9 Pool Valley, Brighton

Brighton is situated on the English Channel coast at a point where several valleys meet the sea. One of these was formed by the flow of the Wellesbourne, a winterbourne which came to the surface at Patcham. The intermittent flow of the stream created a boggy, marshy area of land around which the old village of Brighthelmstone developed. Just before entering the sea, it formed a small pool. As demand for land grew in the late 18th century during a period of rapid growth, the Wellesbourne was diverted into a culvert and built over: the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Marlborough paid for this. Pool Valley connected the south end of Old Steine and the seafront. Old Steine (or The Steine) was…

The building is one of the oldest surviving houses in Brighton, and has been called "one of [its] most famous surviving early buildings". Its modest appearance and small size prompted architectural historian Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel, a former resident of Brighton, to call it "as charming a relic of ... Brighthelmstone [Brighton's former name] as anyone could wish to see". It is a three-storey building with a modern shopfront on the lowest floor, two storeys in residential use above, and a large hipped roof with dormer windows. The top two floors are laid with black glazed mathematical tiles—often used in the 18th and 19th centuries on buildings in Brighton, and a characteristic feature…