Salt Daisy Lake - then & now

Aldrington Basin and Salt Daisy Lake. Watercolour by Brook Harrison. 

 Hove Lagoon

Brunswick Street West - Then & Now

'Then' being only a few years ago in 2003, but probably largely unaltered for the previous 70 years:-

 Now:- 

The sawn-off telegraph pole just  to the right of the new houses is, in the top picture, hidden under a massive growth of ivy.

Provided one can cope with 'vertical living', the new houses look not unattractive, certainly intriguing, and the windows are cleverly designed to broaden  the occupants' view so obviating any 'shut-in' feeling from the narrowness of the street. 

The changing face of Kingsway.

These semi-detached properties, only one still occupied, are just to the west of Viceroy Lodge on the corner with Hove Street. Only last year the last house to the east of Hove Street was replaced with a block of flats - "the Mirage". Now the inexorable march of the developers looks set to resume. My early architectural tastes were influenced by ownership of a "Bayko" building-set with which one could build 1930's style, elegant bow-fronted houses with red-tiled roofs, so I am always sad to see these perfectly good homes demolished. One hopes that some at least will be saved for future generations to admire, just as we now admire the buildings of earlier eras.

Just out of the photo to the left is the Princes Marine 'Best Western' Hotel is on the site of Hove College, which closed in 1980, and in spite of being a going concern, is looking somewhat shabby.  Further west on the corner of Princes Crescent is another boarded up property which is shown below. In the 1950's it was a Nurse's Home but subsequently became a Retirement Home until it was 

vacated a few years ago.

The attractive mixed flint & brick wall looks as if it dates from the original properties. It will need keeping an eye on or, directly the builders get on site, it will come down quicker than you can say 'Tescos'.

A call to join the Brighton Society

In a comment to an Argus article "Brighton Regency Society row rumbles on" Christopher Hawtree says:

"People with a concern for architecture, and all that entails, could consider leaving the Regency Society and joining the Brighton Society, whose remit is clearly stated. Meanwhile, Hove surely deserves the creation of a similiar Society."

Christopher Hawtree is a Hove-based writer & bibliophile who has had articles published in the New Statesman, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and The Times. He is an ardent defender of public libraries and was part of the successful campaign to retain Hove Library in its original Carnegie building, see "The Good Library Blog".

Brighton Society's clear mission statement is: "to conserve and improve the amenities of Brighton & Hove. We encourage the preservation of architecturally and historically interesting buildings with their particular look and feel..."

One of Brighton Society's most recent successes was in securing the Grade II listing of the victorian Connaught Road School, thus helping to preserve it from unsympathetic developments or even demolition..

Hove, of course, already has the Hove Civic Society with similar aims, namely: "to stimulate community interest in the beauty, history and character of Hove and its surroundings. The Society encourages high standards of architecture, town planning and the conservation of buildings of historical interest."

Cliff End

The cliffs of Sussex, formed where the South Downs meet the sea, rise abruptly just west of Eastbourne and quickly reach their maximum height of 500 feet at Beachy Head. Seventeen miles further west they taper down to zero at the Brighton/Hove boundary where they meet the Sussex coastal plain.

Hove Hyperbole

"9 SUPERB ULTRA LUXURIOUS APARTMENTS SET WITHIN AN ICONIC BOUTIQUE DEVELOPMENT"

So declares the announcement mounted high on the scaffolding at the corner of Vallance Gardens & Kingsway. And the name of this development? - "The Mirage". How pretentious can you get?

However it does look as if it is going to be an elegant, sympathetically designed building.
It replaces the detached villa shown below:-


Watch this blog for a photo of the finished development.

Aliens have landed

The pink slab sticking up in the centre-distance is a modern flats development in Connaught Road. When I first saw it from this angle in Kingsway it made me think of the monolith in "2001- A Space Odyssey', a silent sentinel left on the moon by an alien civilisation.

Luckily it is somewhat less obtrusive from nearer viewpoints in Church Road. What is really worrying is the height precedent it has set. If, in the course of time, other building plots become available in the vicinity, how will the Council resist applications for developments of similar heights?