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Adelaide Crescent

Crescents (architecture)Decimus Burton buildingsGrade II* listed buildings in Brighton and HoveHouses completed in 1860Houses in Brighton and Hove
Use British English from October 2013
Adelaide Crescent (East Side) from Hove Seafront (NHLE Code 1298665) (August 2013)
Adelaide Crescent (East Side) from Hove Seafront (NHLE Code 1298665) (August 2013)

Adelaide Crescent is a mid-19th-century residential development in Hove, part of the English city and seaside resort of Brighton and Hove. Conceived as an ambitious attempt to rival the large, high-class Kemp Town estate east of Brighton, the crescent was not built to its original plan because time and money were insufficient. Nevertheless, together with its northerly neighbour Palmeira Square (with which it is continuous), it forms one of Hove's most important architectural set-pieces. Building work started in 1830 to the design of Decimus Burton. The adjacent land was originally occupied by "the world's largest conservatory", the Anthaeum; its collapse stopped construction of the crescent, which did not resume until the 1850s. The original design was modified and the crescent was eventually finished in the mid-1860s. Together with the Kemp Town and Brunswick Town estates, the crescent is one of the foremost pre-Victorian residential developments in the Brighton area: it has been claimed that "outside Bath, [they] have no superior in England". The buildings in the main part of Adelaide Crescent are Grade II* listed. Some of the associated buildings at the sea-facing south end are listed at the lower Grade II.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Adelaide Crescent (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Adelaide Crescent
Adelaide Crescent,

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Wikipedia: Adelaide CrescentContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 50.8247 ° E -0.164 °
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Address

Adelaide Crescent 4
BN3 2JD , Brunswick
England, United Kingdom
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Adelaide Crescent (East Side) from Hove Seafront (NHLE Code 1298665) (August 2013)
Adelaide Crescent (East Side) from Hove Seafront (NHLE Code 1298665) (August 2013)
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Anthaeum, Hove

The Anthaeum (also spelt Antheum or Anthæum) was an iron and glass conservatory planned by English botanist and landscape gardener Henry Phillips and designed by architect Amon Henry Wilds on land owned by Sir Isaac Goldsmid in Hove, a Sussex seaside town which is now part of the city of Brighton and Hove. Conceived on a grand scale and consisting of a gigantic cupola-topped dome covering more than 1.5 acres (0.61 ha), the structure was intended to enclose a carefully landscaped tropical garden, with exotic trees and shrubs, lakes, rockeries and other attractions. The scheme was a larger and more ambitious version of a project Phillips and Wilds had worked on in 1825 in Hove's larger neighbour Brighton, for which money had run out before work could commence. Unlike its predecessor, the Anthaeum was built: work began in 1832 and an opening ceremony was planned for 31 August 1833. Disagreements between the architect, the project engineer and the building contractor led to structural problems being overlooked or ignored, though, and the day before it opened the Anthaeum collapsed spectacularly. Its wreckage stayed for nearly 20 years overlooking Adelaide Crescent, a seafront residential set-piece whose northern side it adjoined, and Phillips went blind from the shock of watching the largest of his many projects end in disaster. Palmeira Square, another residential development, has occupied the site since the late 19th century.

Palmeira Square
Palmeira Square

Palmeira Square () is a mid-19th-century residential development in Hove, part of the English city and seaside resort of Brighton and Hove. At the southern end it adjoins Adelaide Crescent, another architectural set-piece which leads down to the seafront; large terraced houses occupy its west and east sides, separated by a public garden; and at the north end is one of Hove's main road junctions. This is also called Palmeira Square, and its north side is lined with late 19th-century terraced mansions. Commercial buildings and a church also stand on the main road, which is served by many buses (some of which terminate there). The land was originally occupied by "the world's largest conservatory", the Anthaeum—a visitor attraction planned by botanist, author and building promoter Henry Phillips. The giant dome's collapse and total destruction on the day it was due to open in 1833 made Phillips go blind from shock, and the debris occupied the site for many years. Work began in the early 1850s and was largely complete in the mid-1860s, although commercial and residential buildings such as Palmeira House and Gwydyr Mansions continued to be added at the northern end throughout the late 19th century. English Heritage has listed the residential buildings on the western, eastern and northern sides of the square at Grade II for their architectural and historical importance, although one building has the higher Grade II* status because of its opulent custom-designed interior.