York Place

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.

d) YORK PLACE: Developed in the 1810s; the roadway was widened by the corporation in 1903 by the removal of the front gardens {115}. No.1 York Place is faced with black glazed mathematical tiles , as are nos.4-5 which also have bows. Nos.8-10 are included on the borough council’s local list; they all have narrow bows, while nos.9-11 are faced with cobbles and no.10 has mathematical tiles as well. Nos.13-14 and 16 are also cobble-fronted while nos.17-22 have Ionic pilasters, although only nos.21-22 are unaltered above the shop-fronts. York Place is now perhaps best known for its proliferation of take-away food shops.
In 1870 the York Place Elementary Schools were established by the Brighton School Board at Trafalgar Court, and were added to in 1884 with a higher-grade school teaching technical and commercial subjects, approached through the archway at 15 York Place. Further extensions were funded by board member Daniel Hack (to whom a commemorative plaque was erected outside Brighton Reference Library), and in 1898 the higher-grade school was renamed York Place Secondary School. In 1906 annexes were provided in Trafalgar Street and Pelham Street , but when the school buildings were used as an Indian military hospital during the First World War the pupils were taught at the Technical College in Richmond Terrace. In 1926 the girls’ secondary school was removed to Varndean, followed by the boys’ school in 1931, and the York Place Elementary Schools then became the Fawcett School for Boys and the Margaret Hardy School for Girls. These were also removed, to Patcham in the mid 1960s, and the York Place buildings were then taken over by the Technical College, now the Brighton College of Technology. Several of the original buildings are still in use. {123,210}

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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