Wood, J.
About 20,000 prime South Down sheep of all denominations found a ready sale, buyers being plentiful. That year, on the same day, the general Fair was held on the Marlborough Steine, the southernmost of the present North Steine Enclosures, where gingerbread stalls, whirligigs, and roundabouts were in abundance. The next year the Sheep Fair was equally well attended; but notwithstanding the most strenuous exertions of its promoters, it had but an existence of four years. A Cattle Market was established on a piece of the Parish Ground on the Church Hill, adjoining the West Hill Estate, in 1831. Like the Sheep Fair, however, it had but a few years’ duration, there being no meadows near for the accommodation of stock. The Corn Market, by sample, is held every Thursday, at the King and Queen Inn, in a spacious and commodious room. From the Level, where Gully and Cribb, on the 11th of August, 1807, in the presence of the Prince of Wales and his Royal Brothers, had a sparring match, the town authorities eventually ejected the Spring and Autumn pleasure Fair, which has since sought refuge upon any available spot contiguous. A few years more and it will be amongst the things of the past.
The Level has at various periods been the arena for the festivals in celebration of important national events, as on the 19th July, 1821, upon the occasion of the coronation of George IV., when two bullocks were roasted whole, and distributed hot, and four, previously dressed, were served out, the expenses being defrayed by a public subscription. The roasting of the two bullocks commenced on the preceding night, when partial fires were kindled to heat the carcasses through the thickest part. But about five o’clock in the morning the real roasting commenced. The grates were then piled high with blazing fuel, and a savoury vapour spread through the atmosphere. About six, one of the spits, a stout scaffold pole, gave way under its ponderous weight, but at the expense only of an additional spar, and a score or so of blistered fingers.
The work of carving commenced shortly after two o’clock, when Mr. Thomas Palmer, the King’s cutler, in a waggon converted into a suitable platform for such a display, decorated with devices and waving streamers, and containing several hogsheads of ale, presented to Mr. John Vallance, the Chairman of the Managing Committee, a carving knife and fork, and a corkscrew, all of extensive dimensions, with the request that the coronation beef might be carved with the former, and the bungs extracted from the casks by the latter, and that they might be furthermore preserved by the local authorities, for use on similar occasions. The work of carving occupied about an hour, during which time many thousands of persons partook of the hot and the cold.
At this period there lived in a hut of very rude construction, consisting of but one room, on the southern incline of Round Hill, Corporal Staines, an old marine who served under Nelson at the siege of Copenhagen. He was very crippled, and obtained his living by exhibiting his miniature fortifications, constructed by himself of chalk, the soldiers and cannons which surmounted the battlements being likewise formed of chalk; as was also a very rude model of the gallant ship, the Victory, bearing, under a black canopy, a coffin containing the body of the Hero of Trafalgar. Upon great national anniversaries and festivities it was his custom to fire Royal salutes from four pistol barrels which he had formed as a battery, and every day he was accustomed to fire the sun-set gun. While the feast was being made off the roasted oxen, the old corporal fired a Royal salute, for which he was rewarded with a good substantial dinner and a compliment of money, besides presents which were made him by the holiday folk. Corporal Staines first took up his abode at Brighton in a cavern hewn in the Church Hill chalk-pit, the site—filled up,—of the east end of Upper North Street. Agreeing with his residence in the chalk-pit is the following entry in the Vestry book:—
October 2nd, 1809.—That Corporal Staines be allowed a blanket and a great coat during the winter.
Staines removed from the chalk pit to a hut constructed by himself, immediately east of the Manor Pound, then at the back of the Parish Church, on the spot now occupied by the entrance of the northern Burial Ground, contiguous to which were the Parish Stocks, that were afterwards removed to the Market Place, in the Bartholomews. Upon the re-building of the Market, the Stocks were placed against its southern wall at the back of the Thatched House Inn, where, after remaining a few years as a relic of a barbarous age, they went to decay. In 1824, the Pound was removed to the north-west corner of the Workhouse grounds, on the Dyke Road. In course of time, however, it became obsolete for the impounding of cattle, and in 1853 it was purchased by the parish of the Lord of the Manor, for £100. For some years after his removal from Church Hill, the old marine took up his abode in the east bank of the pond at the junction of the old Shoreham and Ditchling Roads, on Rose Hill; but when the ground adjacent was enclosed by Mr. Colbatch, he translated himself to just without its eastern boundary wall, on the incline of the hill which commands an uninterrupted view of the Level and the Steine in general. He ended his days in Brighton Workhouse.
The earliest town record of the Proclamation of a Sovereign is a minute of Vestry, date, March 19th, 1701, which runs thus:—
Israel Paine, Constable, being accompanyed with the chief Inhabitants of the town (after open proclamation made by the Cryer) did in the mercat place about Eleven of the clock in the forenoon, solemnly proclaim our Gratious Sovereign Lady Queen Anne, Queen off England, Scotland, France, and Ireland; upon which there followed great shoutings and acclamations of all the people. Saying, God Save Queen Anne.
The coronation of Her present Majesty was celebrated on the Level, June 28th, 1838, in a similar manner to that of George IV. The last occasion of public rejoicing there was to commemorate the Peace with Russia in 1855. The great Peace Festival, consequent upon the overthrow of the sovereignty of Napoleon Bonaparte, on his retiring to Elba, took place on the 12th of August, 1814, on the Prince Regent’s Cricket Ground, which occupied the extreme north of the Level, immediately in front of the Peircy Alms Houses, Lewes Road. The animated scene which the Cricket Ground presented on the memorable occasion was, in the highest degree, interesting. Seventy-five double rows of tables were formed, each in an oblong square, open at the bottom only, and each adapted for the accommodation of one hundred and twenty-two persons. These were furnished in a plentiful manner, with true old English fare of roast beef and plum puddings, garnished with a suitable number of hogsheads of ale and brown stout, at convenient distances, giving an air of hospitable importance to the whole. At each table a president was appointed, with six assistants, under the denomination of stewards; the former wearing white sashes, with the inscription, “Brighton Festival,” and the latter purple and white favours, bearing the number of the table at which they were to officiate, affixed at the left breast. Flags of blue silk, lettered in gold, “Peace,” “Wellington,” “Blucher,” &c., waved at the head of the various tables, where were seated upwards of 7,000 persons.