Earliest Vicarage traced back to 1252

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.

a) VICARAGES: It is recorded that in 1252 a house was to be provided for the Vicar of Brighton ; this may have been the so-called Prior’s Lodge, an ancient building associated with St Bartholomew’s Priory which stood on the site of Prince Albert Street to the west of Market Street and was acquired by the parish in 1584. It was certainly used as a vicarage in the eighteenth century, and in the 1770s and ’80s Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, was tutored there. When it was demolished in 1790 the house was judged to date from the thirteenth century. It was replaced by a three-storey, cobble-fronted vicarage with a large garden on the same site.
However, when Prince Albert Street was planned, a new vicarage was built in June 1834 to the west of the town at the expense of the street developer. The Market Street vicarage was demolished in 1837, and the new house, designed in Tudor style by a Mr Mew with three gables and a cement rendering, was used by Revd Henry Wagner and his successors until 1922. It was then taken over by the junior school of Brighton and Hove High School and is now a listed building on the southern side of Temple Gardens where it is known as the Old Vicarage. Since 1922 the vicars of Brighton have had a number of residences; 87 London Road is currently used. {1,6,18,44,65}

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.

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