Regency Square conservation area

Please note that this text is an extract from a reference work written in 1990.  As a result, some of the content may not reflect recent research, changes and events.

This outstanding conservation area, which stretches westwards from the Grand Hotel to the borough boundary, was developed principally in the 1810s and ’20s, and contains some of the finest examples of Brighton’s famous Regency architecture. However, the district of around 2,500 people now has many housing problems with its many multiply-occupied houses and bed-sits. The streets of particular interest in the area are detailed below, but see also “Bedford Hotel“, “Grand Hotel“, “King’s Road“, “Lower Esplanade“, “Metropole“, “Norfolk Hotel“, “West Pier“, and “Western Road“.

l) QUEENSBURY MEWS: This service road for the eastern side of Regency Square is now dominated by the Metropole Exhibition Halls, but at the southern end stands the Eglise Prostestante Reformee Francsaise (French Reformed Church), a very small chapel built in red brick by J.G.Gibbins and one of only two such churches in England; the other is in Soho Square, London. The congregation is said to have been founded in about 1550 by the Flemish martyr Deryk Carver, and met at a number of locations including the Union Street Chapel and, from around 1860, the Royal Newburgh Rooms until the permanent church was erected in 1887. The foundation stone was laid by a Mrs Hayes whose house, 18 Montpelier Villas, had also been used by the congregation. Services are conducted by visiting ministers.

Any numerical cross-references in the text above refer to resources in the Sources and Bibliography section of the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder.

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