North Laine

Gardner Street to Kemp Street

Reproduced with permission from the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder, 1990

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.

e) GARDNER STREET : A busy shopping street developed in the first years of the nineteenth century by John Furner on the site of his market garden, but now spoilt by the oppressive Jubilee Shopping Hall, formerly Tesco. No.12, formerly the Sussex Arms, was erected as the SwanDownerSchool in 1816, a fact which is borne out by a barely readable inscription above the ground floor, and it is now a listed building. The school was founded by the bequest of a wealthy London merchant for the education of twenty or more poor girls; it moved to Windsor Street in 1859, and to Dyke Road in 1867. No.51 Gardner Street was formerly Beall's Cork Shop. Opened in 1883, it was the last such shop in the country when it closed on 1 October 1983; the building itself dated from the 1820s, and the shop fa..cs.ade has been removed and reconstructed in the town museum with the original fittings. {44,123,209,262a}

f) GLOUCESTER ROAD : The castellated Surridge Dawson warehouse on the northern side was built around 1870 as the headquarters of the Royal Artillery Volunteers who had moved from Church Street . It stands on the site of the Eagle Iron Foundry, where much of the town's ironwork was produced in the nineteenth century; the Eagle Hotel, now the George Beard, still stands nearby. Near the top of the road is the Galeed Strict Baptist Chapel, a plain, classical building built by Benjamin Nunn and opened on 15 October 1868. Gloucester Road is now lined with a number of antique and collector shops, and has become a much more attractive shopping street since the roadway was closed off in 1986 in an attempt to remove the menace of traffic through the area. {62,114}

g) GLOUCESTER STREET : A street of small terraced houses of the 1820s; a number of small courtyards have been demolished at the eastern end around St George's Mews. Approached through an archway at no.28 are the Gloucester Rooms, used as a chapel by the Plymouth Brethren until the 1960s when they became an auction room. {83}

h) KEMP STREET : Lined with attractive terraced houses, many with glazing bars and window shutters. In 1934 the body in one of the famous 'Trunk Murders' (q.v.) was discovered at no.52. {124}

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.