Originally, the area had been part of Wick Farm. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, nearby Brighton had become very fashionable. The Kemp Town estate there had been a success in 1824 architect Charles Busby entered into an agreement to build a similar development on land lying at the extreme east of Hove, adjacent to Brighton.[1] The name "Brunswick" was taken from House of Brunswick, a term sometimes used for the House of Hanover, the name of the British royal family at the time.
Brunswick Town was built as a collaborative project between Busby and the landowner, the Reverend Thomas Scutt. Construction started in 1824. The first houses were completed by 1826.[2] Busby designed Brunswick Town as a long row of terraced houses facing the sea. In the middle point of this sea-facing terrace was a central square, which stretched back. This square was named Brunswick Square. The terraced houses, in Brunswick Terrace and in Brunswick Square, were built for the upper classes, they were designed as 'first-class' housing.[3] Beyond these houses were second-class houses in streets such as Waterloo Street.[4]
The early 20th century saw the area enter decline. At the extreme eastern edge of Brunswick Terrace, on the border of Hove and Brighton, the modernist Embassy Court apartment block was completed in the 1930s, envisaged by local politicians such as Sir Herbert Carden as the beginning of a transformation of the entire seafront, which would have entailed the obliteration of Brunswick Terrace.[a] By the late 1940s Brunswick Square itself had become so run-down that the Council was considering wholesale demolition and redevelopment with modern housing.[7] These plans encountered strong local opposition, in particular through the founding of the Regency Society which fought successfully against the plans.[8]
In the late 1990s the top of Brunswick Square, where it meets busy Western Road, was closed to motor traffic, changing the nature of the square from a through route to a residential area. The Embassy block was also redeveloped, having fallen into decay.[9]
Brunswick is currently part of the local council's Brunswick & Adelaide ward which is represented by Andrei Czolak of Labour and Ollie Sykes of the Green Party. Sykes previously represented the ward for eight years until he stepped down in 2019. In July 2024 he replaced Labour councillor Jilly Stevens, who stepped down due to ill health.[10]
Culture
The Brunswick Festival takes place each year, centred on Brunswick Square. The Old Market, built in 1828 to serve Brunswick Town, was restored in 1999 and is used as a theatre.
Many of the buildings in the area are listed by Historic England.[b] Some are listed at the highest grade, Grade I. These include the four components of Brunswick Terrace; Nos 1-6,[12] Nos 7-19,[13] Nos 20-32,[14] and Nos 33-42;[15] the East,[16] and West sides of Brunswick Square,[17] and the Church of St Andrew.[18]
^Sir Herbert Carden (1867-1941),[5] mayor of Brighton in 1916, was a visionary with pronounced Modernist architectural sympathies. In an essay he authored in 1935, entitled The City Beautiful: A Vision of the New Brighton, he condemned; “the gaunt, basemented houses, badly converted into so-called flats”, damning them as “extremely ugly [with] no pretensions to architecture” and urging their replacement by buildings such as Embassy Court, which “has shown us the way to build for the new age.”[6]
^Historic England is the statutory body with responsibility for the listing of buildings in England. It uses a tiered rating system, classifying listed buildings into one of three categories; Grade I, the highest grade, for buildings of “exceptional interest”, Grade II*, the next grade, for buildings of “more than special interest”, and Grade II, the lowest grade, for buildings of “special interest”.[11]
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