The Old Steine ( /ˈstiːn/ ) is a thoroughfare in Brighton city centre, East Sussex, and is the southern terminus of the A23. The southern end leads to Marine Parade, the Brighton seafront and the Palace Pier. The Old Steine is also the site of a number of City Centre bus stops for Brighton buses. The Royal Pavilion is located immediately to the north of the Old Steine.
The Old Steine was originally an open green with a stream running adjacent to the easternmost dwellings of Brighthelmstone. The area was used by local fishermen to lay out and dry their nets. When Brighton started to become fashionable in the late 18th century, the area became the centre for visitors. Building around the area started in 1760, and railings started to appear around the green area in the 1770s, reducing its size. This continued throughout the 19th century. The eastern lawns of the Royal Pavilion were also originally part of the Old Steine. [1]
Dr. Richard Russell, whose 1750 paper on the health benefits of sea water helped to popularise Brighton, had a house built on the Old Steine in 1759; the site is now occupied by the Royal Albion Hotel. [2]
Maria Fitzherbert lived in Steine House on the west side of the Old Steine from 1804 until her death in 1837. [3]
The word Steine comes from the Old English stoene, meaning "stony place". The name is thought to come from the number of large sarsen stones which once lay in the area. [4] Many of the stones can still be seen at the base of the Steine's Victoria Fountain, where they were placed when it was built in 1823. [5]
Brighton is a seaside town and one of the two main areas of the city of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located 47 miles (76 km) south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods. The ancient settlement of "Brighthelmstone" was documented in the Domesday Book (1086). The town's importance grew in the Middle Ages as the Old Town developed, but it languished in the early modern period, affected by foreign attacks, storms, a suffering economy and a declining population. Brighton began to attract more visitors following improved road transport to London and becoming a boarding point for boats travelling to France. The town also developed in popularity as a health resort for sea bathing as a purported cure for illnesses.
Richard Russell was an 18th-century British physician who encouraged his patients to use a form of water therapy that involved the submersion or bathing in, and drinking of, seawater. The contemporary equivalent of this is thalassotherapy, although the practice of drinking seawater has largely discontinued.
Coldean is a suburb of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Located in the northeast corner of the urban area, it was developed by Brighton Corporation in the 1950s as one of several postwar council estates necessitated by the acute housing shortage in the area after World War II.
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.
Martha Gunn (1726–1815) was possibly the most famous of the "dippers", certainly the most famous in Brighton. She lived at 36 East Street, Brighton, in a house that still stands. Her grave stone stands in St Nicholas' churchyard in Brighton.
St John the Baptist's Church is a Roman Catholic church in the Kemptown area of the English city of Brighton and Hove. It was the first Roman Catholic church built in Brighton after the process of Catholic Emancipation in the early 19th century removed restrictions on Catholic worship. Located on Bristol Road, a main road east of the city centre, it is one of 11 Catholic churches in Brighton and Hove. The Classical-style building, which was funded by Maria Fitzherbert and completed in 1835, has been listed at Grade II* by English Heritage for its architectural and historical importance.
Brighton and Hove City Centre is the commercial and cultural centre of the city of Brighton and Hove. Geographically, the so-called city centre is located in an easterly part of the Brighton and Hove urban conurbation.
There are 24 Grade I listed buildings in the city of Brighton and Hove, England. The city, on the English Channel coast approximately 52 miles (84 km) south of London, was formed as a unitary authority in 1997 by the merger of the neighbouring towns of Brighton and Hove. Queen Elizabeth II granted city status in 2000.
St Stephen's Church is a former Anglican church in the Montpelier area of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. The building, which dates from 1766 in its original incarnation as the ballroom of Brighton's most fashionable Georgian-era inn, has been used for many purposes since then, and now stands 1 mile (1.6 km) away from where it was built. It spent less than 90 years as an Anglican church, and is now used as a centre for homeless people. In view of its architectural and historical importance, it has been listed at Grade II* by English Heritage.
Bristol Road Methodist Church is a former Methodist place of worship in the Kemptown area of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Built in 1873 to an Italian Romanesque Revival design, it served this part of eastern Brighton for more than a century until its closure in 1989, after which it became a recording studio. It is owned by Brighton College, a private school based nearby. The building has been listed at Grade II in view of its architectural importance.
The Royal Albion Hotel is a 3-star hotel, on the corner of Old Steine and Kings Road in Brighton, England. Built on the site of a house belonging to Richard Russell, a local doctor whose advocacy of sea-bathing and seawater drinking helped to make Brighton fashionable in the 18th century, it has been extended several times, although it experienced a period of rundown and closure in the early 20th century. A fire in 1998 caused serious damage, and the hotel was restored. However, another fire in 2023 seriously damaged the building to the extent that demolition of the western part of the building began on 19 July 2023.
Mathematical tiles are tiles which were used extensively as a building material in the southeastern counties of England—especially East Sussex and Kent—in the 18th and early 19th centuries. They were laid on the exterior of timber-framed buildings as an alternative to brickwork, which their appearance closely resembled. A distinctive black variety with a glazed surface was used on many buildings in Brighton from about 1760 onwards, and is considered a characteristic feature of the town's early architecture. Although the brick tax (1784–1850) was formerly thought to have encouraged use of mathematical tiles, in fact the tiles were subject to the same tax.
Steine House is the former residence of Maria Fitzherbert, first wife of the Prince Regent, in the centre of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. The building is now owned and used by Brighton YMCA, the largest supported housing provider in Brighton and Hove. Brighton YMCA houses and resettles 311 homeless people of all ages, providing the best opportunities to empower clients to reach their full potential and achieve their aspirations.
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.
The Bear Road area is a largely residential area in the east of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Centred on the steep west–east road of that name, it is characterised by terraced houses of the early 20th century, but Brighton's main cemeteries were established here in the 19th century and there is also some industry.
Prestonville is a largely residential area in the northwest of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. It covers a long, narrow and steeply sloping ridge of land between the Brighton Main Line and Dyke Road, two major transport corridors which run north-northwestwards from the centre of Brighton. Residential development started in the 1860s and spread northwards, further from central Brighton, over the next six decades. The area is characterised by middle-class and upper-middle-class housing in various styles, small-scale commercial development and long eastward views across the city. Two Anglican churches serve Prestonville—one at each end of the area—and there are several listed buildings.
The English coastal city of Brighton and Hove has a long and varied history of libraries going back over 250 years. Subscription libraries were among the earliest buildings in the resort of Brighton, which developed in the late 18th century; by the 1780s these facilities, which were more like social clubs than conventional book-borrowing venues, were at the heart of the town's social scene. The Brighton Literary Society, its successor the Brighton Royal Literary and Scientific Institution and its rival the Sussex Scientific Institution between them established a "very fine collection" of publications by the mid-19th century, and these books were donated to the town when a public library was founded in 1871. Neighbouring Hove, originally a separate village, established its own public library in 1890.
Brighton and Hove, a city and unitary authority in the English county of East Sussex, has a wide range of public services funded by national government, East Sussex County Council, Brighton and Hove City Council and other public-sector bodies. Revenue to fund these services comes partly from Council Tax, which is paid annually by residents: this tax provides the city council with nearly 20% of its income and also helps to fund the local police force, Sussex Police, and the county's fire service, East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service. Some of Brighton and Hove's utilities and infrastructure are provided by outside parties, such as utility companies, rather than by the city council.