Lead researcher - David Jackson
Introduction
Gardner Street today is a busy, commercial thoroughfare comprised of mainly three storey terraces, it is approximately 150 yards long and runs roughly north-south from North Road to Church Street in the south.
The buildings on the west side of the street are numbered Brighton style from 2 in the south up to 28 in the premises adjoining The Dorset pub in North Road. On the eastern side they start with 32A (adjoining Infinity Foods) and stretch southwards down to 56, close to the junction with Church Street.
Gardner Street is accessible to vehicles as a one-way street during the week but traffic is relatively light, a consequence, probably an intended consequence, of the labyrinthine North Laine road system. On most days the wide pavements are thronged with visitors and shoppers, for Gardner Street now is a street entirely given over to retail.
Numbers 1 and 57 may have disappeared but otherwise at ground floor level there is nothing but cafes, restaurants and shops. At the time of writing a few shops were empty but there are still approximately fifty functioning businesses in the street, encompassing a wide and eclectic range of goods and services. Of those fifty businesses, sixteen may be described as selling mainly clothes and shoes (ranging from mainstream to niche) and another twelve are cafes serving everything from milkshakes to latkes and burgers to organic tofu. The adjectives frequently applied to the North Laine area: 'vibrant', 'alternative', 'trendy' are somewhat overused but there is certainly some truth in applying them specifically to Gardner Street.(1)
Apart from the mainstream businesses there are the more esoteric establishments: a vegetarian shoe shop, a shop selling Alice-in-Wonderland memorabilia, an erotic accessories boutique, a body piercing shop, a comedy club and venue. All contribute to the rich mix that is Gardner Street today.
But what of the past?
Gardner Street (or Gardener Street as it was known in its early years) has a history stretching back over 200 years. One of the remarkable facts about the street is that most of its 19th century building is still intact, unlike the nearby and totally redeveloped Regent Street and Tichborne Street.
The only new (i.e. late 20th Century) buildings are to be found on the East side of the street where numbers 44 – 47 once stood. These buildings were demolished for a Tesco development in the 1970s. When Tesco moved away, the site was occupied by The Jubilee Shopping Hall and is now the home of the Komedia comedy and music venue.
The Tesco Development in the 1970’s
The Jubilee Shopping Hall. The number of For Sale
& To Let signs suggest the economic turbulence of the time.
Komedia Today
It is tantalizing to look at these buildings now and speculate about the life that enfolded there. What was life like for those people from the past who lived and worked in the street? What was it like 50 years ago? 100 years ago? 200 years ago? What was there before the street existed? Has it always been a shopping street and how has the street coped and changed during its 200 year journey through time?
This history will address and try to answer some of these questions. The story may be incomplete but it is a compelling one.
In 1801 the population of Brighton was 7,739 - little more than a large village. The population of Gardener Street was nil – it simply didn’t exist! Where the street was to be built was open land, part of the Home Furlong of the enormous open field known as North Laine.
By 1851 Brighton’s population had leapt to 65,569 and the town had grown to be the 15th largest in the whole of England and Wales.(2) In that same year of 1851 on the 30th March - the day that the census was taken - there were 477 men, women and children living in Gardener Street.
These statistics suggest how the development and growth of the Street should be seen in the context of the population explosion that Brighton experienced in the first half of the 19th century. Indeed one may go further and argue that the Street’s development and growth was shaped and driven by that population explosion.
The terrier (land survey) of 1792 reveals a street plan for "Brighthelmston" little changed since mediaeval times. Most building was still contained inside the old boundaries formed by East Street, North Street and West Street. Beyond those boundaries lay the five great open arable fields known in this locality as Laines. One of the largest was North Laine and what was to become Gardener Street was situated in the "Home or First Furlong" of North Laine.
1792 plan of Brighthelmston showing
the North Laine and its “Home” or First Furlong.
Development
Land ownership in the North Laine was on the old mediaeval pattern of narrow strips of land known as paul pieces. Another map of the time indicated ownership of these paul pieces within the First Furlong. The first Furlong consisted of 255 paul pieces arranged in 56 narrow strips with ownership divided unequally between 12 land owners.
Map of First Furlong showing ownership of
the 56 narrow strips of land.
N.B. The pointed end should face west!
There are familiar names amongst those owners: The Duke of Dorset, Thos. Kemp, Nathaniel Kemp, Thos. Scutts and so on. It is difficult but possible to work out from the map who owned the land at the time of (or shortly before) the development of Gardener Street. The detective work will be found in the next section.
The furlongs were separated by east-west link roads originally known as leakways and all the streets in the first furlong were built between the leakways of Church Street and North Road (originally and slightly confusingly known as North Lane).
These narrow streets follow the same south-north line as the narrow strips of land that were being bought and sold in the latter years of the 18th and early years of the 19th century. The other first furlong streets: Jubilee Street, Orange Row, Regent Street, Pimlico, Bread Street and Spring Gardens have either vanished - demolished as part of Victorian slum clearance schemes - or have been redeveloped beyond recognition in the 20th century. Indeed some of them are just names - echoes of a long gone past but the Georgian terraces of Gardener Street are for the most part still intact.
Thomas Furner: The “Gardener”
The early development of Gardner Street is very much the story of Thomas Furner.
Sue Berry in her excellent book Georgian Brighton asserts that the building of Gardener Street was underway by 1806 on land bought by Thomas Furner, a 'gardener'.(3) However a map of 1799 marks the rectangular Furner’s Garden (presumably a market garden) as being further to the south, located roughly between what is now Bond Street and New Road. The Brighthelmston Directory for 1800 (edited by Edward Cobby) lists under Tradesmen: "Furner John & Thomas Gardeners. 95 North Street". So the market garden – sublet by Quaker Leaseholders – seems to have been run jointly by the Furner brothers but it was Thomas Furner who bought the land to the north of Church Street that was to be developed as part of Gardener Street. An abstract of the title confirms that on the 28th October 1806, a Richard Buckoll "did surrender" to Thomas Furner "4 pauls of land on the west side of Regent Street", that is the east side of what was to become Gardener Street.(4)
For a century or more, that Buckoll parcel of land had been passed on from one generation of family to the next, until in 1806, Thomas Furner bought it. An entrepreneur, he could see that the agricultural land in the first furlong - closest to the town - was ripe for development.
So building had begun by 1806 and within a couple of decades both sides of Gardener Street were built. There is a surviving map of Brighton in 1825 – "delineated from actual surveys made in the year 1824-25" that marks clearly the west side of Gardener Street complete in its entirety from south to north.
The development on the east side was not quite complete - there is a gap at the southern, Church Street, end corresponding with where eventually numbers 56 to 58 would be. So it may be concluded that well before Victoria came to the throne in 1837, the mainly Georgian terraces of Gardener Street were complete.
Ownership Patterns
There is a plethora of information about who lived and worked in Gardner Street but it is much harder to ascertain who actually owned the property. However the evidence does exist to show that Thomas Furner – almost certainly the eponymous 'gardener'– owned much of the east side of the street.
In Boore's Directory of 1822, Thomas Furner, now of Regent Street, described his occupation as "Builder & Carpenter"suggesting that he was a very 'hands-on' kind of property developer.
His Will indicated that by the time of his death in 1835 he had become a man of considerable property and wealth. He had moved to Cuckfield and in the Will, declared on the 13th March, he divided his large and extensive property portfolio, including 38, 53 and 54 Gardener Street (all three on the east side) between his various sons and daughters.(5)
Further evidence of the extent of Furner's property ownership is revealed in a document from January 1858. In that year Brighton Corporation acquired, for road widening purchases, numbers 29 & 30 Gardner Street from a James Attree and number 31 from William Barnard and the deeds of all these properties indicate that Thomas Furner was the first owner.(6)
Putting this evidence together it is not unreasonable to extrapolate that in the early decades of the 19th century Thomas Furner owned all of the properties on the east side of Gardner Street.
Notables
Swan Downer: a Brighton Institution
Any history of the first 50 years of Gardener Street would be incomplete without the story of the Swan Downer Charity School for Girls. Swan Downer, a Brightonian with an extraordinary name, was a Protestant dissenter who, we are told in Baxter’s Directory of 1822, made a fortune by trade in London and in his will bequeathed the sum of £7,100 for the establishment of a 'Charity School for Girls'.
Perhaps he picked up the idea from the London Ragged Schools that were springing up from the late 18th century onwards. There is some doubt about when Downer's school first opened: it may have been 1816; it may have been 1819 but his will originally envisaged the educating and clothing of 20 girls.
In fact the endowment was so generous that having "erected a commodious School House" at 12 Gardener Street, by 1822 50 girls annually were being provided for. The school continued in Gardener Street for almost 50 years until 1867 when new premises were built in Dyke Road.
Generous as the endowment was, the Gardner Street Swan Downer School was not without its problems, as indicated by the official Schools Report of 1844. The report contained strong complaints concerning the school’s physical inadequacies: it was too small and “cramped”, the School Mistress’s room had no window and the landlord provided no water. Worse than this were the moral objections. “Gardner Street is a respectable street yet the street in the rear called Orange Row is objectionable. The west windows cannot be opened without the risk of hearing oaths and indecent language and it is well known that certain notorious houses were opened in the immediate vicinage of the school.” Because of the poor ventilation, windows at the back of the house had to be opened in the summer with the result that “the ears and eyes of the children as well as those of female visitors are continually offended with evil language.” This report is very revealing about the Victorian North Laine, not least that “respectable” Gardner Street saw itself as being in the moral front line.
12 Gardner Street - The Swan Downer School in 1820
(Brighton Museums)
This watercolour of the School painted by William Alfred Delamotte in about 1820 suggests that it was quite an elegant building in an otherwise functional street. In its later reincarnation it became The Sussex Arms public house and now it is The Vegetarian Shoe Shop.
12 Gardner Street - in its later reincarnation as The Sussex Arms;
Swan Downer Plaque still visible. (James Gray Collection)
12 Gardner Street - today as Vegetarian Shoes;
Top of Swan Downer Plaque still visible 200 years later
Another notable feature of this relatively short street is that for much of its life it supported four public houses. The oldest was the Dorset Arms which was there from the 1820’s at number 28 and is still in business today as 'The Dorset'. According to the census of 1871 number 28 (and 29, 30 & 31) was "knocked down for street development" so The Dorset Arms moved round the corner and was re-addressed as 28 North Street. The Harpat number 18 was in business from the 1850’s to the 1950’s and The Sussex Arms – as already mentioned - served beer at number 12 from the 1850’s to the 1960’s. The Corporation at number 4 had the shortest life span from the 1870’s through to the very early years of the 20th century.
Residents
The rich and famous did not live in back-street Brighton, but notable people certainly did.
Many individuals and families lived and worked in Gardner Street for decade after decade and must have been well known in their locality. The lives of some of these are described in the next section.
There were however two other individuals from the 19th century worthy of mention although neither lived in the street for long. Back in the very early times of 1822 most of the people working in Gardner Street were in the business of food provision but there was also a bookbinder, a surveyor and more intriguingly a Mr R Spellerberg living at number 53 who described his occupation as Musician to the King.
We know nothing of Mr Spellerberg, although his name suggests that, like his patron’s family, he may originally have come from a German principality. In that year the Prince Regent had become George IV and the newly built Pavilion was only a couple of hundred yards away. It is tempting to guess that Mr Spellerberg was just two or three minutes walk from his place of work.
Folthorpe's Directory of 1848 tells us that living at number 33 was a Watch & Clock Maker with a famous name: Magnus Volk. Father of the son with the same name (of electric railway fame), Magnus Volk senior died suddenly in 1865 when his son was just 14 years old but, we are told, the boy worked early and late to support his mother and five sisters. He not only ran his late father’s clockmaking business but also was something of a genius at inventing electrical and scientific toys.
Life and Work
By the early 1820’s the building of Gardner Street was more or less complete. We can ascertain this from both maps of the time and the corroborating evidence of the Brighton Directories.
The street had grown rapidly providing residential housing and supplying the needs of residents in the neighbouring narrow streets. In 1822, for example, there are entries for the occupations and businesses of people living from number 1 to number 53(7) and many of these people were in the business of food provision - presumably for the inhabitants of both the street itself and the growing local community. There were three grocers at numbers 1, 4 and 16. John Hilton living with his large family at number 1 was still running his grocery store over 30 years later. There were two bakers at numbers 29 and 50 and there were two butchers: William Berkshire at number 40 and William Feist at 51. In this pre-refrigeration age it is likely that the animals were slaughtered on the premises. There were two corn dealers in the street, a reminder perhaps that the street then was still on the edge of arable land.
However the most surprising fact of all about Gardener Street in this early year of its existence was that in 1822 there were five schools in the street.
At number 12 was the Swan Downer Charity School for Girls(see Notables Section), at 32 was Ramsay Cooke’s Academy for Day Scholars, at 34 a Day School for Boys, 36 was Henrietta Ellis’s Boarding School for Young Ladies and 38 was Mrs. Blake’s Boarding and Day School for Young Ladies.
Apart from Swan Downer whose history is well documented, little can be gleaned about the other schools beyond saying that they were short lived. Ten years later all had disappeared.
A Crowded Street
The census of 1851 - the year of The Great Exhibition - provides a rich mine of information on Gardener Street and the headline figure is worth special consideration.
In addition to the shops, workshops and storage spaces, 477 men, women and children lived in this short street of 58 terraced houses. This averaged at just over 8 people per house although in reality there were huge variations.
Only five people lived at Number 5, for example. David Baker, a saddler, harness maker and coach trimmer (his business had been established for at least 20 years) lived with his Welsh born wife Mary and teenaged son and the house was shared with John Dean, a bricklayer and his wife, Elizabeth, a needlewoman.
Multifamily occupancy was the norm.
Number 11, a few doors away, was home to James Parker, a plasterer, his wife, Charlotte and their 8 children and also William Wicks, a plasterer’s labourer, Susan Tinsley, a 'monthly nurse' and Jane Pink, a servant. A total of 13.
Several other houses had similar numbers living in them. The highest number was to be found in number 23. 17 people were registered as living in these premises from 8 or 9 different families.17 people eating, drinking, sleeping in one small terraced house and at a time when there was no mains water or sewerage. Their occupations included dressmakers, cordwainers, bootmakers and, apart from a one-year-old child, all were born outside Brighton, many from outside Sussex.
23 Gardner Street Today. Difficult to believe that in 1851,
17 people from 8 families shared this tiny house.
This house speaks of fractured families and new arrivals to the town and although it was an extreme example it was representative of the larger picture.
Of the street’s total population of 477 people, only 240 – barely half - were born in Brighton and many of these were the recently-born young children. 115 were from the outlying villages and towns of Sussex and the remaining 120 were born outside the county - mainly from the home counties but some from as far afield as Yorkshire, Manchester, Berwick and one, a Newry Linen Factor, from Ireland.
Back street Brighton was a place of newcomers and new arrivals and these statistics seem to suggest the economic pulling power of Brighton. The relative wealth and availability of work in the town was sucking in people from the villages and towns of Sussex and elsewhere.
The 1851 census provides us with a great deal of this kind of statistical and sociological information but sometimes it is the small, personal details that speak most vividly. In 1851 eight residents lived in 40 Gardener Street included two widows: Mary Thorp, 66, "formerly Laundress having Parish Relief" and Sarah Furlong also 66, "formerly Charwoman having Parish Relief". Sarah was also described as Mary’s "nurse". They probably shared a small room in the house and provide a plangent reminder of the hardship and poverty that was never far away in back street Brighton.
A Shrinking Population
How did the street develop and change during the rest of the Victorian period?
In an incremental way, of course, but the census of 1901 provides us with a dramatic headline statistic. In that year, the last of Victoria’s long reign, the resident population of Gardner Street had shrunk to 170 – barely a third of what it was 50 years earlier. What does this suggest about the street?
Perhaps that the worst excesses of domestic overcrowding had been ameliorated – the highest number living in any one house was nine (the nine adults living at number 54). Perhaps that the street was experiencing greater affluence – 19 houses have 4 people or fewer living in them. Or perhaps that the character of the street has changed with a shift away from residential towards commercial.
Evidence for this third hypothesis is certainly to be found in the Brighton Directories of the period.(8)
Of the 56 buildings in the street (number 1 has disappeared from all records – perhaps demolished for road widening in Church Street) all contained businesses of some sort for at least some period of time during the second half of the 19th century.
Most housed commercial premises throughout although a few appear to have remained residential until the very last years of the century. Number 19 for example, was previously residential but had by 1892 morphed into Mrs Smith’s furnished apartments and in 1899 was Bernard Davis’s Toy Shop.
Number 45 was residential for over 80 years but had, in 1899, become the first home of a boot and shoe shop with a name that was to become an integral part of the High Street in 20th century Britain: Messrs Freeman, Hardy & Willis.
It was part of a chain and it was run not by a proprietor but by a manager.(9) It was the shape of things to come.
What has happened to Gardner Street in the 20th century? The helping hand of the census takes us as far as 1911 and tells us that the resident population in that year had shrunk further to 145, continuing the downward trend of the late 19th century. There was however a strong sense of a community of people living and working in the street.
Most of the street was given over to retail and despite the growing trend of people commuting to work there was still a strong pattern of families living above the shop.
Alfred Silverthorne, for example was a fishmonger working and living at 38 Gardner Street. He lived there with his wife, Ellen, son also named Alfred, daughter and mother-in-law. 20 years earlier the business had been run in the same place by "C. Silverthorne" - perhaps he was Alfred's father. Even more remarkably, the business was still being run by Alfred junior, right up to the late 1960s until eventually the premises were taken over by The Maypole Dairy Co. Ltd.
At number 55 was George Osborne, a plumber, whose business had been established for over 20 years. He lived there with his wife Mary who ran a Newsagent business, his son Frederick who was his assistant plumber and his daughter Elsie who assisted in the shop. Thirty years later in the wartime Brighton of the 1940s, the shop was still there and run by his daughter.
Business longevity was common - take for example Bolton's Egg Shop. This business had been established by Henry Bolton – the original "Egg Merchant" - with his wife Florence in 1911 and this family business was still running under the family name in 1970.
Perhaps the most notable example of a long-standing family and business connection with the street was John W. Terry.
John W. Terry’s father – also named John Terry - ran a bakery in the street (at number 56 and later number 14) for about 30 years in the 1840s, 50s and 60s. John W established his Watchmaker’s business in the 1870s and by 1911, although a widower, was still in charge and living above the shop. The business continued to flourish, expanded into number 3 Gardner Street, re-branded itself as The Brighton Clock Store and survived into the 1980s. Its century-long presence in the street is memorialised in a mosaic still visible in the entrance to Gelato Gusto, the ice cream parlour that is now to be found at number 2.
A mosaic memorial that takes us
right back to Victorian Gardner Street
Of course many of the residents and businesses were transient but, as the above examples suggest, there was also a strong spine of stability that prevailed in the street for much of the 20th century.
Trade
Trade has always been at the heart of Gardner Street.
The Early Years
In its infancy, in the very early years of its existence, trade in Gardner Street was mainly confined to food provision but, by 1832, (the year of the Great Reform Act when the Borough of Brighton elected MPs for the first time) the street was becoming more explicitly a street of tradespeople.
Leather predominated. There were three boot and shoe makers (Richard Cole at 14, Richard Bonner at 15 and Henry Osborne at 18), a tanner and a saddler & harness maker. There were two dyers, two straw bonnet makers, and a tailor.
There were other trades as well: a painter and glazier, a blacking and inkmaker, a tinplate worker.
There were a few people doing what we would regard as white collar work: an agent for the National Provident Institution, a Parish Clerk, an Organist and there were two schools including Swan Downer at number 12 but these are in a minority.
Among the occupation-descriptives, the word "maker" was frequent. The street was a street of small workshops and people carrying out particular trades and crafts.
A decade or more later, Folthorpe's 1848 Directory indicated that the range of trades in the street had widened further. There was also a suggestion that the street had moved a little up-market, at least some of the businesses seem to be aimed at a more refined clientele.
John Hilton at number 1 was now described as a "Tea Dealer, Grocer & Cheesemonger". He had been in business for well over 30 years. George Wall at number 2 was a "Tailor & Habit Maker", his wife Priscilla at number 3 (the business must be doing well enough to sustain two houses) was a "Milliner & Straw Bonnet Maker".
To summarise: in less than half a century, open land had been transformed into a busy and intensely crowded working and residential street.
The Later 19th Century
By the latter half of the 19th century it is safe to assert that Gardner Street had become primarily a commercial street and certainly the number of residents - defined as people who sleep in the street (not literally!) - diminished decade by decade during the second half of the 19th century. Most (but not all) of those residents were connected with the business 'downstairs'. However there was a new and counter-development towards the end of the century in that some of the businesses were run or owned by people who did not live in the street. For example, one of the most famous businesses in the street was the Cork Merchant, TH Beall, at number 51.
Beall at 51, one of Gardner Street’s most famous businesses.
The shop finally ceased trading in 1983 but its facade
can still be seen in the Brighton Museum. (James Gray Collection)
This business founded by Tom Beall in 1883 used imported cork to make bottle stoppers and lifebelts. Tom ran the business with his eldest son, George from number 51 but the census of 1901 tells us that Tom was living in Chester Terrace, Preston and George was living with his wife and young family at 10 Agnes Street. The age of commuting to work had begun.(10)
It is certain that the balance in the street was shifting towards commerce, but what is more problematic is trying to assess how else the character of the street changed during the Victorian era. It is possible, however, to make the case that during the latter half of the 19th century the street became both more affluent and more refined.
The evidence again is to be found in the Directories. Page's Brighton Directory of 1892 revealed something of the range of goods on sale in the street.
JW Terry’s watchmaking and jewellery business at 2 & 3 had already been established for over 20 years. Trower & Co. was a China & Glass dealer at number 6. At number 9, Mr Turner of Horncastle House described himself as a 'High Class' Wardrobe dealer. There were not one but two Toy Dealers: J.Paren at 27 and W. Groizard at 34 & 35 – by 1899 this had risen to four Toy dealers in the street.(11) There were two Musical Instrument Warehouses: H.Farrant at 25 and J.Weston at 49.
These businesses existed alongside shops selling the more basic provisions but what was clear was that the street was now catering for a clientele that had disposable income to spend on things other than the essentials. This as much as anything else suggests the change in the character of the street in the latter years of the 19th century.
The 20th Century
As indicated in Section 8 the tradition of family-run businesses was strong in the street but the 20th century saw a counter-trend in the arrival of more retail chain stores. This trend began in the late 19th century and gathered momentum in the 20th century.
The shoe retailer, Freeman, Hardy & Willis, was the first to arrive in 1899 at number 45. The same year saw the arrival of The Maypole Dairy Co. Ltd. (at 41) and Fletcher WR Ltd. Butchers (at 39). The early years of the 20th century brought Pearks Grocery Stores and Home & Colonial (at 32). Later on Marks & Spencers were based in the building at the corner of Gardner Street and North Road (now occupied by Infinity Foods).
Once Marks & Spencers, now Infinity Foods.
(Thanks to Phil Blume for this clever superimposition)
The competition was too much for some of the family businesses, although most survived and adapted. It is a fact that Gardner Street never became a standard, identikit high street.
Conclusion
This history ends here in the early nineteen seventies but the story of course continues and is in the living memories of many people.
Gardner Street in the 1960’s, looking towards The Dorset Arms
– the only surviving pub in the street. It was then a Watneys house
– note the iconic “red barrel” on the wall.
This final image is a reminder of what the street looked like before its renaissance in the late 20th century. A process that has continued into the 21st and has given us the vibrant, thriving Gardner Street we know today.
The threat of complete demolition was lifted and later confirmed by the establishment of The North Laine Conservation Area in 1977. A name and an idea that is pleasing to many - including this writer - for its reminder of the street’s origins.
A street whose shops once provided the everyday necessities of life for its local community now offers a range of goods and services for modern lifestyles that would baffle and amaze those early dwellers.
David Jackson. May 2017
References
- Daily Telegraph 17/03/2112. An article on the Brighton Economy refers to “an emporium in the uber-trendy North Laine area…”
- Carder, T. Encyclopaedia of Brighton provides the Brighton population statistics
- Berry, S. Georgian Brighton. Published 2005
- ESRO SAS/BRI/175
- ESRO BRI/181
- ESRO R/C/4/108/1
- Baxter’s Directory of 1822 & TH Boore’s Brighton Annual Directory. There are no entries for numbers 54 to 57. Perhaps these buildings were unbuilt in 1822 or equally possible the inhabitants did not wish to submit entries to the publishers of the directories.
- The evidence is culled from the following directories: Folthorpe’s 1852, WJ Taylor’s 1854, Folthorpe’s 1862, Page’s 1872, Page’s 1882, Page’s 1892 & Towner’s 1899.
- The first manager of Freeman, Hardy & Willis is listed as “Mr A Shoesmith” either a highly apposite name or someone with a sense of humour.
- Bealls & Co finally closed in 1983 after 100 years of trading. The shop façade is now preserved in the Brighton Museum.
- Towner’s 1899 Directory