Bedford Place

Regency Square conservation area

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.

This outstanding conservation area, which stretches westwards from the Grand Hotel to the borough boundary, was developed principally in the 1810s and '20s, and contains some of the finest examples of Brighton's famous Regency architecture. However, the district of around 2,500 people now has many housing problems with its many multiply-occupied houses and bed-sits. The streets of particular interest in the area are detailed below, but see also "Bedford Hotel", "Grand Hotel", "King's Road", "Lower Esplanade", "Metropole", "Norfolk Hotel", "West Pier", and "Western Road".

BEDFORD PLACE: A road of mostly three-storey houses, with the bow-fronted nos.2, 3, 7, 25 and 26 included on the borough council's local list of buildings of special interest. On the eastern side stands the former Christ Church School, a listed building built in 1841 for Revd James Vaughan. The original cobble-fronted building, with its Dutch gable, has a red-brick extension of the 1900s. It continued as a school until about 1948, but since about 1958 has been used by the New Venture Theatre Company. It was also a church hall until the adjacent Christ Church in Montpelier Road was destroyed.