Of course, when all the higher and more important offices of architecture were thus indifferently served, it was not to be expected that street-architecture would fare very happily. Our streets, in fact, gradually lost all their picturesqueness and variety of the olden times, and gained neither dignity nor beauty. Complacent builders shrugged their shoulders in pity at ancestors who had covered houses with roofs like over-sized wigs; or had recourse to hanging stories one projecting over the other until the light of heaven only stole into the streets through a narrow aperture above the road. But though these things were quaint and barbarous, there was a something about them which had in it the sense of beauty,—something which makes one even now prefer the High Street of Eastgrinstead to the latest built, the most elegant and supernaturally genteel of our modern terraces.
This, however, has only just begun to be felt, and when Brighton rose like a dream upon the remains of a fishing village, none of these things were thought of. People had certainly discernment enough to see that the rude village style would not do. A visitor of Dr. Russell’s time describes Brighton houses as consisting of one or more stories, and with the door-ways so low that you must stoop to enter, and then probably stumble down a step or two into the sitting room. A person has only to go into the Twittens, the narrow lanes between Middle Street and Black Lion Street, to witness even now such illustrations. The Railway booking office, in Castle Square, is a specimen of the architecture of Brighton after this period; and under George IV. it was beginning its marvellous development.
This sort of thing it soon became necessary to alter, and year after year saw the gradual improvement in the streets of the town. But though this resulted in fine streets, and in lofty and commodious houses, the element of beauty was always wanting, simply because there was nothing like a principle in the minds of builders. They had some vague notions of the Palladian oracles, of a bastard Italian, a debased Renaissance, applicable to dwelling-houses; but the results of the application were and have been, up to the present time, deplorable.
Brighton is not alone in this matter,—indeed, it rises superior to very many of its compeers; but when its position and infinite diversity of sight are reflected upon, there cannot fail to be regrets upon the Brighton it might have been. Supposing, for example, that an earlier recognition of the claims of Gothic and an English style had taken place. Suppose that the public buildings, instead of being of the packing case order in beauty—hollow cubes with a sham frontage of stuccoed pilasters—had presented the variety in structure and beauty in detail which is found in a minor degree in St. Peter’s Church. Suppose further that the streets, instead of having, as at present, flat, level surfaces, without a line of beauty in themselves, without a curve or an angle to reflect the sunshine or hold the shadow, which is so exquisite, had retained even the quaintness of early times, what a town Brighton would have been! No continental town could, from its very situation and the formation of the ground upon which it stands, have exceeded it in picturesque loveliness. And short of this, even had the purer Italian models been followed, had builders attempted such erections as those of Palmeira Square, or those of the Pavilion Buildings,—and they are the best specimens of that class of street architecture which we possess,—the result would have been a grandeur and a beauty which would have left the visitor no ground for a moment’s doubt that Brighton is indeed the “Queen of Watering Places.”
The improvement in the style of the buildings was the natural result of the great accession of visitors for the benefit of the sea-bathing. Bew remarks, Sunday, September 13th, 1778:—“Took the liberty of surveying all the bathing-machines. Fine ladies going,—fine ladies coming away. Observe them at the instant of bathing,—how humiliating! They appear more deplorable than so many corpses in shrouds, and put me in mind of the old dialogue between Death and the Lady. Methinks the guide is saying, in the character of Death,—
Fair lady, lay your costly robes aside,
Nor longer think to glory in your pride.”
An idea may be formed of the rage for bathing at this period from an entry of the same diarist, Thursday, September 9th, 1779:—“Each man runs to a machine-ladder as it is dragging out of the sea, and scuffles who shall first set foot thereon: some send their footmen and contend by proxy; others go in in boots, or on horseback to meet the machines:—so that a tolerably modest man, on a busy morning, has generally an hour and a half, perhaps two hours, for contemplation on the sands, to the detriment of his shoes, as well as the diminution of his patience.” And on Saturday, the 11th of the same month, he writes:—“Have matched the bathers and bathees this trip however, having corrected them all handsomely—without quarrelling—have given them the slip; but take the particulars:—About 6 a.m., I drew along the sands, the machine of which I had become seized by prescriptive right, by legal possession, having deposited part of my wearing apparel therein, tho’ I had requested the assistance of the marine centaur, the man on horseback, in vain. As the tide was flowing, I soon plunged into the sea, stretched a long way out into the offing, and continued rolling and laughing among my brother porpoises, to think what a loss the company on shore would sustain for want of one machine out of seven, it being a very fine busy morning. The bathers holloa’d and bawled in vain; for I could not, indeed would not hear them. After swimming backwards and forwards along the shore, about four miles in the whole, the tide setting strong to the eastward all the time, I returned about nine; and Smoaker, growling like a bear with a sore head, swore bitterly.”
William (Smoaker) Miles was a great celebrity, being the principal bathing man. One day, when the Prince of Wales was bathing, he ventured out further than Old Smoaker considered prudent. In vain Smoaker called “Mr. Prince, Mr. Prince, come back,” his holloas only causing His Royal Highness to dash out further. As the only means to exact obedience, in rushed the old man, swam up to the Prince, and, seizing him by the ear, lugged him, nolens volens, to the shore. When his young aquatic student remonstrated upon receiving such treatment, Old Smoaker rolled out a round oath or two, adding, “I ar’n’t agoen’ to let the king hang me for letten’ the Prince of Wales drown hisself; not I, to please nobody, I can tell’e.” The incident pleased the Prince, who ever afterwards patronised him. To testify, also, His Royal Highness’s respect for the straightforward, honest, but blunt fellow, he established the Smoaker Stakes, which were run for at the Brighton Races, Friday, July 25th, 1806, with the following result:
The Smoaker Stakes of 20gs. each, one mile; 8 yr. olds to carry 7st. 4 yr. olds 8st. 3lb. 5 yr. olds 8st. 9lb. 6 yr. olds 9st. 11lb., and aged 9st. 1lb.
| His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales’s b. h. Albion, 6 yrs. old | 1 |
| Mr. Fermer’s b. c. Hippomenes, 4 yrs. old | 2 |
| Lord Egremont’s b. m. Slipper, 5 yrs. old | 3 |
| Mr Howorth’s ch. c Patagonian, by Pegasus, 3 yrs. old | 4 |