Roundhill Crescent
Encyclopedia
Roundhill Crescent is a late 19th-century housing development in Round Hill
, an inner suburb of the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. 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
. 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 at Grade II by English Heritage
for their architectural and historical importance, and the crescent occupies a prominent place on Brighton's skyline.
coast, with the chalk hills of the South Downs
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
and Lewes
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
. 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
throughout the 19th century; Wilds's work represented the most recent example of the style already established at Adelaide, Hanover, Lewes, Montpelier and the pioneering Royal
Crescents.
The arable land of the higher parts of the hill, mostly owned by Thomas Read Kemp
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
" in character, showing the evolution away from Regency-style features popular throughout 19th-century Brighton and the adoption of some Italianate
detailing. The gaps were filled in between 1880 and 1885 when smaller terraced houses, mostly of two storeys and featuring the canted
bay window
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
—a low-quality composite material—which was then faced with protective render.
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
care. In 1905, number 101 was rented by Dr Helen Boyle, who had founded a dispensary
in the nearby suburb of Hanover
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
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 at Grade II by English Heritage
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. The crescent also forms a central part (and "the most important architecturally") of the Round Hill conservation area
, one of 34 such areas in the city of Brighton and Hove. The 29.78 acres (12.1 ha) area was designated on 6 January 1977.
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
ed façades carved to look like ashlar
, ornate cast-iron balconies, parapet
s, sash window
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
s running the full height of the building to a cornice
. The bottom part of each pilaster is rusticated
. The entrance and windows have decorative mouldings to their archivolt
and architrave
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
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
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
and parapet
in front of the roof. The treatment of the top of the dividing pilaster
on number 71 is different: it lacks a bracket
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
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 windows 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.
Round Hill, Brighton
Round Hill is an inner suburban area of Brighton, part of the coastal city of Brighton and Hove in England. The area contains a mix of privately owned and privately rented terraced housing, much of which has been converted for multiple occupancy, and small-scale commercial development...
, an inner suburb of the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. 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
Conservation Area (United Kingdom)
In the United Kingdom, the term Conservation Area nearly always applies to an area considered worthy of preservation or enhancement because of its special architectural or historic interest, "the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance," as required by the Planning ...
. 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 at Grade II by English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
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 ChannelEnglish Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
coast, with the chalk hills of the South Downs
South Downs
The South Downs is 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, near Eastbourne, East Sussex, in the east. It is bounded on its northern side by a steep escarpment, from whose...
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
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Lewes
Lewes
Lewes is the county town of East Sussex, England and historically of all of Sussex. It is a civil parish and is the centre of the Lewes local government district. The settlement has a history as a bridging point and as a market town, and today as a communications hub and tourist-oriented town...
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
Park Crescent, Brighton
Park Crescent is a mid-19th-century residential development in the Round Hill area of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. The horseshoe-shaped, three-part terrace of 48 houses was designed and built by one of Brighton's most important architects, Amon Henry Wilds; by the...
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
Amon Henry Wilds 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 residential construction and development in early 19th-century Brighton, which until then had...
. 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
Hove is a town on the south coast of England, immediately to the west of its larger neighbour Brighton, with which it forms the unitary authority Brighton and Hove. It forms a single conurbation together with Brighton and some smaller towns and villages running along the coast...
throughout the 19th century; Wilds's work represented the most recent example of the style already established at Adelaide, Hanover, Lewes, Montpelier and the pioneering Royal
Royal Crescent, Brighton
Royal Crescent is a crescent-shaped terrace of houses on the seafront in Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Built in the late 18th and early 19th century as a speculative development on cliffs east of Brighton by a wealthy merchant, the 14 lodging houses formed the town's...
Crescents.
The arable land of the higher parts of the hill, mostly owned by Thomas Read Kemp
Thomas Read Kemp
Thomas Read Kemp was an English property developer and politician. He was the son of Sussex landowner Thomas Kemp, whose farmhouse in Brighton was rented by the Prince of Wales in 1786.-Biography:...
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
Regency architecture
The Regency style of architecture refers primarily to buildings built in Britain during the period in the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent, and also to later buildings following the same style...
" in character, showing the evolution away from Regency-style features popular throughout 19th-century Brighton and the adoption of some Italianate
Italianate architecture
The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...
detailing. The gaps were filled in between 1880 and 1885 when smaller terraced houses, mostly of two storeys and featuring the canted
Cant (architecture)
Cant is the architectural term describing part, or segment, of a facade which is at an angle to another part of the same facade. The angle breaking the facade is less than a right angle thus enabling a canted facade to be viewed as, and remain, one composition.Canted facades are a typical of, but...
bay window
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, either square or polygonal in plan. The angles most commonly used on the inside corners of the bay are 90, 135 and 150 degrees. Bay windows are often associated with Victorian architecture...
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
Bungaroosh
Bungaroosh is a composite building material used almost exclusively in the English seaside resort of Brighton between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, when it grew from a fishing village into a large town...
—a low-quality composite material—which was then faced with protective render.
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
Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...
care. In 1905, number 101 was rented by Dr Helen Boyle, who had founded a dispensary
Dispensary
A dispensary is an office in a school, hospital or other organization that dispenses medications and medical supplies. In a traditional dispensary set-up a pharmacist dispenses medication as per prescription or order form....
in the nearby suburb of Hanover
Hanover, Brighton
thumb|right|Hanover Day 2007.Hanover is an area within the city of Brighton and Hove, United Kingdom. It is part of the electoral ward of Hanover & Elm Grove....
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
History of psychiatric institutions
The story of the rise of the lunatic asylum and its gradual transformation into, and eventual replacement by, the modern psychiatric hospital, is also the story of 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 at Grade II by English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
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. The crescent also forms a central part (and "the most important architecturally") of the Round Hill conservation area
Conservation Area (United Kingdom)
In the United Kingdom, the term Conservation Area nearly always applies to an area considered worthy of preservation or enhancement because of its special architectural or historic interest, "the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance," as required by the Planning ...
, one of 34 such areas in the city of Brighton and Hove. The 29.78 acres (12.1 ha) 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 [at] a little grandeur in the RegencyRegency architecture
The Regency style of architecture refers primarily to buildings built in Britain during the period in the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent, and also to later buildings following the same style...
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
Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...
ed façades carved to look like ashlar
Ashlar
Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...
, ornate cast-iron balconies, parapet
Parapet
A parapet is a wall-like barrier at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony or other structure. Where extending above a roof, it may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a...
s, sash window
Sash window
A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels or "sashes" that form a frame to hold panes of glass, which are often separated from other panes by narrow muntins...
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
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s running the full height of the building to a cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
. The bottom part of each pilaster is rusticated
Rustication (architecture)
thumb|upright|Two different styles of rustication in the [[Palazzo Medici-Riccardi]] in [[Florence]].In classical architecture rustication is an architectural feature that contrasts in texture with the smoothly finished, squared block masonry surfaces called ashlar...
. The entrance and windows have decorative mouldings to their archivolt
Archivolt
An archivolt is an ornamental molding or band following the curve on the underside of an arch. It is composed of bands of ornamental moldings surrounding an arched opening, corresponding to the architrave in the case of a rectangular opening...
and architrave
Architrave
An architrave is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of the columns. It is an architectural element in Classical architecture.-Classical architecture:...
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
Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...
windows. Many of the mouldings, except at number 1, are no longer in their original condition. Number 1 also has dormer
Dormer
A dormer is a structural element of a building that protrudes from the plane of a sloping roof surface. Dormers are used, either in original construction or as later additions, to create usable space in the roof of a building by adding headroom and usually also by enabling addition of windows.Often...
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
Molding (decorative)
Molding or moulding is a strip of material with various profiles used to cover transitions between surfaces or for decoration. It is traditionally made from solid milled wood or plaster but may be made from plastic or reformed wood...
or cast-iron window guards. Number 19 has an arched side entrance under an architrave
Architrave
An architrave is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of the columns. It is an architectural element in Classical architecture.-Classical architecture:...
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
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
and parapet
Parapet
A parapet is a wall-like barrier at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony or other structure. Where extending above a roof, it may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a...
in front of the roof. The treatment of the top of the dividing pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
on number 71 is different: it lacks a bracket
Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...
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
Eaves
The eaves of a roof are its lower edges. They usually project beyond the walls of the building to carry rain water away.-Etymology:"Eaves" is derived from Old English and is both the singular and plural form of the word.- Function :...
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 windows have been retained. The insertion of modern exterior features such as replacement doors, windows and roofs has been restricted by an Article Four Direction
Article Four Direction
An Article Four Direction is made by a Local Planning Authority in the United Kingdom and confirmed by the Government. It serves to restrict Permitted Development rights, which means that a lot of the things people do to their land or houses without planning permission and often take for granted,...
, covering the whole Round Hill conservation area, since 2000.