The Royal Pavilion, and surrounding gardens, also known as the Brighton Pavilion, is a Grade I listed[1] former royal residence located in Brighton, England. Beginning in 1787, it was built in three stages as a seaside retreat for George, Prince of Wales, who became the Prince Regent in 1811, and King George IV in 1820. It is built in the Indo-Saracenic style prevalent in India for most of the 19th century. The current appearance of the Pavilion, with its domes and minarets, is the work of architect John Nash, who extended the building starting in 1815.[2] George IV's successors William IV and Victoria also used the Pavilion, but Queen Victoria decided that Osborne House should be the royal seaside retreat, and the Pavilion was sold to the city of Brighton in 1850.
The Prince of Wales, who later became George IV, first visited Brighton in 1783, at the age of 21. The seaside town had become fashionable as a result of the residence of George's uncle, Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland, whose tastes for fine cuisine, gambling, the theatre, and general fast living the young prince shared, and with whom he lodged in Brighton at Grove House. In addition, the Prince of Wales was advised by his physician that the seawater and fresh air would be beneficial for his gout. In 1786, under a financial cloud with investigations by Parliament for the extravagances incurred in building Carlton House, London, the prince rented a modest, erstwhile farmhouse facing the Old Steine, a grassy area of Brighton used as a promenade by visitors. Remote from the royal court in London, the pavilion was a discreet location for the prince to enjoy private liaisons with his long-time companion, Maria Fitzherbert. The prince had wished to marry her, and did so in secrecy as her Roman Catholic religion prohibited his marrying her under the Royal Marriages Act 1772.
The richly decorated Banqueting Room at the Royal Pavilion, from John Nash's Views of the Royal Pavilion (1826)The ceiling of the Music Room at the Royal PavilionGrand Saloon at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton from John Nash's Views of the Royal Pavilion (1826)
In 1787, the prince commissioned the designer of Carlton House, Henry Holland, to enlarge the existing building. It became one wing of the Marine Pavilion, flanking a central rotunda, which contained three main rooms: a breakfast room, dining room, and library, fitted out in Holland's French-influenced neoclassical style, with decorative paintings by Biagio Rebecca. In 1801–02, the pavilion was enlarged with a new dining room and conservatory, to designs of Peter Frederick Robinson, who worked in Holland's office. The Prince also purchased land surrounding the property, on which a grand riding school and stables were built in an Indian style in 1803–08, to designs by William Porden, along with a famous onion garden to feed the Prince's well-known addiction. These provided stabling for 60 horses and dwarfed the Marine Pavilion.[3]
Between 1815 and 1822, the designer John Nash redesigned and greatly extended the pavilion, and it is his work that is still visible today.[4] The palace is striking in the middle of Brighton, for its unique Indo-Islamic exterior. The fanciful interior design, primarily by Frederick Crace and the little-known decorative painter Robert Jones, was heavily influenced by both Chinese and Indian fashion (with Mughal and Islamicarchitectural elements). It is a prime example of the exoticism that was an alternative to more classicising mainstream taste in the Regency style.
Purchase by Brighton
The Royal Pavilion at dusk
After the death of George IV in 1830, his successor William IV also stayed in the pavilion on his frequent visits to Brighton. Queen Victoria, however, disliked Brighton and the lack of privacy at the pavilion. Brighton became accessible to Londoners by rail in 1841, increasing its popularity with the masses. In addition, the pavilion was cramped for her growing family. Famously, Queen Victoria disliked the constant attention she attracted in Brighton, saying "the people here are very indiscreet and troublesome".[5]
An Act to enable the Commissioners acting under an Act passed in the Sixth Year of the Reign of His late Majesty King George the Fourth, for better regulating, paving, improving, and managing the Town of Brighthelmston in the County of Sussex, and the Poor thereof, to purchase, improve, and manage the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, and the Grounds thereof, and to enlarge, extend, and apply the Powers and Provisions of the same Act with reference thereto.
She purchased an estate and land that was redeveloped for Osborne House in the Isle of Wight, which became the summer home of the royal family. After her last visit to Brighton in 1845, the government planned to sell the building and grounds. The Brighton Improvement Commissioners and the Brighton Vestry successfully petitioned the government to sell the Pavilion to the town for £53,000 in 1850 under the Brighton Improvement (Purchase of the Royal Pavilion and Grounds) Act 1850 (13 & 14 Vict. c. v).[6] The sale helped fund furnishing of Osborne House.
In 1860, the adjacent royal stables were converted to a concert hall, now known as the Brighton Dome. The town used the building as assembly rooms. Many of the Pavilion's original fixtures and fittings were removed on the order of the royal household at the time of the sale, most ending up either in Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle. In the late 1860s, Queen Victoria returned to Brighton large quantities of unused fittings. George V and Queen Mary returned more furnishings after the First World War.
Since the end of the Second World War, the municipality of Brighton has worked to restore the Pavilion to its state at the time of King George IV. The city was encouraged in the 1950s by the permanent loan of over 100 items of furniture from Queen Elizabeth II. It has undertaken an extensive programme of restoring the rooms, reinstating stud walls, and creating replicas of some original fittings and occasionally pieces of furniture.
In 2020, management and operation of the Royal Pavilion & Museums' buildings and collections were transferred from Brighton & Hove City Council to a new charity: the Royal Pavilion & Museums Trust.[7][8]
During the First World War, the Pavilion, along with other sites in Brighton, was transformed into a military hospital.[9] From December 1914 to January 1916, sick and wounded soldiers from the Indian Army were treated in the former palace. Many Indian recipients of the Victoria Cross were treated here such as Khudadad Khan, Shahamad Khan and Mir Dast. The Pavilion hospital also incorporated the adjacent Dome and Corn Exchange; these buildings had formerly been part of the large stable complex associated with the residence.
The Pavilion hospital was set up with two operating theatres and over 720 beds. Over 2,300 men from the Indian Army were treated at the hospital. Elaborate arrangements were made to cater for the patients' variety of religious and cultural needs. Nine different kitchens were set up in the grounds of the hospital, so that food could be cooked by the soldiers' fellow caste members and co-religionists. Muslim soldiers were given space on the eastern lawns to pray facing towards Mecca, while Sikh soldiers were provided with a tented gurdwara in the grounds.[10]
The imperial government highlighted the Pavilion as showing that wounded countrymen of British India were being well treated. With the official sanction of the state, a series of photographs were made to show the resplendent rooms converted into hospital wards.[11] The soldiers were visited by Lord Kitchener in July 1915, and King George V in August of the same year, who presented several soldiers such as Mir Dast with military honours.
The military hospital for Indian soldiers closed at the end of January 1916 after most of the British Indian Army had been withdrawn from the Western Front in France and redeployed to the Middle East.
The Pavilion reopened as a hospital in April 1916. It became a hospital for 'limbless men,' treating British soldiers who had lost arms and legs, usually from amputation. In addition to treating the men's physical needs, a great emphasis was placed on rehabilitating the men by training them in skills and trades. The Pavilion hospital operated until the summer of 1920, when the building was returned to Brighton Corporation.
A new gateway in Indian style was unveiled in 1921 by the Maharaja of Patiala to commemorate the Pavilion's role in treating injured Indian soldiers during the war.[12]
Tourism
The purchase of the Royal Pavilion from Queen Victoria, by Brighton, marked the beginnings of the site's attraction as a tourist destination. The Royal Pavilion has been changed from a private residence to a public attraction under civic ownership. Today, around 400,000 people visit the Royal Pavilion annually. General filming and photography are permitted inside the Royal Pavilion.[13] Many of the items in the palace are on loan, in particular from HM The King.[14]
The Royal Pavilion Garden, in the Pavilion's grounds, has a wide variety of plants, having been restored to Nash's original Regency vision. It is said to be the only fully restored Regency garden in the UK. The garden is maintained using only organic methods by the Trust's garden team led by a Head gardener and including volunteers.[17]
The garden is often used by street entertainers, especially in summer. There is also a café in the garden.[18]
The garden is Grade II listed in the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.[19]Historic England deemed the garden 'at risk' in October 2017 due to its original character being blighted and overshadowed by unsightly fencing, litter bins, signage and lighting etc.[20] Brighton and Hove City Council opened a public consultation on the future of the gardens after they were put on Historic England's "At Risk" register. A list of over 20,000 crimes and anti-social behaviour incidents (including indecent sexual behaviour and drug abuse) that had taken place at the gardens had been reported to the city council in 2017, raising the possibility of fencing off the gardens and closing them at night.[21]
Osborne House is a former royal residence in East Cowes, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom. The house was built between 1845 and 1851 for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as a summer home and rural retreat. Albert designed the house himself, in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo. The builder was Thomas Cubitt, the London architect and builder whose company built the main facade of Buckingham Palace for the royal couple in 1847. An earlier smaller house on the Osborne site was demolished to make way for the new and far larger house, though the original entrance portico survives as the main gateway to the walled garden.
Frogmore is an estate within the Home Park, adjoining Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, England. It comprises 33 acres (130,000 m2), of primarily private gardens managed by the Crown Estate. It is the location of Frogmore House, a royal retreat, and Frogmore Cottage. The name derives from the preponderance of frogs which have always lived in this low-lying and marshy area near the River Thames. This area is part of the local flood plain. Its large landscaped gardens are Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Regency architecture encompasses classical buildings built in the United Kingdom during the Regency era in the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent, and also to earlier and later buildings following the same style. The period coincides with the Biedermeier style in the German-speaking lands, Federal style in the United States and the French Empire style. Regency style is also applied to interior design and decorative arts of the period, typified by elegant furniture and vertically striped wallpaper, and to styles of clothing; for men, as typified by the dandy Beau Brummell and for women the Empire silhouette.
Marlborough House is a mansion at 54, Old Steine, Brighton on the south coast of England. It is a Grade I listed building. Initially it was built for Samuel Shergold in the 1760s. It was sold to its second owner, 4th Duke of Marlborough, in 1786 it was bought by William G. Hamilton and altered to a neoclassical house by Robert Adam. After being owned by the Brighton School Board and Brighton and Hove City Council, it was sold to a local businessman in 1999. Since then, the building has stood empty and original features have been destroyed, leading to several courtcases. Marlborough House in Brighton is the second most important historic property after the Royal Pavilion.
The history of Brighton is that of an ancient fishing village which emerged as a health resort in the 18th century and grew into one of the largest towns in England by the 20th century.
The Brighton Dome is an arts venue in Brighton, England, that contains the Concert Hall, the Corn Exchange and the Studio Theatre. All three venues are linked to the rest of the Royal Pavilion Estate by a tunnel to the Royal Pavilion in Pavilion Gardens and through shared corridors to Brighton Museum. The Brighton Dome is a Grade I listed building.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery is a municipally-owned public museum and art gallery in the city of Brighton and Hove in the South East of England. It is part of Brighton & Hove Museums. It costs £9 for a yearly pass, discounted to £6.75 for Brighton and Hove residents and students at local universities.
The Chattri is a war memorial in the English city of Brighton and Hove. It is sited 500 feet (150 m) above the city on the South Downs above the suburb of Patcham, and is accessible only by bridleway. It stands on the site where 53 Indian soldiers who fought for the British Empire were cremated during the First World War. The structure has Grade II listed status, reflecting its architectural and historic importance. In 2017, as part of the 100th anniversary of World War I, the site of the Chattri was dedicated as a Fields in Trust Centenary Field because of its local heritage and significance.
Amon Henry Wilds was an English architect. He was part of a team of three architects and builders who—working together or independently at different times—were almost solely responsible for a surge in residential construction and development in early 19th-century Brighton, which until then had been a small but increasingly fashionable seaside resort on the East Sussex coast. In the 1820s, when Wilds, his father Amon Wilds and Charles Busby were at their most active, nearly 4,000 new houses were built, along with many hotels, churches and venues for socialising; most of these still survive, giving Brighton a distinctive Regency-era character, and many are listed buildings.
The Clock Tower is a free-standing clock tower in the centre of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Built in 1888 in commemoration of the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria, the distinctive structure included innovative structural features and became a landmark in the popular and fashionable seaside resort. The city's residents "retain a nostalgic affection" for it, even though opinion is sharply divided as to the tower's architectural merit. English Heritage has listed the clock tower at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
The former French Convalescent Home was a seafront sanatorium and rest home built in Brighton, part of the English seaside city of Brighton and Hove, on behalf of the French government. It received patients from the French Hospital in London and served as a home for elderly French nationals. It was sold for redevelopment in 1999 and was briefly threatened with demolition; but English Heritage listed the building at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance, and it was converted into flats. The unusual château-style French Renaissance Revival building has been criticised as "dreary" and "gauche", but is believed to be unique in England and demonstrated innovation in its use of double glazing.
The Western Pavilion is an exotically designed early 19th-century house in the centre of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Local architect Amon Henry Wilds, one of the most important figures in Brighton's development from modest fishing village to fashionable seaside resort, built the distinctive two-storey house between 1827 and 1828 as his own residence, and incorporated many inventive details while paying homage to the Royal Pavilion, Brighton's most famous and distinctive building. Although the house has been altered and a shopfront inserted, it is still in residential use, and has been listed at Grade II* by English Heritage for its architectural and historical importance.
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 (8,270 ha) geographical area is classed as built up.
Preston Manor is the former manor house of the ancient Sussex village of Preston, now part of the coastal city of Brighton and Hove, England. The present building dates mostly from 1738, when Lord of the manor Thomas Western rebuilt the original 13th-century structure, and 1905 when Charles Stanley Peach's renovation and enlargement gave the house its current appearance. The manor house passed through several owners, including the Stanfords—reputedly the richest family in Sussex—after several centuries of ownership by the Diocese of Chichester and a period in which it was Crown property.
Clayton & Black were a firm of architects and surveyors from Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. In a career spanning the Victorian, Edwardian and interwar eras, they were responsible for designing and constructing an eclectic range of buildings in the growing town of Brighton and its neighbour Hove. Their work encompassed new residential, commercial, industrial and civic buildings, shopping arcades, churches, schools, cinemas and pubs, and alterations to hotels and other buildings. Later reconstituted as Clayton, Black & Daviel, the company designed some churches in the postwar period.
The Old Steine Gardens in Brighton, Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, adjacent to the Old Steine thoroughfare, are the site of several monuments of national historic significance.
The Royal Pavilion Tavern, commonly known as the Pavilion Tavern or Pav Tav and since February 2022 as The Fitz Regent, is a pub in the centre of Brighton, part of the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. Converted from a house into the Royal Pavilion Hotel in the early 19th century, its original role soon changed from a hotel to a pub, in which guise it remained until its closure in September 2019. It reopened under its new name, but still in the ownership of the Mitchells & Butlers chain, on 13 February 2022. The building was also used as a court for several years early in its history, and prominent local architect Amon Henry Wilds was responsible for its redesign as a hotel and inn. English Heritage has listed the building at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance, and it stands within a conservation area.
2–3 Pavilion Buildings in Brighton is a former office building which has been converted into a bar. It was constructed in 1934 as the new head office of the Brighton & Hove Herald, a "leading provincial weekly" newspaper serving the borough and seaside resort of Brighton and its neighbour Hove in southeast England. The Neo-Georgian offices were built to the design of prolific local architect John Leopold Denman and feature decorative carvings by Joseph Cribb. After production of the Herald ceased in the 1970s, the building was used by an insurance company and then as a bar. A firm of insolvency practitioners also occupies part of the premises. Vestigial remains of the neighbouring Royal Pavilion's guest bedrooms were incorporated into the building's rear elevation. The building is on Brighton and Hove City Council's Local List of Heritage Assets and is in a conservation area.
The Brighton Herald was a weekly newspaper covering the boroughs of Brighton and Hove in southeast England. Founded in 1806 as the first newspaper in the fashionable seaside resort of Brighton, it survived until 1971 and was one of England's "leading provincial weekly" newspapers—being the first publication in the country to report several important international events, such as Napoleon's escape and the start of the July Revolution. Based in the centre of Brighton throughout its 165-year existence, it moved in 1934 to new premises at Pavilion Buildings, near the Royal Pavilion.
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