Graham and Fiona Ship Street Brighton 2007.

#ship #street #brighton
SHIP STREET : Named from the Old Ship Inn (q.v.), Ship Street was developed from around the start of the seventeenth century and was known as the ‘street of the Hempshares’ in old documents (see ” Fishing Industry ” for hempshares). By the mid eighteenth century it was the most prosperous street in the town, and with the economic boom that followed the establishment of the health resort, it became a centre for professionals, especially solicitors and lawyers who remain in large numbers today. With many fine examples of Georgian town architecture, Ship Street remains probably the most elegant street in Brighton and there are a large number of listed buildings along its length, mostly dating from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
On the western side, no.7 has two bows, a fluted Doric doorway, and a facade of mathematical tiles ; no.14 dates from the early nineteenth century, as does no.15 which has a distinctive doorway and two bows; nos.16-17 are elegant buildings in red brick; no.22 is cobble-fronted; and nos.28-29, with bows, also date from the early nineteenth century.
On the eastern side, nos.53-55 have two bows and mathematical tiles ; no.57 has a cobbled front with added bay windows; the three-storey nos.58 and 59 are both faced in yellow brick (or possibly mathematical tiles ); nos.61-63 date from the early nineteenth century and have excellent doorways; no.64 is an elegant brick house with another good doorway; no.68 has chequered brick and bears a date of 1738; and finally no.69 is an attractive house in knapped and squared flint with brick, which bears the date c.1685 but has a facade more appropriate to the following century.
The new Museum of Brighton occupies the former HolyTrinityChurch. Originally erected in 1817 by A. and A.H.Wilds, in Greek Doric style with a four-column portico and square tower, it was commissioned as the Trinity Chapel for Thomas Read Kemp and his dissenting sect, but Kemp sold the freehold to Revd Robert Anderson in 1825, and it was consecrated the following year as an Anglican chapel of ease to St Nicholas’s Church known as Holy Trinity. Anderson enlarged the church in 1827 and removed the portico, and the building was altered again in 1855 and 1869 when Duke Street was widened; the southern facade was thus exposed, and a chancel was also added. In 1885-7 however, the exterior was completely rebuilt in Perpendicular and Decorated styles by Somers and Micklethwaite using knapped flint as the facing material. The hexagonal lantern is topped by a weather-vane which bears the date 1886, but the interior remains largely unaltered from the original and has galleries above the north and south aisles. HolyTrinityChurch closed in December 1984 and is now a listed building; it is currently being converted into a Brighton heritage museum. Holy Trinity achieved national fame through the powerful sermons of the very famous radical preacher Revd Frederick Robertson in 1847-53, and the adjacent building, now the Co-operative Bank, was built in 1930 for the parish as the Robertson Hall.
The most important building in Ship Street is the Head Post-Office.,
The Helsinki Café Bar is notable for its extraordinary late- Victorian architecture, with Corinthian columns and pilasters, recessed balconies, and much decoration. Until 1982 it was known as the Seven Stars, a name first recorded in 1785, and for many years the building bore the inscription ‘established 1535’.
Nos.8-9 Ship Street are the offices of Howlett Clarke Cushman, the oldest solicitor’s practice in the town. The firm was founded in 1773 by William Attree who acted for both the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Clarence, and was also clerk to both the town commissioners and the vestry from 1790. The firm took Somers Clarke into partnership in 1829 and then, in 1858, James Howlett. Becoming Howlett and Clarke in 1887, it was combined with the firm of Cushman in 1989. The Book of Ancient Customs (see “Ancient Customs”) is preserved in the offices.
Lanes Cafe-Bar, formerly Henekeys, is a large rendered building in Tudor style opposite the Old Ship , and was erected on the site of the New Ship Inn. The New Ship was established by 1636 (although the building says 1695) and became one of the town’s principal coaching inns. On 22 October 1792 it managed to accommodate a party of thirty-seven French refugee nuns who refused to sleep two to a bed; the Prince of Wales and Mrs Fitzherbert started a public subscription to pay for their stay before they moved on to Brussels. The inn was rebuilt in the early nineteenth century with three storeys and first-floor bows, but was replaced by the present building in 1933. The older inn is commemorated by the figureheads projecting from the upper storeys.