The local historian Anthony Dale lived
on the Estate and wrote a pocket-sized 'History' which has
since been updated to the early 1990s. This can be purchased,
price £2, from the office of Jonathan Rolls, agents
for the company Kemp Town Enclosures Limited and a leading
local estate agent.
What follows is just a short summary.
Thomas Kemp owned the land on which the Estate was built
and started what was, for its time, an enormously ambitious
plan to build houses that could accommodate all the servants
and paraphernalia of wealthy families who came to Brighton
for the fashionable summer season. The whole Garden, amounting
to about six acres, was fenced and railed by Kemp in 1823.
Arundel Terrace was built first and was a success, but Kemp
lacked the funds to do more than build the facades of Lewes
Crescent, Sussex Square and Chichester Terrace.
Buyers would build as they pleased behind the uniform facades
(so every house is differently laid out). By the time Kemp
was out of money (and fled to France to escape his creditors)
there was a significant number of wealthy owners already
in place, and they made plans for the Gardens, sharing equally
the expense, as early as 1828.
The Gardens were laid out by Henry Phillips, who also put
in place the tunnel under what is now Marine Parade. Two
cottages were built, for the gardener and the Constable.
The Gardens extended down to the beach. The Constable was
allowed to admit non-residents if they were respectably
dressed.
Throughout the nineteenth century the Gardens were well
used, with summer picnics on the Slopes (south of Marine
Parade), tennis courts and space for croquet in the South
Garden, and the more formal North Garden resembling a London
square. The enormous amount of grass soon required a primitive
mowing machine, which was pulled by a donkey; the proprietors
bought one each spring and sold it in the late autumn.
The 1914-18 war hugely damaged the endowments and spending
power of the leisured classes, and houses began to be divided
into flats. The maintenance was high and Brighton was no
longer the fashionable place to come for the summer season.
Nonetheless, reports of the interwar period tell of carefree
picnics, lots of tennis and a largely unchanged social structure.
The real horror, so far as the Estate was concerned, was
World War Two. Invasion was expected anywhere on the coast
between Dover and Brighton. The Slopes and the southern
half of the South Garden were requisitioned by the Army,
the North Garden by the Fire Service and Arundel Terrace
Garden by the
Admiralty. The Garden railings were taken down for 'the
war effort' but were never used. The redoubtable Mrs Dorothy
Dale, Anthony Dale's mother, used her money and energy to
organise a chestnut paling fence round the much diminished
South Garden. After the war the estate and Gardens were
in sorry shape. It took a long time to arrange the cleaning-up
of the wartime military installations and even longer to
collect the damages from the authorities to enable the Gardens
to be put back into use. The Estate was practically valueless
- whole houses in Lewes Crescent could be bought for £2000
- and the incomes from investments of the former leisured
classes were devastated by inflation. The whole Estate,
valued in 1894 at £500,000, was probably worth less
than £250,000 in the late 1940s. (Today the value
of the Estate is between £150 and £200 million.
These numbers are unadjusted for inflation but show the
huge recovery in values over the past half-century).
Gradually the Gardens were cleaned up, and new railings
(steel rather than cast iron, because of cost) were installed
in the 1960s. The resident population diversified, with
students renting rooms and almost all houses being converted
into flats, but the burden of maintenance was heavy and
houses remained generally undermaintained. As the UK economy
grew in the 1980s and 1990s and Brighton became newly fashionable
for young people and commuters, the standard of maintenance
rose and the Estate and Gardens began, for the first time
since the 1930s, to look worthy of the Grade One listing.
Many families with children moved in. New railings for Arundel
and Chichester Terraces, and some fine gateposts, were funded
by residents with contributions from Brighton Council and
English Heritage. The Gardens returned to their original
status. The Estate was again wealthy enough to pay for really
first-class Gardens by subscriptions from virtually all
the freeholders.
The Gardens have used their new prosperity to catch up
on maintenance and to plant bulbs and plants appropriate
to the seaside location. A big windbreak planted in the
1980s in the south-west corner has greatly helped the Garden
surmount the perennial problem of gale-force south-west
winds. The shape of
trees in the South Garden, all bent from the wind, testifies
to the force of the gales. Other improvements include a
huge barbeque area, a section designed for small children,
and new and repaired seats and tables. The Garden is now
a big contributor to the value of the estate.
