Regency Square is a large early 19th-century residential development on the seafront in Brighton, part of the British city of Brighton and Hove. Conceived by speculative developer Joshua Hanson as Brighton underwent its rapid transformation into a fashionable resort, the three-sided "set piece" of 69 houses and associated structures was built between 1818 and 1832. Most of the houses overlooking the central garden were complete by 1824. The site was previously known, briefly and unofficially, as Belle Vue Field.
The square was a prestigious, high-class development, attracting the social elite. The central garden, originally private, has been council-owned since 1885 and publicly accessible since the Second World War. An underground car park was built beneath it in 1969.
Most of the buildings in and around the square have been designated listed buildings—47 houses are each listed at Grade II*, the second-highest designation, while 18 other houses, a war memorial, a nearby inn and a set of bollards outside it have each been given the lower Grade II status. The house at the southwest corner is now numbered as part of King's Road but was built as part of Regency Square, and is also Grade II*-listed.
History
Belle Vue Field Regency Square was built on one of the fields to the west of the town but within the parish of Brighton. The field was briefly and unofficially known as Belle Vue Field after it was acquired by Francis Hanson, the owner of the nearby Belle Vue House, in the late 1790s.
Belle Vue House was built near to a windmill known as West Mill. The windmill was owned by Matthew Bourne in 1744, but was not marked on Ogilby's 1762 map, although a windmill is shown on Lambert's View of Brighthelmstone which is dated 1765. In the 1790s, the windmill was owned by John Streeter. On 28 March 1797, when 86 oxen dragged it uphill on a sled to the nearby village of Preston. It was re-erected there and renamed Preston Mill. After several more renamings, it was demolished in 1881. Its machinery was cannibalised by the owners of nearby Waterhall Mill. A watercolour painting, now displayed at Preston Manor, shows crowds of people watching the mill's removal to Preston.
By the late 18th century, Brighthelmstone (as it was originally known) had begun to develop into a fashionable coastal resort. When the annual town fair could no longer be accommodated on its traditional site in the Old Town, Belle Vue Field was used as one of several temporary locations.
Belle Vue Field is sometimes said to have been the site, in 1793, of a 10,000-man military encampment. However, Belle Vue Field did not yet exist in 1793 and contemporaneous sources show that the encampment occupied a much wider area of land, extending as far as the boundary with the neighbouring parish of Hove. Jane Austen refers to the encampment in her novel Pride and Prejudice (written in 1796 and published in 1813). The heroine Elizabeth Bennet's sister is invited to Brighton and elopes with, and later marries, army officer George Wickham. The annual military encampments moved to other sites in and around Brighthelmstone in subsequent years.
Hanson builds the square In 1818, the field was acquired by Francis Hanson's son, Joshua Flesher Hanson, a businessman. By this time, Brighton's profile was such that speculators were commissioning architects and builders to design and lay out sea-facing residential developments to attract wealthy long-term visitors or permanent residents. Royal Crescent, New Steine and Bedford Square were already in existence; Clarence Square, Russell Square and Marine Parade were being developed.
Hanson's plan for Regency Square was on a much larger scale than these developments. He divided Belle Vue Field into 69 plots, leased them individually and put strict covenants in place, demanding that each house be built in a specific style in order to ensure architectural harmony. In return, the leaseholders (mostly private builders) would have the right to buy, and would end up with houses much larger than average for the town, with excellent sea views and exclusive access to the large central garden. Most leaseholders bought the houses as soon as they could, which was to Hanson's advantage as he made money and had no ongoing responsibility for the buildings. Restrictions in the covenants included the requirement to erect a façade with an iron balcony, to clad the area below the balcony in stucco, to paint the façade at least every three years, to repair any damage, and to pay towards maintenance of the central garden. No stucco was to be applied above the balcony line.
The covenants included a requirement to form a residents' committee, whose job it was to ensure the covenants were obeyed and to impose a levy on the occupiers of the houses to pay for the upkeep of the garden.
Although there is no documentary evidence confirming the architects, most sources attribute Regency Square's buildings to the father-and-son partnership of Amon and Amon Henry Wilds, who moved to Brighton from nearby Lewes in 1815 and became two of Brighton's most important architects; they were extremely prolific, and were responsible for defining and developing the town's distinctive Regency style. Although they worked extensively with fellow architect Charles Busby during the 1820s, historians agree that he was not involved in Regency Square, at least not in its early stages: the buildings "appear to lack his distinctive flair" and are not as impressive as those at the Kemp Town estate to the east of Brighton, which all three men were involved with. No. 1 Regency Square (now 131 Kings Road) is confirmed as the work of Amon Henry Wilds. Some evidence points to William Mackie being involved in the design of houses on the east side of the square.
Building work started in 1818 and continued until 1832, with most of the houses complete by 1824. A passageway (Regency Colonnade) was built at the northeast corner to connect the square to the neighbouring development of Russell Square. The Regency Tavern has occupied most of the passageway since the 1870s, all of it since 1939. St Margaret's Church, an Anglican chapel of ease designed in the Greek Revival/Neoclassical style in 1824 by Busby, was the local place of worship.
In 1866 the West Pier, designed by Eugenius Birch, was built opposite the square's central garden.
Unusually, Hanson had set a 71-year time limit on the covenants rather than granting them in perpetuity, and on 25 December 1889 they were due to expire. Among other things, residents would then lose their rights to use the gardens. The residents committee, led by solicitor Somers Clarke (unrelated to the Brighton-born architect of that name), attempted unsuccessfully to purchase the gardens and extend the covenants by an Act of Parliament; two years later, the passing of the Brighton Improvement Act 1884 achieved the same aims. Brighton Corporation took ownership of the gardens, and householders signed new deeds confirming they wished for the covenants relating to their houses to be extended indefinitely.
20th century From the beginning, Regency Square was a prestigious, high-class development, and it is still considered to be "one of Brighton's best sea-facing squares". By the mid-20th century most of the houses had become hotels, but the majority have since been converted into flats and the square today is overwhelmingly residential. In early 1963 a surface-level car park was planned for the Brighton Corporation owned central garden; this was changed to a 520-space underground car park, created in 1967-9 using the cut and cover method in which the garden was dug up, the car park with roof constructed, and the lawns and flowerbeds restored.
Richard Seifert's , Modernist 24-storey residential block, Sussex Heights, was built in 1968 on land immediately to the east of the square, and was criticised for affecting the character of the square because of its contrasting style and height.
During the early 1970s the hotels sought permission from Brighton Corporation to erect neon signs advertising themselves; after negotiation with the Regency Society, a Brighton-wide conservation group formed in 1945, the corporation made the square and the surrounding area into a conservation area in 1973. Conservation area status gives the council firmer control over planning permission and changes to buildings or street furniture, especially in respect of their effect on "the character and appearance of the area". The original conservation area has since been enlarged twice to its present size of .
Architecture Almost all buildings in Regency Square have been designated a Listed building: 47 houses are each listed at Grade II*, while 18 other houses, a memorial, an inn and a set of bollards, have each been given the lower Grade II status. The house at the south west corner is now numbered as part of King's Road, but was built as part of Regency Square and is also Grade II*-listed.
The five Grade II* parts of the square, including the house at the south west corner (formerly St Albans House), were listed on 13 October 1952.
The entire west side was listed in 1952: St Albans House, the three houses at numbers 2–4 and the sixteen houses at number 5-20. The northern side's central section, numbers 26–37, forms another Grade II* listing. On the east side, all of the surviving original houses, at numbers 51–56, 57–59 and 60–66, are listed at Grade II*. Apart from St Albans House, all of these listings include iron railings attached to the exterior.
Numbers 22–25 and 38–46, on the north side, were listed at Grade II on 20 August 1971, while most of the rest of the square's original houses were listed at the same grade on 26 August 1999: numbers 46a, 46b and 47–49. All listings except numbers 46a and 46b include attached railings. The listing for numbers 38–46 includes a carriage arch, which has nonetheless been lost.
A small block of flats, Abbotts, stands at the southeast corner of the square. Built by architecture firm Fitzroy Robinson & Partners in 1961–62, it replaced three of the original Regency Square houses (nos. 67–69) which, along with the neighbouring property at 129 Kings Road, had been converted into a hotel of the same name in the early part of the 20th century. The original four houses were considered "quite good" by architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner.
Grade II* listings 2–4 Regency Square
These three four-storey houses (now the Beach Hotel) have double bow fronts, and were considered by Nikolaus Pevsner to be more austere in their detailing than most Brighton houses of their era. Number 2, a former home of social reformer William King (whose two-year stay is commemorated by a blue plaque), is built of brick which has been painted over; the others are stuccoed. Each house also has a basement and a dormer window. The ground floors are rusticated and have arched doorways set into Classical-style porches with both Ionic and Doric columns—the latter in the form of antae. The tripartite bay windows are neither full-height nor continuous: only the first three storeys have them, and they are offset to the right on the first and second floors. The first-floor windows sit between a curved cast-iron balcony and a verandah-style canopy supported on decorative brackets. On each house, the third floor has three small flat-arched sash windows; the centre window sits below a small cornice supported on corbels.
5–20 Regency Square