Roundhill Crescent (sometimes spelt Round Hill Crescent)
is a late-19th-century housing development in
Round Hill, an inner suburb of the English coastal city of
Brighton and Hove
Brighton and Hove () is a city and unitary authority in East Sussex, England. It consists primarily of the settlements of Brighton and Hove, alongside neighbouring villages.
Often referred to synonymously as Brighton, the City of Brighton and H ...
. Partly developed in the 1860s with large terraced houses on a steeply sloping open hillside, the crescent—which "curves and changes height dramatically along its length"—was finished two decades later and now forms the centrepiece of the Round Hill
conservation area
Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...
. Smaller houses completed the composition in the 1880s, and England's first hospital for the treatment of mental illness was founded in the crescent in 1905. The five original sets of houses from the 1860s have been
listed
Listed may refer to:
* Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm
* Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic
* Endangered species in biology
* Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...
at Grade II by
English Heritage
English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses.
The charity states that i ...
for their architectural and historical importance, and the crescent occupies a prominent place on Brighton's skyline.
History
Brighton was originally a fishing village on the
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...
coast, with the chalk hills of the
South Downs
The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the east. ...
rising immediately behind. Its growth into a fashionable seaside resort and residential town began in the mid-19th century and continued, with some interruptions, for more than a century afterwards.
The construction of railway lines to
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
and
Lewes
Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. It is the police and judicial centre for all of Sussex and is home to Sussex Police, East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, Lewes Crown Court and HMP Lewes. The civil parish is the centre of ...
in the 1840s stimulated development on the higher ground behind the core of the old town.
Round Hill was a high, mostly undeveloped hill between the two valleys along which the main road and railway routes ran. Topped with a windmill since 1838, the only other development until the 1860s consisted of a few middle-class villas and the horseshoe-shaped
Park Crescent at the bottom of the southern slope.
This prestigious scheme was one of the last executed by prolific local architect
Amon Henry Wilds
Amon Henry Wilds (1784 or 1790 – 13 July 1857) was an English architect. He was part of a team of three architects and builders who—working together or independently at different times—were almost solely responsible for a surge in resid ...
.
The opening of the railway led to the rapid construction of lower-class housing in the surrounding area, but the example set by Park Crescent encouraged developers to continue to introduce higher-quality, larger-scale residential schemes.
The crescent form had been popular in Brighton and nearby
Hove
Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th cen ...
throughout the 19th century; Wilds's work represented the most recent example of the style already established at
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
, Hanover, Lewes,
Montpelier and the pioneering
Royal
Royal may refer to:
People
* Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name
* A member of a royal family
Places United States
* Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Royal, Illinois, a village
* Royal, Iowa, a cit ...
Crescents.
The arable land of the higher parts of the hill, mostly owned by
Thomas Read Kemp
Thomas Read Kemp (23 December 1782 – 20 December 1844) was an English property developer and politician.
Life
He was the son of Sussex landowner and Member of Parliament Thomas Kemp, and his wife Anne, daughter of Henry Read of Brookland ...
and the Stanford family, was released for development in the 1860s. Kemp sold his land, but the Stanfords sought to develop their parts according to their own taste.
They took inspiration from the high-class housing of Hanover Crescent (built between 1814 and 1823)
and the mid-1850s terraced villas of Powis Square.
In 1865, a crescent-shaped road was laid out on high ground on the northwest side of Upper Lewes Road, and several groups of large three- and four-storey terraced houses were built.
They were "post-
Regency
A regent (from Latin : ruling, governing) is a person appointed to govern a state '' pro tempore'' (Latin: 'for the time being') because the monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge the powers and duties of the monarchy ...
" in character, showing the evolution away from Regency-style features popular throughout 19th-century Brighton
and the adoption of some
Italianate
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...
detailing.
The gaps were filled in between 1880 and 1885 when smaller terraced houses, mostly of two storeys and featuring the
canted
Cant, CANT, canting, or canted may refer to:
Language
* Cant (language), a secret language
* Beurla Reagaird, a language of the Scottish Highland Travellers
* Scottish Cant, a language of the Scottish Lowland Travellers
* Shelta or the Cant, a lan ...
bay window
A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room.
Types
Bay window is a generic term for all protruding window constructions, regardless of whether they are curved or angular, or r ...
s and decorative mouldings characteristic of Brighton's Victorian residential architecture,
were built.
Although building plots were mostly developed individually by small-scale builders, the Stanford family stipulated the general layout and appearance of the houses; builders could work to their own designs, but only within these limitations.
The later houses were mostly built of cheap brick or
bungaroosh __NOTOC__
Bungaroosh (also spelt bungeroosh, bungarouche, bungarooge, bunglarooge, bunglarouge and other variations) is a composite building material used almost exclusively in the English seaside resort of Brighton and its attached neighbour Hov ...
—a low-quality composite material—which was then faced with protective render.
![General view of Roundhill Crescent, Brighton](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/General_view_of_Roundhill_Crescent%2C_Brighton.jpg)
For six years in the early 20th century, one of the original 1860s houses was the site of a pioneering centre for the provision of
mental health
Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. It likewise determines how an individual handles stress, interpersonal relationships, and decision-making. Mental health ...
care. In 1905, number 101 was rented by Dr Helen Boyle, who had founded a
dispensary
A dispensary is an office in a school, hospital, industrial plant, or other organization that dispenses medications, medical supplies, and in some cases even medical and dental treatment. In a traditional dispensary set-up, a pharmacist dispen ...
in the nearby suburb of
Hanover
Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
in 1899. She moved the dispensary to Roundhill Crescent and opened a 12-bed hospital alongside it, for the treatment of women and children with mental health problems.
Named the Lewes Road Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children, the facility was England's first hospital for the treatment of mental illness.
The conventional practice at the time was to send sufferers of mental health problems to
lunatic asylums
The lunatic asylum (or insane asylum) was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital.
The fall of the lunatic asylum and its eventual replacement by modern psychiatric hospitals explains the rise of organized, institutional psychiatry ...
rather than offer medical care. The facility moved to nearby Ditchling Road in 1911, then moved elsewhere in Brighton as it expanded further.
The five parts of Roundhill Crescent that were built in the 1860s were separately
listed
Listed may refer to:
* Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm
* Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic
* Endangered species in biology
* Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...
at Grade II by
English Heritage
English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses.
The charity states that i ...
on 2 March 1981.
This status is given to "nationally important buildings of special interest".
As of February 2001, they represented five of the 1,124 Grade II-listed buildings and structures, and 1,218 listed buildings of all grades, in the city of
Brighton and Hove
Brighton and Hove () is a city and unitary authority in East Sussex, England. It consists primarily of the settlements of Brighton and Hove, alongside neighbouring villages.
Often referred to synonymously as Brighton, the City of Brighton and H ...
.
The crescent also forms a central part (and "the most important architecturally")
of the Round Hill
conservation area
Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...
, one of
34 such areas in the city of Brighton and Hove.
The area was designated on 6 January 1977.
Architecture
Roundhill Crescent forms a "majestic sweep" on the steep, visually prominent hillside, which can be seen from many parts of north and east Brighton.
The "fine curving terraces of Regency-style houses" at each end of the road,
which started the development in 1865, were joined by smaller houses in a more modest, characteristically Victorian style over the next 20 years.
The older houses on the crescent stand out in their "attempt
ta little grandeur in the
Regency
A regent (from Latin : ruling, governing) is a person appointed to govern a state '' pro tempore'' (Latin: 'for the time being') because the monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge the powers and duties of the monarchy ...
mould" in an area of otherwise small and unpretentious housing.
Coming about 50 years after that architectural style's heyday, they represent its latest appearance in Brighton.
The groups of houses built in the mid-1860s, and now with listed status, are now numbered 1–13, 19 and 21, 23–37, 69 and 71 and 101–113. Only the group between 1 and 19 inclusive and the pair at 69 and 71 appeared on a mid-1870s map of Brighton,
but all sources agree that the five sets of houses are of the same date.
Numbers 1–13 are at the lowest point on the southwest side, after which the crescent begins to "curve and change height dramatically along its length,
rising and then falling steeply again by the time numbers 101–113 are reached.
Common features of the houses include
stucco
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...
ed façades carved to look like
ashlar
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...
, ornate cast-iron balconies,
parapet
A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...
s,
sash window
A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned window (architecture), paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double gla ...
s and cast-iron railings separating them from the pavement.
The group at numbers 1–13 rise to three storeys and each have a three-window range. Each house is separated from its neighbour by
pilaster
In classical architecture
Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...
s running the full height of the building to a
cornice
In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...
. The bottom part of each pilaster is
rusticated. The entrance and windows have decorative mouldings to their
archivolt
An archivolt (or voussure) is an ornamental moulding or band following the curve on the underside of an arch.
It is composed of bands of ornamental mouldings (or other architectural elements) surrounding an arched opening, corresponding to the ...
and
architrave
In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns.
The term can ...
s respectively. Each house has a large cast-iron balcony outside the first-floor window and some ironwork at second-floor level, forming guards outside the
bracketed windows.
Many of the mouldings, except at number 1, are no longer in their original condition. Number 1 also has
dormer
A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window.
Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable space ...
windows in the roof, and number 13 has a side entrance in an arched porch.
Numbers 19 and 21, originally part of the same terrace, are similar in style. Number 21 has lost much of its exterior decoration: none of the windows have
mouldings or cast-iron window guards. Number 19 has an arched side entrance under an
architrave
In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns.
The term can ...
d porch.
The houses at numbers 23–37 are also of the same style, but with two windows on each floor; all retain their original features, but some of the decorative mouldings have been modified on three of the buildings.
Numbers 69 and 71 are again of three storeys with a three-window range, stucco-clad and topped by a
cornice
In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...
and
parapet
A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...
in front of the roof. The treatment of the top of the dividing
pilaster
In classical architecture
Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...
on number 71 is different: it lacks a
bracket
A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...
to the cornice. As with the other 1860s houses, they both have first-floor balconies with foliage-pattern ironwork.
The seven houses at numbers 101–113 also have three windows to each of three storeys, and the same general layout and materials. Some details are different on individual houses: there is no rustication to the pilasters at numbers 105 and 107; the cast-iron second-floor window-guards are absent on three houses; some mouldings are altered or absent; one of the pilasters at number 103 is decorated with an urn; and number 101's entrance is in a porch at the side.
The non-listed houses on the northwest side are mostly of the same height but lack many of the features shared by the listed buildings, in particular the "highly decorative" balconies.
Eaves
The eaves are the edges of the roof which overhang the face of a wall and, normally, project beyond the side of a building. The eaves form an overhang to throw water clear of the walls and may be highly decorated as part of an architectural styl ...
supported on brackets take the place of parapets as well. The southeast side of the crescent has two-storey houses with some variation in style. Many have lost their original slate roofs, but some 19th-century
dormer window
A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window.
Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable space ...
s have been retained. The insertion of modern exterior features such as replacement doors, windows and roofs has been restricted by an
Article Four Direction, covering the whole Round Hill conservation area, since 2000.
See also
*
List of conservation areas in Brighton and Hove
, there are 34 conservation areas in the city of Brighton and Hove, a seaside resort on the English Channel coast in southeast England. The definition of a conservation area is a principally urban area "of special architectural or historic int ...
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
{{B&H Buildings
Houses completed in 1885
Grade II listed buildings in Brighton and Hove
Crescents (architecture)