Although latterly housing the Brighton Tourist Office (before that moved to a site nearer the Town Hall), my first encounter with Marlborough House was when I sat the second part of my 11-plus exam. I had been ill with chicken-pox, so two of us sat the exam in the august surroundings of the Education Office amid polished tables and mirrored walls.

At the turn of the 19th to 20th Century, the house was the office of the Brighton Hove and Preston United Omnibus Company.

During the mid to late nineties I had a friend who was a security guard at Marlborough House which enabled me to go there and have a look around. The fireplaces were splendid but the fabric of the building was falling apart. The building itself had a unpleasant feel to it, probably the only building that I have ever been in that has made me feel uncomfortable, has anyone else ever had such a feeling about it. I certainly am very sceptical about anything to do with the supernatural and have been to some supposedly haunted houses before but Marlborough House was certainly a bit strange.

During the 1850s Marlborough House was the residence of Charles Sabine Augustus Thellusson, his wife Georgiana and their six children. Amongst other things he was Commodore of the Royal Victoria Yacht Club. In 1859 he inherited half the estate of his great grandfather Peter Thellusson after a long running court case which led to the Accumulations Act 1800, and inspired Dickens' writing of Jarndyce v Jarndyce in Bleak House. Charles Sabine built a new house for himself at Brodsworth near Doncaster S. Yorkshire, which is now an English Heritage property and open to the public.