Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/392

344   BRIGHTON, a parliamentary borough, and one of the most fashionable watering-places of England, is situated on the coast of Sussex between Beachy Head and Selsea Bill, in 50º 50′ N. lat. and 0º 8′ W. long. By railway it is 50 miles from London and 28 from Chichester. Its sea-frontage of handsome mansions and hotels extends upwards of three miles from Kemp Town in the east to what was formerly the suburban village of Cliftonville in the parish of Hove; while its depth inland at the centre is rather more than a mile. In general appearance the style of the town strikingly resembles that of London; and many of its streets and squares seem as if they had been transported as they stand from the "West End." As far, indeed, as its character is not affected by its natural situation, it is nothing more or less than a vigorous offshoot supported by the sap of the greater city, a fact which is popularly recognized by the designation of London-super-Mare. During the present century its growth has been rapid and continuous, about four hundred new houses being often built in the space of a year. Its streets and squares already amount to four hundred; but in comparison with this extent the number of its really remarkable buildings is rather small, and nearly all of them are of modern date. Among its twenty Episcopalian and between thirty and forty Nonconformist churches two only need be specially mentioned,—the parish church of St Nicholas, which was built in the reign of Henry VII., and is probably one of the oldest buildings in the town, and Trinity chapel, in Ship Street, memorable as the scene of the labours of Frederick William Robertson. The most important of the secular edifices are the town-hall, the market, the pavilion, the aquarium, the theatre, the proprietary college, the Sussex county hospital, the new workhouse, the infirmary, the blind asylum, and the female orphan asylum. The pavilion, with its strange assemblage of domes and minarets, was built in 1784-7 as a residence for the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.), and about 1818 it was refashioned by Nash into a grotesque imitation of Chinese architecture. It has a frontage to the east of 300 feet, and occupies, with its gardens, about 11 acres. In 1850 it was purchased by the town for £53,000, and its spacious rooms, greatly altered from time to time, are now appropriated to a variety of uses,—one serving as a museum, another as an assembly-room, others as picture-galleries. The pavilion dome, formerly the royal stables, is now converted into a magnificent hall for high-class musical performances; it is lighted by a glazed dome, with a diameter only 20 feet less than that of the dome of St Paul's of London. The county hospital was built in 1828 by Sir Charles Barry, at a cost of £10,000, and has since been largely extended. It is "open to the sick and lame poor of every country and nation." There are a large number of minor benevolent establishments in the town, and so various are its educational institutions that it has been called the city of schools. Among the bathing establishments the most remarkable are Brill's and the New Turkish Baths; the former includes extensive swimming baths for both sexes.    EB9 Plan of Brighton.png Plan of Brighton.     The tendency of the currents in the channel opposite Brighton is to drive the shingle eastward, and within the memory of man large portions of the coast have thus been destroyed. To prevent this erosion the whole sea-frontage of the town at the east end is protected by a great sea-wall, which was built between 1827 and 1838. It is a mile long, 60 feet high, and 23 feet thick at the base, and cost £100,000. The beach is further ribbed from north to south by various "groynes," or jetties, one of which, constructed of concrete in 1867, at a cost of £5000, stretches about 250 feet into the sea. There are two piers which serve as promenades. The first, an elegant chain fabric commenced by Sir S. Brown, R.N., in 1822, was