My Brighton and Hove | Areas | Montpelier/Clifton Hill | The Temple

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The Temple

The Girls' School today

The Temple in the fields

Montpelier Crescent

Sussex played All England here

Thomas Read-Kemp

Originally the home of Thomas Read Kemp

By Anthea and Steve Myall, Clifton residents

Girls' School, once a private house
This is a building at the bottom of our road. It used to be a private house and it is now a girls' school, the view of which you can't see much of because there is a wall surrounding it.

Home of Thomas Read-Kemp
This building was the original home of Thomas Read-Kemp, who built Kemp Town.

Design based on Solomon's Temple
When it was first built it was the most extraordinary place just in the middle of fields with nothing around it at all and Kemp allegedly designed it around descriptions from the Bilble on Solomon's temple and that's why the original house, when he was living in it, was called the Temple.

Montpelier Crescent
This picture is of Montpelier Crescent which is just up from the girls' school on the right-hand side of Montpelier Road, frequented by people early in the morning walking their dogs.

Site of cricket ground
Before Montpelier Crescent was actually built this was called Lea's Trap or Lillywhites also known as the Temple Fields cricket ground and in 1842 Sussex actually played all-England on Montpelier Crescent.

Image and text from the 1994 My Brighton museum exhibit

This page was added on 22/03/2006.

Comments:

I am very interested in the Temple School. I am aware that my great grandfather ran a private school in the Brighton / Hove area called The Temple (or similar). My great grandfather was called Prideaux Selby Rickards, he was born in 1801 and died in Hove in 1861. He had a total of 14 children(!!) - many of whom lived with him at The Temple. I have details of a census report of around 1850 confirming this information. Are you able to confirm that we are talking about the same Temple?

By Nicholas Rickards (30/06/2006)

The reference to the Temple omits to mention that the school which has occupied this building for many years is the Brighton and Hove High School for Girls which is a member of the Girls' Public Day School Trust.

By Peter Bailey (02/07/2006)

I was most interested to read the comments from Nicholas Rickards concerning The Temple, Brighton. I too am a relation of Prideaux Selby Rickards (my maternal grandmother's father was one of the youngest of his 14 children - his name was Charles Dudley Rickards (1849-1916) and my grandmother's was Laura Beatrice (1904-1981). I have been doing some research on The Temple over the past few years and have been in contact with a very nice lady from Chilliwack, BC, who was a former student at the school and has been kind enough to provide me with a lot of infomation and also many photographs. I am fortunate enough to possess a pair of fine miniature portraits of Prideaux Selby and his wife Mary Anne painted by Anne Hayter in 1836. I also have a small 19th century engraving of The Temple and a family tree sent to me by Edward Rickards back in the 1980s. If Nicholas Rickards would like to contact me, please feel free to do so.

By Richard Haskell (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) (09/08/2006)

I attended Brighton and Hove High School from 1999-2004 and feel that I gained a vast amount of confidence and knowledge during that time. I am sorry to note the changes which have been made but things move on. Does anyone remember Mrs Baker?

By Heidi Taylor (23/10/2006)

My maternal grandfather, Henry R. Rickards (br.1870 London)was the son of Henry Selby Rickards (br.1819 Colchester), and the younger brother of Prideaux Selby Rickards who ran a private school in Brighton. My great grandfather was a General in the Egyptian Service, he was also known in Egypt as Abdullah Pasha, El Ingilisy. His first wife, said to have been an Egyptian Princess died (circa 1869) and he returned to England. He went through a form of marriage to Catherine (br.1840 Brighton), the daughter of his brother Prideaux Selby Rickards. My great grandfather was drawn back to the Middle East but not to Egypt. He spent his retirement in Beirut with his wife Catherine. After his demise in 1886, Catherine remained in their Beirut home until her death there some years later. I made a special trip to Beirut in January 2003 as part of my research. They are buried in the French Evangelical Cemetery, their identical marble graves side by side. I am in the process of researching for a book I am writing about my forebears' and my own life spent in the Middle East (Egypt,Syria & Turkey). I have no information on the schooling in England of these long past relatives nor on the military training and career of my own great grandfather.

By Patrick C N Grigsby (01.12.20060 (01/12/2006)