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Transcribed from the 1862 E. Lewis edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
HISTORY
OF
BRIGHTHELMSTON
OR
Brighton as I View it and others Knew it,
WITH A
CHRONOLOGICAL
TABLE OF LOCAL EVENTS.
* * * * *
* * * * *
BY JOHN ACKERSON ERREDGE,
(_Author of_ "_The Students' Hand Book_," _&c._)
* * * * *
* * * * *
BRIGHTON:
PRINTED BY E. LEWIS, "OBSERVER" OFFICE, 52A, NORTH STREET.
* * * * *
1862.
PREFACE.
The publication of the History of Brighton had proceeded, with the most
gratifying success, through ten monthly numbers, when it was suddenly
interrupted by the lamented decease of the Author--Mr. J. A. Erredge.
Death came upon him, not stealthily, but in its most awful form. It
surprised him literally at the desk. Whilst talking cheerfully to the
publisher, the hand of Death was laid upon him, and he fell dead to the
ground;--the ink of these pages was still wet whilst the Author was
extended on the floor a corpse. So terrible an occurrence for a brief
space delayed the publication of the work, but fortunately for the family
of the author, the MS. was nearly completed, and his sons were enabled,
from the materials left by their lamented father, to compile the few last
pages and send the two concluding numbers through the press. The History
of Brighton is now completed, and whatever shortcomings may be detected
in the two concluding numbers, which had not the advantage of being
corrected by the Author, will no doubt be pardoned by a generous public.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER _Page_.
I. THE ROMANS AT BRIGHTON 1
II. SITUATION, SOIL, GEOLOGY, AND CLIMATE OF 5
BRIGHTON
III. THE ETYMOLOGY, AND EARLY HISTORY OF BRIGHTON 11
IV. AFTER THE CONQUEST, TO 1513 15
V. ANCIENT AND MODERN GOVERNMENT OF THE TOWN 21
VI. THE BOOK OF ALL THE "AUNCIENT CUSTOMS." 26
VII. THE TENANTRY LANDS 45
VIII. THE BARTHOLOMEWS 50
IX. THE WORKHOUSE 62
X. THE ATTACK ON BRIGHTHELMSTON BY THE FRENCH, 61
IN 1545
XI. FORTIFICATIONS OF THE TOWN 63
XII. THE INCURSIONS OF THE SEA ON THE TOWN 73
XIII. THE DOWER OF ANN CLEVES 80
XIV. THE PARISH CHURCH, ST. NICHOLAS 82
XV. DR. VICESIMUS KNOX AND THE SURREY MILITIA 92
XVI. THE OLD CHURCHYARD 102
XVII. MARTYRDOM OF DERYK CARVER 118
XVIII. THE ESCAPE OF CHARLES II. 124
XIX. PERSECUTIONS FOR CONSCIENCE' SAKE 134
XX. THE BIRDS AND THEIR HAUNTS IN THE 139
NEIGHBOURHOOD OF BRIGHTON
XXI. THE WILD FLOWERS AND MOSSES ABOUT BRIGHTON 158
XXII. BRIGHTON CAMP AND THE TRAGEDIES OF GOLDSTONE 168
BOTTOM
XXIII. THE STEINE AND ITS TRIBUTARIES 182
XXIV. THE THEATRES 206
XXV. BRIGHTON FROM ITS SIMPLICITY TO ITS PRESENT 217
RENOWN
XXVI. THE MARINE PAVILION AND ITS OCCUPANTS 251
XXVII. ON AND ABOUT THE RACE-COURSE 280
XXVIII. PAST AND PRESENT PASTIMES 295
,, THE HISTORICAL STREET OF THE TOWN 329
XXIX. THE PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS, CHARITIES, AND 336
ENDOWMENTS
XXX. CHURCHES AND CHAPELS 359
XXXI. HOVE AND CLIFTONVILLE 371
CHAPTER I.
THE ROMANS AT BRIGHTON.
Although there is no doubt that the vicinity of Brighton at a very remote
period was occupied as a Roman military station, it is not the intention
of the compiler of this work to date, merely on supposition, the origin
of the town, coeval as it might have been with the landing of Julius
Csar in Britain. The "Magna Britannia," published in 1737,
mentions:--"As to the antiquity of this town, there is reason to believe
it to have stood a vast tract of time. From the accounts our historians
give of it, for some of them speak of it ever since Julius Csar's
arrival in Britain, and affirm, that this was the place where he landed
his legions; (August 26th, 55 B.C., {1}) but since others assert his
landing to have been at Hastings, we shall not be very positive, yet may
justly insist upon it as most probable, because there is good anchorage
in the bay here; and besides, there appears on the west side of this town
to this day, for near a mile together, vast numbers of men's bones, and
some of them of prodigious size, which plainly proves that there has been
some warlike engagement near it." As an illustration that what has been
transmitted to us orally, especially of remote periods, cannot be relied
on, there is told the following tale of "Csar's Stile":--Dr. Stukely, or
some other antiquarian, was travelling through England, when he heard
that on a certain hill there was a stile called Csar's Stile. "Ay,"
said the doctor, "such a road, mentioned in Antoninus, passed near here;
and the traditional name confirms the possibility of a Roman camp on this
spot." Whilst he was surveying the prospect, a peasant came up, whom the
doctor addressed thus--"They call this Csar's Stile, my friend, do they
not?" "Ees, zur," said the man, "they calls it so arter poor old Bob
Csar, the carpenter; rest his soul; I holped him to make it, when I was
a boy."
The "Burrell MSS." state that:--"There are three Roman castra, or camps,
lying in a line over-thwart the Downs from Brighthelmstone to
Ditchelling, from south to north. The first, a large one, called the
Castle, about a mile from Brighton, eastward, and a mile from the sea, on
the summit of a lofty hill commanding the sea-coast; the next, a smaller,
called Hollingbury Castle, nearly about the middle of the Downs, also
commanding from a lofty hill, by Stanmer, the whole western sea-coast of
Sussex; and a third, a large one, called Ditchelling Castle, containing
between twelve and fourteen acres, is the highest point of the Downs
thereabouts, and commands part of the sea-coast, and all the northern
edge of the Downs, and the wild underneath it." A military Roman way was
discovered a few years ago, on St. John's Common, and in the enclosed
lands adjoining, in the parishes of Keymer and Clayton, fully confirming
the opinion of Camden and Stillingfleet that the _Portus Adurni_ of the
Romans was at Aldrington. {2} On the west side also of Glynd Bridge,
near Lewes, a paved Roman causeway was discovered, lying three feet
beneath the turf, upon a bed of silt, or blue clay, twenty feet thick;
and near it was found a large brass coin of Antoninus Pius.
By whatever name Brighton was then known, there is no doubt it was a
place of some note in the time of the Romans, as it was peculiarly
favourable to all the purposes of the fisher and the hunter. Romish
coins are still frequently found in its vicinity, and in the year 1750,
near the town, an urn was dug up, which contained a thousand _denarii_ of
different impresses from Antoninus Pius to the Emperor Philip; and since
that time there have been found in some of the burghs or barrows to the
east of the town, ashes and fragments of human bones, enclosed in urns of
Roman manufacture. In preparing the ground for enclosing of the Old
Stein, in 1818, several Roman coins were turned up by the workmen, on one
of which, round the impression of the head, was the inscription, "IMP.
ALEXANDER PIUS, A. V. C," and on the reverse, "MARS ULTOR," with the
initials S. C. between the figure of Mars. The date, however, was
illegible. In forming the Race Course to the south of the Stand,--since
restored to its original state,--several urns of Roman fabrication were
dug up; and since then, to the east of the town, ashes and fragments of
human bones have been found enclosed in Roman urns.
Relicts of the ancient Britons, before the time of the Romans in Britain,
have at various times been found in the vicinity of Brighton. The most
perfect were those discovered in a Barrow in Coney-burrow field, Hove, in
January, 1856. In this field was a mound about 20 feet high, situated
north of the pathway from Brighton to Hove, about N.N.E. of the church of
St. John the Baptist. Some 40 years since, this hillock was covered with
furze, and was a burrow for rabbits; but at a more recent date, when the
habitations of men became erected contiguous, and the human family
extended thither, the colony of rabbits dispersed, and their abode became
the rendezvous of rustic games. Our highly respected local antiquarian,
Barclay Phillips, Esq., thus describes it, and the incidents connected
with it:--
"Rising from a perfectly level plain, and being unconnected with any
other hills, it always presented the appearance of an artificial
mound, and therefore, when, some years ago, a road was cut through it
to the Hove Station of the Brighton and Portsmouth Railway, I was
anxious to learn whether any antiquities had been met with; but not
any were then found. Now, however, all doubt on the subject has been
set at rest, and the hillock proved to be a Barrow, or monumental
mound erected over the remains of an ancient British chieftain.
Labourers have recently been employed removing the earth of this
hill, and last week, on reaching the centre of the mound, about two
yards west of the road leading to Hove Station, and about nine feet
below the surface, dug out a rude coffin between six and seven feet
long. On exposure to the atmosphere the boards immediately crumbled
away; but a few of the knots remained, and prove to be of oak. The
coffin contained small fragments of bone, some of which I have seen,
and the following curious relics:--
"1. An Amber Cup, with a handle on one side. It is hemispherical in
shape, rather deep, with a lip turning outwards, and is ornamented
merely with a band of fine lines running round the outside about half
an inch from the top. From the fact of the rim not being perfectly
round, and the band before-mentioned not passing over the space
within the handle, and its being marked off at each end with a line
seemingly cut across, we may conjecture it to have been made and
carved by hand.
"2. Head of a Battle Axe, about five inches long. It is in perfect
preservation, and made of some sort of iron-stone, the wooden handle,
having of course, long since decayed.
"3. A small Whetstone, with a hole neatly drilled through one end,
so that it might be suspended by a thong to the person, and carried
about.
"4. A Bronze Spear Head, very much oxidised, and so brittle that it
broke into halves as it was being taken out of the ground. Two of
the rivets and fragments of the spear handle still remain attached to
the lower end of the blade.
"The workmen described the coffin as resting on the natural soil,
which is stiff yellow clay, while the mound itself bears every
appearance of having been formed of surface earth and rubbish thrown
up together. I minutely examined the sections of the hill, and
myself picked out several specimens of charred wood, and was informed
that such fragments were very abundant.
"The manner of sepulture and all the relics, excepting the spear
head, indicate this mound as having been the burial-place of a
British chieftain before the time of the Roman invasion;--the
spear-head certainly more nearly, though not exactly, resembles those
used afterwards. The mound was of the simplest and most ancient
form, and therefore I am inclined to think we may reckon it as at
least 2000 years old, perhaps more! It has now disappeared. The
last clod of that earth which so long covered the bones of a British
chieftain was this afternoon carted away; and coffin, bones, and
earth have been thrown pell-mell to form the mould of the future
rosary of Palmyra square."
At a meeting of the Archological Society in London, about a month after
the opening of this barrow, the cup, &c., were exhibited; when Mr. Kemble
and other celebrated antiquaries gave their opinion thus:--"The cup is the
only known specimen of so large a size, and the battle axe is superior to
any similar object in the British Museum." Mr. Hawkins and Mr. Franks,
who have the care of the antiquarian departments, both declared the
"find" in this barrow to have been the richest ever known. These rare
specimens of local antiquity, through the kindness of Sir Francis
Goldsmid, of "The Wick," on whose land they were found, form a prominent
feature of the Brighton Museum, at the Royal Pavilion.