page_title: Bear Road, Brighton
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Bear Road, Brighton / History
caption_attribution_description: The Bear Inn, Junction of Lewes Road and Bear Road, Brighton. Built on the site of an 18th-century inn famed for bear- and badger-baiting. The name of the road (and the associated residential area) was taken from the old inn. Bear Road runs off to the right; Lewes Road is visible on the left.
context_page_description: The Bear Road area is a largely residential area in the east of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Centred on the steep west–east road of that name, it is characterised by terraced houses of the early 20th century, but Brighton's main cemeteries were established here in the 19th century and there is also some industry.
  Bear Road itself, a steeply sloping route running from the main Brighton–Lewes road eastwards towards Brighton Racecourse, divides the area into two contrasting sections. North of the road, the bare hillside was developed with densely populated streets of small houses from 1895 onwards. Development was effectively complete within 20 years, and most of the roads have names connected to the Boer War, giving the suburb "a strong sense of place". Other surviving buildings include some large early-20th-century factories, but an isolation hospital and the area's only church have both been demolished since 1990. South of Bear Road, a series of cemeteries and crematoria were built on a large, undulating area of farmland between 1850 and 1919.
context_section_description: At the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, the parishes of Patcham and Preston were part of the Hundred of Preston in the Rape of Lewes.  The boundaries of the hundred were later changed to cover Preston and Hove parishes, and they remained in this form until 1833 or later.  The parish of Preston itself was broadly rectangular, approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) from east to west and 1 mile (1.6 km) north to south, but it "[sent] a long tongue eastwards along the boundary of [Brighton parish] to the summit of the Race Hill".  North of this "tongue" of land was the parish of Patcham, which like Preston parish became part of the Borough of Brighton in 1928.
  The tithe map of Preston parish before it became urbanised shows most of the northeast part of the parish, including all the land now covered by the Bear Road area, was owned by George Harrington and farmed by Bartholomew Smithers.  There were five principal fields, a pond, some farm buildings next to Lewes Road and a windmill.  Bear Mill was built in about 1810 and survived until 1903; it stood on the site of number 89 Ladysmith Road.  It was a post mill with cloth sails and a white-painted roundhouse.  A similar mill, the Race Hill Mill, stood at the top of Bear Road on Race Hill between January 1862 and May 1913, when it collapsed after several years of disuse.  Originally known as Park Mill when it stood on Albion Hill, it was moved to its new site over a three-week period in 1861–62.  Meanwhile, much of the land south of Bear Road was part of the arable land belonging to Scabe's Castle Farm, whose buildings were on Hartington Road.
  The name of Bear Road comes from the Bear Inn at the foot of the hill, facing the junction with Lewes Road.  A pub of that name still occupies the site, but the original building dated from the 18th century and was associated with bear- and badger-baiting at that time.  Lewes Road was turnpiked in 1770, but development was slow: the first buildings were the Percy and Wagner Almshouses (1795) south of Elm Grove.  Housing reached Bear Road in the 1860s, and in the 1890s and 1900s development spread further north into Preston parish as far as the Patcham parish boundary.  At the same time, the steep hillside to the east began to be laid out with working-class housing.  Between 1895 and 1899, the north side of Bear Road was lined with houses, and Coombe Terrace became the first new road of housing beyond the two main roads.  Between 1900 and 1909, Buller Road, Dewe Road, Ewhurst Road, Ladysmith Road, Nesbitt Road, Redvers Road and Riley Road were laid out in their entirety, and Coombe Road, Milner Road and Natal Road were partly completed.  Between 1910 and World War I, Kimberley Road and Mafeking Road were added.  Apart from later infill development, the suburb was complete by 1924 with the laying out of Baden Road, Canfield Road, Crayford Road, Eastbourne Road, Carlyle Avenue and the remaining parts of Coombe, Milner and Natal Roads.  Canfield Close was built in 1956–59, and the Meadowview area was developed from the 1960s starting with Jevington Drive.
  When the area north of Bear Road still consisted of open land, it was a popular site for travelling circuses and fairs.  During one fair in the late 19th century, an elephant died and had to be disposed of.  A large grave was dug on the hillside and it was buried there.  The site was later built over: it is at the junction of the present Natal and Nesbitt Roads.  The fairs ceased when rapid urbanisation started: between 1873 and 1900, the number of houses in the part of Preston parish east of Lewes Road rose from about 450 to more than 4,000.
  South of Bear Road, about 100 acres (40 ha) of the land formerly belonging to Scabe's Castle Farm is now covered by cemeteries.  The Brighton Extra Mural Cemetery is the earliest: it was founded in 1850 by the Brighton Extra Mural Company, which was set up by four eminent Brightonians who were concerned about the lack of burial space in the growing town and the implications for public health.  Nonconformist minister John Nelson Goulty, his son the archite
caption: The Bear Inn gave its name to Bear Road.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "SAMSUNG DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "SAMSUNG", "Image Model": "SAMSUNG ST60 / VLUU ST60 / SAMSUNG TL105 / SAMSUNG ST61", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "ver1.0.22", "Image DateTime": "2013:08:23 12:33:57", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "2390", "Image XPTitle": "[83, 0, 65, 0, 77, 0, 83, 0, 85, 0, 78, 0, 71, 0, 32, 0, 68, 0, 73, 0, 71, 0, 73, 0, 84, 0, 65, 0, 76, 0, 32, 0, 67, 0, 65, 0, 77, 0, 69, 0, 82, 0, 65, 0, 0, 0]", "Image XPComment": "[32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, 32, 0, ... ]", "Image XPSubject": "[83, 0, 65, 0, 77, 0, 83, 0, 85, 0, 78, 0, 71, 0, 32, 0, 68, 0, 73, 0, 71, 0, 73, 0, 84, 0, 65, 0, 76, 0, 32, 0, 67, 0, 65, 0, 77, 0, 69, 0, 82, 0, 65, 0, 0, 0]", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:08:23 12:33:57", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:08:23 12:33:57", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "53/10", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "17/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "49/10", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2448", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "7924", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "28", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4180"}