Kemp Town Enclosures, Brighton, England

Kemp Town Enclosures is a communal garden, owned collectively by the freeholders of the 100 houses that make up the Kemp Town Estate, developed in the 1820s by Thomas Kemp. The Estate consists of Sussex Square, Lewes Crescent, Chichester Terrace and Arundel Terrace.

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. 

Private town gardens laid out in the 1820s for the residents of the Kemp Town Estate by Henry Phillips, landscape gardener and Henry Kendall, surveyor, as part of the wider Regency town planning of Brighton.

SITE DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Kemp Town gardens form 6 hectares of enclosed gardens in the Kemp Town Estate which is situated on the east side of Brighton, now directly adjacent on the west side of the Brighton Marina and the Undercliffe Walk. The site slopes steeply southwards from the northern end of the gardens to the sea front, the top of Sussex Square which forms the northern, highest part of the gardens, being nearly 40 metres above sea level and 400 metres from the mean high water level.

The gardens form the focus of the Regency layout: Sussex Square (houses numbered 1-50, 1825-1828 Listed Grade I) to the north opening out onto Lewes Crescent at the southern end. The gardens thus comprise a semi-circle facing the sea with an adjoining rectangular plot to its north. Flanking either side of Lewes Crescent (houses numbered 1-28, 1823-1828 Listed Grade I) and also facing the sea to the west and to the east are Chichester Terrace and Arundel Terrace, both fronted by a grass lawn between the Estate road and Marine Parade, now the A259, with the Esplanade beyond.

Kemp Town gardens, lying central to the housing scheme are separated from the surrounding terraced houses by public roads, Lewes Crescent and Sussex Square to the west and east, with a further road, Eastern Road, formerly York Terrace, dividing off the northern end of Sussex Square. Eastern Road thus forms the southern boundary of the northern square and thereafter to the south lie the main gardens. These are railed as is the northern square.

 REFERENCES used by English Heritage:

Printed material

Mavis Batey, Site report, 1994

The Pall Mall Gazette, 21 October 1908 (reprinted as The King & Brighton. A History of Sussex Square)

J Lawrence-Hamilton, The Budget & Private Enclosed Gardens, 1909

Kemp Town Closures Committee, Minute Book of the Committee of Management

Maps

Plan by Henry Phillips, 1828

Illustrations

John Bruce, Kemptown Brighton, Erecting on the East Cliff on the Estate of T R Kemp Esq., MP, aquatint by John Bruce from his own sketch, about 1826

Description written : 30 July 1996

Revised : January 2000