THE
BEGINNING
Brighton began as a Saxon village. The Saxons conquered
Sussex
in the 5th century AD. One of them was called Beorthelm. He owned a farm (in
Saxon a tun) called Beorthelm's tun which, in time grew into the town of Brighton. As well as
farmers there were fishermen in the village. Brighton
overlooked a cliff and the fishermen's huts were under this cliff on the
foreshore. The church
of St Bartholomew was
first mentioned in 1185. (Though it probably existed long before then).
THE
MIDDLE AGES
In
1313 Brighton gained a charter. This was a
document granting the merchants the right to form their own local government
and certain other privileges. A fish market was held daily on the beach.
There was also a weekly pig market and a weekly corn market as well as a
general market where all kinds of goods were sold. Once a year there was a
fair. (A fair was like a market but was held annually and attracted buyers
and sellers from all over South East England).
The
earliest map of Brighton shows a little town
about one quarter of a mile square. There were 4 streets, North Street, West Street, East Street and South Street. In
the middle of the 4 streets were allotments. The Lanes started as pathways
between them. By 1500 Middle
Street existed. There were also fishermen's huts
along the shore. The 4 streets formed the boundaries of the town. The space
between Middle Street
and East Street
was called the Hempshares and hemp was grown there for fishermen's nets. (The
Lanes started as little paths between gardens or allotments).
Brighton suffered from the continuous erosion of the
coast. In 1340 it was stated that the sea had recently 'swallowed' 40 acres
of farmland.
The
first fortification at Brighton was the
bulwark, which was a tower built next to the town in 1497.
Brighton town council consisted of 12 men chosen from
'the most respectable, wealthier and discreeter' inhabitants, 8 fishermen and
4 landmen. They chose one of themselves to be the Constable, responsible for
law and order for one year. When one of the 12 died the other 11 selected
somebody to replace him.
THE
16th CENTURY
The
French burned down Brighton in 1514. This
was easily done as nearly all the buildings were of wood, with thatched
roofs. On the other hand, they could be easily rebuilt.
In
1545 the French returned. A writer said the French commander 'Came forth into
the seas and arrived on the coast of Sussex before Brighthamstead (Brighton)
and set certain of his soldiers on land to burn and spoil the country, but
the beacons were lit (to warn people in the surrounding countryside and
summon their aid) and the inhabitants thereabouts came down so thick, that
the Frenchmen were driven to fly with loss of diverse of their numbers so
that they did little hurt there'.
By
1580 there were 400 fishermen and 102 landmen living in Brighton.
So it probably had a population of around 2,500. By the standards of the time
Brighton was a fair sized market town. There
were 80 fishing vessels.
In
1558 'there was granted to the inhabitants of that town by the Lords one
parcel of land containing in length, 30 feet long and 16 feet in breadth'.
This parcel of land was used to build the blockhouse. The blockhouse was a
circular fort, 50 feet in diameter, 16 feet in height with walls 8 feet
thick. It had 6 large guns and 10 small cannons. It stood near the Southern
end of Middle Street.
A wall 14 or 16 feet high, with placements for guns extended 400 feet
eastwards to East Street
and westward to West Street.
There were 4 gates, East gate, Porters gate, Middle Gate and West gate.
THE
17th CENTURY
Despite
the building of the blockhouse in 1635 the local Justice of the Peace
complained of the lack of defences at Brighton.
In
1651, shortly after the civil war, Charles II persuaded the Scots to invade England to
help him regain his crown. The attempt was foiled. The Scottish army was
defeated at Worcester
and the king narrowly avoided capture. He made his way, in disguise to Brighton, and was smuggled abroad.
In
the 17th century the fishing industry in Brighton
suffered a decline. This was because of a series of wars with the French and
the Dutch. Their navies prevented fishing vessels from going fishing, e.g. in
1694 a writer said 'Our poor town of Brighton has been this day suddenly
surprised by 4 French ships and pestered by them since 11 am. As yet they
have not done us much harm, having positioned themselves so near to us as to
shoot over the town'. Two more French vessels arrived but the townsfolk armed
themselves and assembled. Eventually the French sailed away.
The
modern name of the town, Brighton, first
appeared in 1660. By 1810 it was the official name of the town. In 1665 a
free school opened in the town on the Hempshares. In the same year a Bowling Green opened on
the Old Steine.
THE
18th CENTURY
In
1703 England
was struck by a severe storm. In Brighton it 'stripped a great many houses,
turned up the lead off the church, otherthrew 2 windmills and laid them flat
on the ground'. A second storm in 1705 demolished houses below the cliff,
along the foreshore. In 1723 groins were built. However the two storms
severely damaged Brighton, which was already
suffering an economic depression. Brighton
declined in size to perhaps 1,500 people in the early 18th century. And the
ocean continued to erode the seashore. First it destroyed the houses under
the cliff, then, by 1760 began to undermine the cliff itself. Brightons
fortifications were slowly undermined and destroyed by the sea.
In
1730 a writer said 'If some speedy care be not taken to stop the
encroachments of the ocean it is probable the town will, in a few years, be
utterly depopulated, the inhabitants being already diminished by one third
less than they were and those that remain are many of them Widows, Orphans,
decrepit persons and all very poor'. Another writer described the people of Brighton as mostly very needy and wretched in their
mode of living'.
But
Brighton's fortunes were transformed in 1750
when Dr Richard Russell, a resident of Lewes, wrote a book in which he
claimed that bathing in seawater was very good for your health. Rich people
began to come to Brighton hoping to be cured
of some illness by bathing in seawater. At first they were a trickle, but
later became a flood. In 1783 the Prince of Wales and his friends visited Brighton which ensured its popularity.
Suddenly
Brighton began to revive and prosper. The
first theatre in the town opened in North
Street in 1774. A second free school opened in Duke Street in
1779. The first grammar school in Brighton
opened in 1789. By 1767 two assembly rooms were built (for dancing and
playing cards) at the Old Ship Inn (Ship
Street is named after it) and at the Castle
Tavern (which stood on the south side of the Market Place). In 1773 a market
house was built so covered markets could be held.
As
well as these developments Brighton grew
quickly in size. From a population of about 2,000 in 1750 it grew to about
4,000 in 1783, the year of the Prince's visit. Many new streets were built in
the space between Middle Street
and East Street
and by 1792 many of the Lanes were built up. Between 1770 and 1795 635 new
houses were built. New streets were built north and east of the town
including Battery Place,
Bond Street,
Broad Street,
Charles Street,
Church Street,
King Street, Manchester Street, Old and New Steine and
Russell Street.
In
1793 2 new batteries were erected at Brighton.
One was on East cliff near the bottom of Marine Parade. The other one was
opposite Artillery Place.
(Both were removed in the 19th century).
In
1787 the most famous building in Brighton,
the Pavillion, was built for the first time, although it was originally built
in classical style (i.e. it imitated ancient Greek and Roman buildings). The
original building looked quite unlike the present oriental one.
THE
19th CENTURY
In
1808 a row of houses was built east of the Steine and this area rapidly
became built up. The pavillion was rebuilt in 1815. This time it was made to
imitate an Indian palace. Brighton town
council bought the pavillion in 1850.
Fishermen
spread out their nets to dry on the open space known as the Steine. In 1799
someone wrote 'Fishing nets are daily spread from one end of the Steine to
the other, so that the company while walking are frequently tripped up by
entangling their feet'. In 1822 railings were erected around the Steine and
the fishermen lost the right to do this.
In
the 1820's 2 new areas were built. Thomas Kemp built Kemp
Town to the east of Brighton and a
man named Brunswick built Brunswick town to the west. In 1821 a
newspaper started publication, the Brighton Gazette.
For
centuries ships had simply moored off the coast of Brighton
but in 1823 the chain pier was built. In 1824 a steam ship began operating
between Brighton and France.
In 1841 a railway to London opened which made
it much easier for visitors to reach Brighton.
By 1848 it was estimated that 250,000 people visited Brighton
each year. West Pier was built in 1866. Palace Pier was built in 1899.
The
population of Brighton rose rapidly from
40,000 in 1841 to 65,000 in 1861. Preston
was engulfed by the growing town in the 1870s. The clock tower was built in
1888; Queen Victoria's
golden anniversary.
An
aquarium was built in 1872. A museum and library opened in 1874. Preston Park was opened in 1874. Brighton general hospital was built in 1867. In 1883
the electric railway, the first electric public transport in the world. The
first telephone exchange in Brighton opened
in 1882.
THE
20th CENTURY
During
World War I the pavillion was used as a hospital for Indian soldiers.
The
first cinemas opened in Brighton in 1909. A
boating pool was built in Brighton in 1925.
A children's playground was laid out on The Level in 1927. The aquarium was
rebuilt in 1929. A rock garden in Preston
Park was laid out in
1936.
In
1928 the boundaries of Brighton were
extended. In the 1930s a sea wall was built from Black Rock to Rottingdean to
prevent erosion.
The
task of clearing the slums in the centre of the town was undertaken in the
1930s. Many fishermen's villages, though they might look picturesque were
actually, cramped, squalid and insanitary. A new market was built in Circus Street in
1937 on the site of demolished slums. Some of the slums were replaced with 4
storey flats. Meanwhile the council began building council houses. An estate
was built at Whitehawk. In the late 1930s another council housing estate was
built. Also in the 1930s The Western side of West Street was demolished to widen the
road. There was also much building of private houses at that time, in
Patcham, Falmer and Ovingdean.
Trams
ran in Brighton between 1901 and 1939. In
1904 came the first motor buses. In 1939 the trams were replaced with trolley
buses, which ran on electricity from overhead wires but did not use rails.
When
World War II began in 1939 many schoolchildren from London
were evacuated to Brighton to escape the
bombing. Since Brighton was, of course, a
seaside resort rather than a manufacturing town it was anticipated it would
escape bombing. Most of the evacuees soon returned home, however. Yet Brighton was not as safe as people thought it would be
and the town suffered considerable damage as a result of bombing. There were
56 raids in all and over 5,000 houses were damaged or destroyed.
After
World War II the Lanes managed to escape the ravages of town planning but in
the mid-1960s Churchill Square was laid out.
In
the 1950s a new industrial estate was built at Hollingbury. Also in the 1950s
and early 1960s a council estate was built at Hollingbury.
Sussex University was founded in 1962.
Although Brighton continued to flourish as a
seaside resort West Pier closed in 1975.The Brighton Centre, which is used
for conferences, was opened in 1977. A marina opened at Black Rock in 1978.
THE
21st CENTURY
Brighton
and Hove was made a city in 2000. In
December 2002 West Pier partly collapsed when severe weather hit Brighton. Unfortunately Brighton's
other pier the Palace Pier was damaged by fire in February 2003. Today the
population of Brighton is 141,000.
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Originally published at http://www.picturesofengland.com/history/#
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