 1997 , which in 2000 was granted City Status by the Queen as part of the millennial celebrations, following competition with other large towns which also coveted city status.

HISTORY

Early history

While any British history predating the first mentions by literate Romans is, by definition, consigned to an obscure landscape known intimidatingly as "prehistory", a few things are known about the area.
Whitehawk Camp—a natural viewpoint—is bisected by Manor Road. The centre of this early Neolithic causewayed enclosure of c 3500 BC is someway toward the aerial mast on the south side of Manor Road, opposite the grandstand. There are four concentric circles of ditches and mounds, broken or 'causewayed' in many places. Significant vestiges of the mounds remain and you can trace their arc with the eye.

The building of a new housing estate in the early nineties over the south-eastern portion of the enclosure resulted in damage to the archaeology, the loss of the ancient panoramic view and a diminishment in atmosphere of the historical site.

More of prehistoric Brighton and Hove can be observed just north of the small retail park on Old Shoreham Road, built over the site of the Town's Football Ground in the late 1990s, where you can visit The Goldstone. This was popularly believed to be ceremonial, and there are suggestions that it, together with now-vanished stones, may indeed have formed an ancient circle. In the early 19th century a local farmer, fed up with romantic tourists, had the largest stone buried. It was exhumed in 1900.

After a scholarly review, Paul Harwood of Birmingham's Institute of Archaeology & Antiquity noted that "there are a concentration of Beaker burials on the fringes of the central chalklands around Brighton, and a later cluster of Early and Middle Bronze Age ‘rich graves' in the same area."

Of considerable interest from the middle Bronze Age is the Hove Amber Cup. During nineteenth century building work near Palmeira Square, workmen tasked with removing an earth mound "excavated" a significant burial mound. A defining point on the landscape since at least 1500 BC, this 20-foot-high tomb yielded, amongst other treasures, the Hove Amber Cup. Made of translucent red Baltic Amber and approximately the same size as a regular china teacup, the impressive artefact can be seen in Hove Museum.

Undoubtedly the single most impressive pre-Roman site in Brighton is Hollingbury Camp. Commanding panoramic views over Brighton, this Celtic Iron Age encampment is circumscribed by substantial earthwork outer walls. As a "ball park figure", its diameter is about 300 metres. Hollingbury is one of numerous "hillforts" found across southern Britain. Cissbury Ring, at a distance of about ten miles from Hollingbury and quite awesome in its construction, is reckoned by some to have been the tribal "capital".

Having conquered the province which they called Britannia (AD 43), and after brutally suppressing the Boudiccan revolt (AD 61), the Romans built villas throughout Sussex and indeed there was a villa in Brighton. At the time of its construction in the late first or second century AD there was a stream running along what is now the tarmac of London Road. The villa was sited more or less at the water's edge, immediately south of Preston Park—which area itself would perhaps have been part of the outer grounds. The villa was excavated in the 1930s prior to the building of a (now gone) garage on the site. Numerous artefacts were found as well as the foundations of the building. In the thirties, the garage owner had a small display of Roman statues and broaches in the forecourt shop.

Despite the construction along the south coast by the Romano-British of numerous shore forts (significant extant examples can be visited at Portsmouth to the West and Pevensey to the East) the battle to ward off Saxon raiders was eventually lost after the official withdrawal of Roman resources in AD 410.

Aelle, a possibly mythical Saxon, is deemed to be "the first king of Seorsax {Link without Title} ".

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle contains the first mention of a settlement in the area at ''Beorthelm's-tun'' ("the town of Beorthelm"). In the Domesday Book , Brighton was called ''Bristemestune'' and a rent of 4000 Herring was established.

From the manorial system, Preston manor lingers on today as a museum. Although the present day manor house is relatively recent in construction, the church—St Peter's, currently under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust—is fourteenth century. A medieval fresco depicting the murder of Thomas Beckett was discovered under paint following a fire in the early part of the twentieth century. As such, it is among the oldest art in Brighton.
While other ecclesiastical buildings in Brighton date from the post-Russell period, St Andrew's Church on Church Road, Hove has a dramatic thirteenth-century nave. Declining fortunes and neglect left the church almost a ruin, before nineteenth century restoration returned it to the comparably mighty edifice visible today.

A medieval priory on the site of the present Town Hall has left no visible trace, though Hangleton Manor to the north of the suburb of Portslade is a sixteenth-century flint manor building, very well preserved, but now surrounded by a twentieth-century housing estate. It is now a pub.

13th century

St Bartholemew's Priory stood on the site of the present town hall. A small dispatchment of Cluniacs, submitting themselves to a regular life under the Rule of St Benedict, attempting to implement Augustine's spiritual exhortations to quell the impositions of the flesh. Or perhaps just attempting to get through the winter. Some of those sea mists and blustery winds...

16th century

In June 1514 , the fishing village then known as ''Brighthelmstone'' was burnt to the ground by the French as part of a war between the two which began as a result of the Treaty Of Westminster (1511) . Later on in Henry's reign, the residents of the town petitioned the monarch for defensive cannon. Part of their 'pitch' was an illustrated map (1545) showing the French raid of 1511. A display copy of the map can be seen in Hove Museum.
Perhaps something of Brighton mid-century can be gleaned from the story of Deryk Carver. This man whose place of business, a brewery, was on Black Lion street was arrested with others by the Sherrif Edward Gage for contradicting the dictats of state religion. Their readings were in English and they rejected the authority of the Roman Catholic church and its continuing role as (regrettably) an instrument of oppressive state power. Deryk Carver and others were dispatched for trail in London and ultimately executed in Lewes. The method of such was gruesome and grimly barbaric. Carver was stood in a barrel of pitch and there burned alive.

18th and 19th century

The popular mythology of Brighton suggests that the town remained a small fishing village up until the 18th Century . While it is certainly true that the town had entered a decline before its mid-eighteenth century rebirth as a tourist Mecca in a developing consumer economy, it might also be noted that in the 1660s Brighton, with a population of over 4000, was the largest town in the county, easily surpassing Lewes or Chichester in sheer numbers. Returning to the familiar narrative, Brighthelmstone begins to change in 1753 when Dr Richard Russell of Lewes published his thesis on sea bathing, which proclaimed the benefit to health of the Salt Water of Brighton. He set up house there and before long, the rich and the sick had started to make their way to the seaside. Currently approaching the conclusion of its ambitious restoration, Marlborough House on the Steine was built by Robert Adam in 1765 and purchased shortly afterwards by the eponymous Duke. By 1780 , development of the Regency terraces had started and the town quickly became the fashionable resort of Brighton. The growth of the town was further encouraged when, in 1786 , the young Prince Regent later King George IV , rented a farmhouse in order to escape from public life. Eventually he spent much of his leisure time in the town and constructed the exotic-looking Royal Pavilion , which is the town's best-known landmark. The Kemp Town estate (at the heart of the Kemptown district) was constructed between 1823 and 1855 , and is a good example of Regency architecture. Visitors were further encouraged by the arrival of the London And Brighton Railway in 1840 , which also established one of the first railway-owned Locomotive Works .

Twentieth century

Brighton's character evolved over the course of the twentieth century but not so as to leave it unrecognisable. In many ways, Brighton's postwar growth has been a continuation of the 'fashionable Brighton' that drew the Georgian upper classes at the beginning of its recent history. The growth in mass tourism stimulated numerous Brighton businesses to serve the insatiable appetites of the holidaying masses. Pubs and restaurants are abundant. An important postwar development was the opening in the mid sixties of Sussex University , designed by Sir Basil Spence . The University has acquired a strong academic reputation, not least in left-leaning humanities subjects. Brighton, with its cutting edge scene, is hard to imagine without the 20,000+ students of the now two Universities.

Embassy Court was once one of the most striking buildings on the seafront at Brighton and Hove, although the reasons for this have differed over the years. When built in 1935, designed by architect Welles Coates , the building contrasted sharply with the more sedate and ornamental architecture of King's Road; but by the 1990s, the structure drew comment because of its terribly run down nature. The building made the local press after chunks of render and windows fell from the building onto the street below, and it appeared until recently that it might suffer the same ignomious fate met by the nearby West Pier, which finally succumbed to the elements and suspected arsonists in early 2004. Luckily this proved not to be the case - a consortium formed by residents and owners were able to wrestle the freehold of the building from the previous ineffectual management company, and restoration began in 2004 and was completed by Autumn 2005. It is now restored to its 1930's glory.

Much of the housing stock of Brighton and Hove is of 19th-century date and many former town houses are now converted to flats. This is particularly true in the North Laine area and Kemptown.

In Recent times, with the advent of makeover shows and property developments, prices for these flats have risen sharply and there is great demand for property within central brighton.

IRA bombing

Main article: Brighton Hotel Bombing

In the early hours of October 12 th 1984 an IRA Bomb exploded in the Grand Hotel where leading members of the governing Conservative Party were staying for their annual party conference. Four people were killed in the blast (including Sir Anthony Berry ), although no member of the Cabinet was killed. The Prime Minister , Margaret Thatcher , narrowly escaped injury, but other members of her Government were badly injured — notably Norman Tebbit , whose wife was also injured and left paralysed.

BRIGHTON TODAY

In Brighton, the area occupied by the original fishing village has become ''The Lanes'' — a collection of narrow alleyways now populated primarily by jewellers, specialist gift shops, restaurants and pubs. To the north of North Street, the ''North Laine'' area is often confused with The Lanes, but in fact derives its name from the Anglo-Saxon word "Laine", which is a type of agricultural plot. Other streets and areas take their name from their respective Laine, such as Atlingworth Street in Kemptown, which lies at the centre of the ancient Atlingworth Laine. The North Laine is regarded as more bohemian then The Lanes, with a mix of cafés and ''avant-garde'' shops, and several theatres. More conventional chain stores tend to be concentrated in retail areas like Churchill Square and London Road where there are a large cluster of Supermarkets and retail chains.

The biggest arts festival in England — the Brighton Festival — takes place in May each year.

Brighton is home to two universities, the University Of Sussex and the University Of Brighton , a Public School , Brighton College and various private schools including a Steiner School and a Montessori School and numerous state schools including Varndean , Dorothy Stringer and Cardinal Newman It is sometimes known as ' London by the Sea' because of its lively atmosphere and cosmopolitan nature and also because of the large number of visitors from London. In the summer, thousands of young students from all over Europe gather in the city to attend language courses.

Part of the beach has been designated an official Nudist area — one of very few naturist beaches in the United Kingdom to be located adjacent to an urban area.

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Since the 1978 demolition of the Art deco open-air swimming lido at Black Rock, the most easterly part of Brighton's seafront, the area has been developed considerably and now features one of Europe's largest marinas. However, the site of the pool itself remains empty except for a skate park and graffiti wall, and further development is planned for the area including a high-rise hotel which has aroused considerable local controversy, mirroring the situation with proposals for the site of the King Alfred leisure centre in neighbouring Hove .

Brighton is considered a fairly progressive town due to the large numbers of political movements and activities, for instance SchNEWS , a local newsletter. This has been demonstrated by the Green Party taking 22% of the vote of the Brighton Pavilion constituency in the 2005 general election, versus just 1% nationally.

Brighton's nearby neighbour, Hove, is seen by some as a more desirable location than Brighton and it is often referred to by locals as "Hove actually". This is because when a questioner asks a Hove resident whether they live in Brighton, they are frequently met with the response "No, Hove actually!". This usage is so well-known locally that the pub next to Hove Railway Station was at one time called ''Bertie Belcher's Brighton Brewery Company at the Hedgehog and Hogshead - it's really in Hove, actually!'' — it has since been renamed ''The Station''.

PIERS

The ''Brighton Marine Palace and Pier'', generally known as the ''Palace Pier'' before being unofficially renamed by its current owners as ''Brighton Pier'' in 2000 (something not recognised by the National Piers Society), opened in May 1899 after costing a record £137,000 to build. The theatre wasn't ready for opening until 2 years later. This theatre was controversially removed, on the condition that it was replaced. This never happened, and the seaward end building looks out of place compared to the rest of the structure. The pier suffered a large fire on 4 February 2003 but the damage was limited and most of the pier was able to reopen the next day.

The older ''West Pier'', built in 1866 by Eugenius Birch , has been closed and deteriorating since 1975 , awaiting renovation. The West Pier is one of only two Grade 1 Listed piers in the UK, the other being Clevedon Pier . Plans by the West Pier Trust to renovate the pier with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund were opposed by some local residents.The Noble brothers, owners of Brighton Palace Pier, originally supporters of the restoration scheme (the 1996 "Year of the Pier" was launched from there by the then Culture Secretary Virginia Bottomley), went on to back the objectors who claimed that subsidised rebuilding, were it to happen, would be unfair competition. This may have been a short-sighted attitude, as the piers could have appealed to a different clientele. More people might have been attracted to Brighton, which was already seeing a sharp increase in tourism.

The West Pier partially collapsed on December 29 , 2002 when a walkway connecting the concert hall and pavilion fell into the sea after being battered by storms. On January 20 , 2003 a further collapse saw the destruction of the concert hall in the middle of the pier. On March 28 , 2003 the pavilion at the end of the pier caught fire. Firefighters were unable to save the building from destruction because they could not reach the end of the pier - the previous collapse had destroyed the walkway. The cause of the fire remains unknown. On May 12 , 2003 , another fire broke out, consuming most of what was left of the concert hall. Arson was suspected. The West Pier Trust refers to the fires as the work of 'professional arsonists'. On June 23 , 2004 high winds caused the middle of the pier to completely collapse.

Despite all these setbacks, the owner of the site, West Pier Trust, remained adamant they would soon begin full restoration work. Finally, in December 2004 , the Trust admitted defeat, after their plans were rejected by the Heritage Lottery Fund, and subsequent less ambitious plans to restore only the oldest, structural parts of the pier were also rejected by English Heritage . However, in September 2005 the Trust revealed in their newsletter that they are forming further plans to rebuild the original structure with help from private funding.

Brighton had one further major pier, the ''Brighton Chain Suspension Pier'' ("Chain Pier") designed by Captain Samuel Brown, RN and built in 1823 . The pier was primarily intended as a landing stage for packet boats to Dieppe, Brighton having no natural harbour, but it also featured a small number of attractions including initially a Camera Obscura . An esplanade with an entrance toll-booth controlled access to the pier which was roughly in line with today's New Steine. Turner and Constable both made paintings of the pier, King William IV landed on it, and it was even the subject of a song.

The Chain Pier survived the construction of the West Pier, but a condition for permission to build the Palace Pier was that the builders would dismantle the oldest pier. They were saved this task by a storm which destroyed the already closed and rather decrepit pier on December 4, 1896 . The stubby remains of some of the pier's iron piles, sunk ten feet into bedrock, can still be seen at the most extreme low tides.

NIGHT-LIFE & POPULAR MUSIC

Brighton is renowned for its lively music scene, having spawned a number of successful artists, such as The Levellers and Fatboy Slim , and record labels including Skint Records . There is a healthy Free Party scene, which has been in action since the early 90s. There is also a significant array of local listings and review publications, which serve as a useful showcase for the many local graphic designers.

There are a large number of bars and nightclubs in Brighton, though due to increasing problems with antisocial behaviour, binge-drinking and vagrancy, alcohol consumption on the street is now banned in most central parts of the town.

Some well-known clubs from the UK dance music scene are based in Brighton, such as The Zap, The Honey Club and The Ocean Rooms, Club New York and the famous but now rebranded Escape, which has become Audio. There is also a selection of rock/metal venues in Brighton.

There are also a number of gay and lesbian venues in the central part of the city, mostly located towards Kemptown.

SPORT

Brighton is the home of Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. and the Hove ground of Sussex County Cricket Club , which is used for international one day matches, and the Brighton Bears .

In 1995 Brighton & Hove Albion's Goldstone Stadium, in central Hove, was sold without viable plans for an alternative. Near relegation from Division 3 in 1997, having played their last game at the Goldstone Stadium, saw a new board of directors installed. Two years of sharing Gillingham's stadium in Kent ended when the team was granted permission to play their home games at the Withdean Sports Complex in Brighton. Despite fans not having to make the 140 mile round trip to Kent, the 6000 seater stadium is not suitable for Championship games. Plans for a new 23,000 seater stadium had been in place since 1998, and Falmer, just north of the city, was chosen as the best location in 1999. On 28th October 2005 fans rejoiced when the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, granted Brighton & Hove Albion permission to build the stadium they had been waiting for since 1995.

LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL AND TRANSEXUAL COMMUNITY

Brighton has long had a large gay and lesbian community, estimated to include around 35,000 people, or 13% of the total population, slightly above the 10% that is usually taken as an average LGBT population percentage.

An early recording of gays and lesbians in Brighton was in August 1822 , when George Wilson, a servant from Newcastle-upon-Tyne , was accused by a guardsman he had met in the Duke of Wellington public house in Pool Valley of having offered him a sovereign and two shillings to go with him onto the beach to "commit an unnatural crime". Another early story of the LGBT community in the area is that of philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts (1814-1906), a friend of both Charles Dickens and the Duke Of Wellington , who spent part of each year at the Royal Albion Hotel with her companion Hannah. The couple were devoted to each other, socially recognized as a pair, and even sent joint Christmas cards. When Hannah died in 1878, Miss Burdett-Coutts said she was utterly crushed by the loss of "my poor darling, the companion and sunshine of my life for 52 years". Projects such as Brighton Our Story have been setup to record the history of the LGBT community in the area.

Today the town hosts Brighton Pride in the first week of each August, which attracts over 100,000 visitors. The local telephone helpline Brighton Gay And Lesbian Switchboard is one of the oldest such helplines in the country. The town also has one of the few gay and lesbian youth projects in the UK in the Allsorts Youth Project .

In 2000 the award-winning and largescale LGBT community survey, Count Me In, led to the development of a LGBT Community Strategy 2001-06 for Brighton & Hove. Spectrum developed from this process to work with local services and planners in implementing the strategy, and to provide infrastructure and community development support for the LGBT community. Its aim is to act as an independent voice, negotiating the rights of LGBT people locally with specific focus on the needs of marginalised sections of the LGBT community. Count Me In Too! is a second study which will shortly be conducted as in partnership between the University of Brighton and Spectrum, aiming to identify gaps in the original research and update the strategy.

Two free LGBT magazines are distributed in the city: Gscene and 3sixty .

TRANSPORT

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Brighton Railway Station was built by the London & Brighton Railway in 1840 , and in 1970 was saved from redevelopment. The station provides fast and frequent connections to London Gatwick Airport , London Victoria , London Bridge , and via the Thameslink line, King's Cross , London Luton Airport and Bedford . Regular servies also operate to Birmingham New Street and on to Glasgow , Scotland, and via Bristol to Tenby, Wales. The express London Victoria service takes 51 minutes today, compared with 60 minutes in 1910, 80 minutes in 1859 and up to two hours in 1841.

Brighton & Hove Bus And Coach Company operates the local bus service with over 250 buses. The former Brighton "Blue Buses" company dates back to the 1880s . It was bought by Brighton and Hove, who then merged into the Go-Ahead Group in 1993 . The council and bus company run a city-wide realtime bus information service . A limited bus service is also run during the night called "Night Crawlers" service. This is normally only on the early hours of Saturday and Sunday.

Volk's Electric Railway , created in 1883, runs along the inland edge of the beach from the Palace Pier to around the site of the Chain Pier, and on via an 1884 extension to Black Rock. There have been various reconstructions since this date. It is claimed to be the world's oldest operating Electric Railway and was the electrification model adopted by London Underground .

Between 1894 and 1901 there was another electric railway, also created by , via Ovingdean . It was never able to withstand stormy weather, and after several collapses and reconstructions, and the final insurmountable problem of changes to the sea defences, it was abandoned. A small amount of its concrete support structure can sometimes be seen along the route.

First the Aldrington Tramway (1884-1912), then Brighton Corporation Tramways (1901-1939) ran routes from the Aquarium to Brighton Station (Route S), London Road (Route B), Ditchling Road (route D) and Elm Grove (route E), Lewes Road (Route L), Queens Park (Route Q), New England Hill/Dyke Road (Route N)

NOTABLE INHABITANTS

See Also: List of notable Brighton & Hove inhabitants

BRIGHTON IN LITERATURE

Jane Austen :

Pride And Prejudice

::'' Mansfield Park ''
::persuasion

Frances Burney :

Evelina

G. K. Chesterton

Orthodoxy (1908)

George Gissing :

New Grub Street

Graham Greene

Brighton Rock

Patrick Hamilton

Hangover Square

::'' West Pier ''

Henry James

The Golden Bowl

Robert Rankin :

The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived (1995)

::'' The Brightonomicon (2005) ''

Phillip Reeve

Infernal Devices

2005

Louise Rennison

Confessions Of Georgia Nicolson

Nigel Richardson

Breakfast In Brighton

William Makepeace Thackeray

Vanity Fair

Helen Zahavi

Dirty Weekend

::''My Heart's a Suitcase'' by Clare Mcintyre
The fictional seaside town of Watermouth—the setting of Malcolm Bradbury 's Campus novel '' The History Man ''—bears a lot of resemblance to Brighton.

BRIGHTON IN FILM