Steine House | |
---|---|
![]() The building from the southeast | |
Location | 55 Old Steine, Brighton, Brighton and Hove, East Sussex BN1 1NX, United Kingdom |
Coordinates | 50°49′16″N0°08′18″W / 50.8212°N 0.1384°W |
Built | 1804 |
Built for | Maria Fitzherbert |
Architect | William Porden |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
Official name | Steine House and attached walls, piers and railings, 55 Old Steine |
Designated | 13 October 1952 |
Reference no. | 1380672 |
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.
Designed in 1804 by William Porden, who was the architect of many buildings on the Prince's Royal Pavilion estate and notably of the Royal Pavilion gardens, it was used by Fitzherbert until her death 33 years later. Porden's designs of Steine House were exhibited at the Royal Academy at the time, together with the designs of the Royal Pavilion. In 1870, Brighton YMCA was founded and started to provide accommodation from Steine House for single people such as servicemen and apprentices. In 1884, Brighton YMCA bought the building outright and continue to use it to this day.
An accidental fire in 2009 caused extensive damage, but Steine House was renovated and its purpose, to house formerly homeless people, maintained. Since 2012, the organisation's Registered Office is at Steine House, whilst a separate part of the building offers self-contained housing to 12 clients with support needs.
Alterations to the building have reduced its architectural importance, but Steine House has been listed at Grade II by English Heritage for its historical connections.
The Prince Regent (later King George IV) was one of the earliest and most important regular visitors to Brighton in its early years as a resort. It was transformed from a small fishing village after about 1750 when sea-bathing and drinking seawater became fashionable and popular, on the advice of influential local doctor Richard Russell. [1] [2] The Prince's first visit to the town, in 1783 at the age of 21, lasted 11 days and attracted thousands of people eager to see both him and the sights which had attracted him. [3] The following year, he stayed for ten weeks of the summer to take the water cure. He visited again in 1785—the same year as he met and fell in love with Maria Fitzherbert, a widowed Roman Catholic. They married (illegally, against the provisions of the Royal Marriages Act 1772) in December 1785, and she first visited Brighton the following year. [4] [5] At first, she stayed in a house whose site is believed to be near the present North Gate of the Royal Pavilion; [4] [6] a terrace of nine houses, Marlborough Row, existed there until 1820, when all but one were demolished when the Royal Pavilion estate was redeveloped. (The surviving house, number 8, is now called North Gate House and stands alongside the North Gate.) [7] Even when the Royal Pavilion, the Prince's Brighton residence, was completed in 1787, the couple never stayed in the same house together. Under pressure to undertake a legal marriage to produce an heir, they divorced in 1794 and the Prince married Caroline of Brunswick; but they soon separated, and in June 1800 Mrs Fitzherbert and the Prince were reunited. [4] [8]
The royal couple sought a site for a permanent home for Mrs Fitzherbert, and in 1804 she commissioned the Prince's favoured architect [9] William Porden to design and build a house on the west side of Old Steine, next to Marlborough House, to replace a Mr Tuppen's lodging house. [10] His design included a large colonnade across the front in an Egyptian style; this only lasted until the next year, when a storm destroyed it. He redesigned the façade in the Italianate style instead, with verandahs on both storeys. [9] [11] Maria Fitzherbert lived at Steine House until her death on 27 March 1837, after which she was buried at St John the Baptist's Church, Brighton's oldest surviving Roman Catholic church. [8] Throughout her life in Brighton, she was treated extremely well by high society (statesman and writer John Wilson Croker remarked that "one reason why she may like this place is that she is treated as queen, at least of Brighton"), [8] and for the first few decades of the 19th century Steine House was the second most important house in Brighton after the Royal Pavilion. [10]
Steine House passed through several private owners after 1837, and finally passed out of residential use in the early 1860s when William Forder, a judge, sold it. At this time, a blocked staircase was discovered leading down from the cellar; false rumours abounded that a secret tunnel had been built between the house and the Royal Pavilion, and that the staircase led to this tunnel. It is considered more likely that the stairs gave access to Brighton's sewer network. [12] The building was converted into the Civil and United Services Club, a social club, which required major internal renovations; [9] these were completed in 1864. [13] [14]
In 1884, the building was bought by Brighton YMCA. [9] [14] In 1927, they carried out a major reconstruction: the building was used as a hostel for vulnerable men, and more bedrooms were added; [9] the exterior was rebuilt, removing the verandas and balconies; [15] and all remaining internal features except a petal shaped coving in the second floor lounge were removed or altered. [9] [10] [14]
Steine House survived an attempt in 1964 to demolish it and replace it with offices, shops and a showroom. It is still owned by Brighton YMCA, and hosts the organisation's Registered Office, whilst still offering housing in 12 newly developed flats. In July 2009, the building was badly damaged by fire, and its residents had to be temporarily rehoused; it was soon restored. [16]
Steine House was listed at Grade II by English Heritage on 13 October 1952. [14] This status is given to "nationally important buildings of special interest". [17] As of February 2001, it was one of 1,124 Grade II-listed buildings and structures, and 1,218 listed buildings of all grades, in the city of Brighton and Hove. [18] The listing has been granted on the basis of the building's historical worth. [9]
Since 1870, Steine House has been providing housing and support to formerly homeless people of Brighton and Hove.
At present, Steine House offers self-contained housing to 12 people, thus making their transition to independent living much easier and more sustainable.
From a separate part of the building, Brighton YMCA's Head Office staff operate. The organisation aims to provide a caring, supportive and rehabilitative environment to all clients, so that they can achieve their full potential and maximise their independence. Among the innovative services Brighton YMCA offers there are: a free Counselling service available to all clients, a fully accredited, accessible city-wide Life Skills Centre, a Work and Learning hub offering employment, volunteering and training support as well as a separate building offering female-only housing.
The work done to Steine House in 1927 changed its original appearance. It now presents a façade of white-painted brick with some stucco work. The roof is modern and in the mansard style. The building has two storeys. [14]
The façade, facing east on to Old Steine, was partly set forward during the 1927 work, and dates solely from that time. [9] There are three straight-headed windows to the upper storey, and two flanking the entrance porch. The corners of the porch have pilasters topped with spheres. The ground-floor windows have small corbels underneath them and architraves above. The windows on the upper floor open out on to a balcony which is formed by the top of the projecting ground floor; this has four short piers with ironwork between them. The top floor is an attic with a single centrally placed dormer window. [14]
Inside, partly surviving, but without its original walls, is Maria Fitzherbert's oval-shaped private chapel on the first floor. [10] There is petal shaped coving in the second floor lounge. No other original interior features are still in place. [13]
The Royal Pavilion, and surrounding gardens, also known as the Brighton Pavilion, is a Grade I listed 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. 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.
William Porden was a versatile English architect who worked for the 1st Earl Grosvenor and the Prince Regent.
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.
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.
There are 72 Grade II* 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.
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.
Royal Crescent is a crescent-shaped terrace of houses on the seafront in Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Built in the late 18th and early 19th century as a speculative development on the open cliffs east of Brighton by a wealthy merchant, the 14 lodging houses formed the town's eastern boundary until about 1820. It was the seaside resort's first planned architectural composition, and the first built intentionally to face the sea. The variety of building materials used include black glazed mathematical tiles—a characteristic feature of Brighton's 18th-century architecture. English Heritage has listed the crescent at Grade II* for its architectural and historical importance. An adjacent five-storey building, formerly the Royal Crescent Hotel but now converted into flats with the name Royal Crescent Mansions, is listed separately at Grade II.
9 Pool Valley is a late 18th-century house and shop in the centre of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Built as a bakery and shop for a local family, with two floors of living accommodation above, it later passed to another Brighton family who kept up the baking tradition until the mid-20th century. Since then it has had various commercial uses. Described as "one of the most famous surviving early buildings" in Brighton and "a charming relic", the exterior is clad in distinctive black glazed mathematical tiles. English Heritage has listed it at Grade II* for its architectural and historical importance.Between 2006 and 2008 the building was home to the Heckler and Kock Krew, elite Counter Strike players, who designated the attic space as a "tech cupboard". This housed some of the most advanced home networking technology in South East Sussex as well as a keyboard where the keys were actually lasers, like actually just light from lasers and not real keys. A small tree frog named Alan lived a short and sad life in the top floor during the latter half of 2007 and died from neglect.
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.
Park Crescent is a mid-19th-century residential development in the Round Hill area of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. The horseshoe-shaped, three-part terrace of 48 houses was designed and built by one of Brighton's most important architects, Amon Henry Wilds; by the time work started in 1849 he had 35 years' experience in the town. Wilds used the Italianate style rather than his more common Regency motifs. Three houses were replaced after the Second World War because of bomb damage, and another was the scene of one of Brighton's notorious "trunk murders" of the 1930s. The three parts of the terrace, which encircle a private garden formerly a pleasure ground and cricket pitch, have been listed at Grade II* by English Heritage for their 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.
Montpelier Crescent is a mid 19th-century crescent of 38 houses in the Montpelier suburb of the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. Built in five parts as a set-piece residential development in the rapidly growing seaside resort, the main part of the crescent was designed between 1843 and 1847 by prominent local architect Amon Henry Wilds and is one of his most distinctive compositions. Extra houses were added at both ends of the crescent in the mid-1850s. Unlike most other squares, terraces and crescents in Brighton, it does not face the sea—and the view it originally had towards the South Downs was blocked within a few years by a tall terrace of houses opposite. Montpelier was an exclusive and "salubrious" area of Brighton, and Montpelier Crescent has been called its "great showpiece". Wilds's central section has been protected as Grade II* listed, with the later additions listed separately at the lower Grade II. The crescent is in one of the city's 34 conservation areas, and forms one of several "outstanding examples of late Regency architecture" within it.
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 King and Queen is a pub in the seaside resort of Brighton, part of the city of Brighton and Hove. The present building, a "striking" architectural "pantomime" by the prolific local firm Clayton & Black, dates from the 1930s, but a pub of this name has stood on the site since 1860—making it one of the first developments beyond the boundaries of the ancient village. This 18th-century pub was, in turn, converted from a former farmhouse. Built using materials characteristic of 16th-century Vernacular architecture, the pub is in the Mock Tudor style and has a wide range of extravagant decorative features inside and outside—contrasting with the simple design of the neighbouring offices at 20–22 Marlborough Place, designed a year later. English Heritage has listed the pub at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
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.
Adelaide Crescent is a mid-19th-century residential development in Hove, part of the English city and seaside resort of Brighton and Hove. Conceived as an ambitious attempt to rival the large, high-class Kemp Town estate east of Brighton, the crescent was not built to its original plan because time and money were insufficient. Nevertheless, together with its northerly neighbour Palmeira Square, it forms one of Hove's most important architectural set-pieces. Building work started in 1830 to the design of Decimus Burton. The adjacent land was originally occupied by "the world's largest conservatory", the Anthaeum; its collapse stopped construction of the crescent, which did not resume until the 1850s. The original design was modified and the crescent was eventually finished in the mid-1860s. Together with the Kemp Town and Brunswick Town estates, the crescent is one of the foremost pre-Victorian residential developments in the Brighton area: it has been claimed that "outside Bath, [they] have no superior in England". The buildings in the main part of Adelaide Crescent are Grade II* listed. Some of the associated buildings at the sea-facing south end are listed at the lower Grade II.
Gothic House is a Gothic-style building in the centre of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Although it has been in commercial use for more than a century, it retains some of its original appearance as "one of the most fascinating houses" built by the prolific partnership of Amon Henry Wilds and Charles Busby. It is the only Gothic Revival building they are known to have designed: they typically adopted the Regency style, sometimes with Classical or Italianate touches. The building is Grade II listed.
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.
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.
As of February 2001, there were 1,124 listed buildings with Grade II status in the English city of Brighton and Hove. The total at 2009 was similar. 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.