page_title: Buildings and architecture of Brighton and Hove
section_title: Early buildings
hierarchical_section_title: Buildings and architecture of Brighton and Hove / Historical context / Early buildings
caption_attribution_description: 43 Meeting House Lane, The Lanes, Brighton, City of Brighton and Hove, England. Listed at Grade II by English Heritage (NHLE Code 1381786)
context_page_description: Brighton and Hove, a city on the English Channel coast in southeast England, has a large and diverse stock of buildings "unrivalled architecturally" among the country's seaside resorts. The urban area, designated a city in 2000, is made up of the formerly separate towns of Brighton and Hove, nearby villages such as Portslade, Patcham and Rottingdean, and 20th-century estates such as Moulsecoomb and Mile Oak. The conurbation was first united in 1997 as a unitary authority and has a population of about 253,000. About half of the 20,430-acre geographical area is classed as built up.
  Brighton's transformation from medieval fishing village into spa town and pleasure resort, patronised by royalty and fashionable high society, coincided with the development of Regency architecture and the careers of three architects whose work came to characterise the 4-mile seafront.
context_section_description: Brighton was originally an agricultural and fishing village surrounded by fields where sheep were farmed and corn was grown.  In the Saxon era, small buildings developed in an area bounded by four streets named after the points of the compass, and a church stood on higher ground inland.  Modest cottages for the fishermen stood on the beach below the cliffs and the now vanished South Street. A thriving fishing industry contributed to the town's first period of growth in the 16th and 17th centuries, but development did not expand beyond the old boundaries. The industry then contracted in the early 18th century, and depopulation occurred. Labour and land for redevelopment accordingly became cheaper, and because good travel and communication routes were already established the town was well placed to grow rapidly again when sea-bathing became fashionable in the mid-18th century. Little pre-18th century architecture remains in Brighton, therefore, although there are some individual buildings. For example, 27 King Street in North Laine is cobble-fronted and retains a timber-framed interior which could be 17th-century. Hove, meanwhile, was a single-street village with a manor house, some modest cottages and a church further inland.  Although St Andrew's Church remains in use and Hove Street survives, the manor house was demolished in 1936 and no other original buildings remain.
  Early-18th-century descriptions of the old town of Brighton (the present Lanes) concentrated on how small and low the houses were, and how the lower storeys were characteristically set slightly below ground level.  This, and the proximity of the houses to each other, may have offered protection against storms and flooding from the sea. (In one of the earliest descriptions of Brighton - a letter dated 1736 - the rector of Buxted claims that "we live here underground almost ... the second storey is finished something under 12 feet.")  "Huddling together" may have also helped the houses survive to the present day: they were poorly built and had little structural integrity.  Typical Lanes buildings are timber-framed and plastered with load-bearing walls of bungaroosh with some flint. Brick quoins and courses added strength, and façades were often studded with pebbles from the beach.  These would sometimes be coated with tar to keep water out, although this only became common in the early 19th century.  In The Lanes, such buildings can be seen at Bartholomews, Middle Street and Ship Street among others.
  Buildings of the 16th and 17th centuries and earlier can be found in the old villages absorbed by modern Brighton and Hove.  At St Wulfran's Church, Ovingdean, the 12th-century nave and chancel replaced a Saxon structure. St Helen's Church at Hangleton retains 11th-century herringbone masonry and other ancient fabric. The old parish churches of Patcham, Portslade, Preston, Rottingdean and Brighton itself all retain some features from the 12th to 14th centuries, although they were all subject to Victorian restoration. Hove's oldest secular building is Hangleton Manor (now a pub), a Vernacular-style flint building with some 15th-century fabric.  Little has changed since the High Sheriff of Sussex rebuilt it a century later, and the dovecote outside it is 17th-century. Other surviving manor houses and mansions in the old villages around Brighton and Hove include Preston Manor, Patcham Place, Stanmer House, Moulsecoomb Place and Ovingdean Grange, while Patcham and Rottingdean have well-preserved lesser houses such as Court House, Down House, Hillside and Southdown House, generally built of brick and flint in the 18th century.
caption: Buildings in The Lanes are small and tightly crowded.  This weatherboarded and jettied example (43 Meeting House Lane) is one of the oldest.
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