Slums
A potted history
Text reproduced by kind permission from information sheets in Brighton Museum & Art Gallery
Where can you find cheap housing in Brighton? In Victorian times, the answer lay in crowded slums near the town centre.
Slum clearance
Brighton Corporation began clearing these slums in the 1870s. At first, the occupants were not re-housed. From 1900, people were moved into new housing estates on the outskirts of Brighton. The estates provided modern comforts, but rents were high, and there were no shops or pubs. As an alternative, the Council built twenty high-rise blocks during the 1960s and 1970s.
Out-of-town development
For the private market, Victorian builders constructed Brighton's rows of terraced houses, rented for £10-20 a year (about £500-£1000 in 2001). Developers later moved out of town, creating larger suburban villas and 'tudorbethan' estates, decorated in pebbledash and mock wooden beams.
Today, with no space to build new houses, many grand seafront buildings, most notably Embassy Court, have been split up into flats to provide Brighton's cheapest bedsit accommodation.
This page was added on 22/03/2006.