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Lewes Road

Lewes Road is a major road in the English seaside city of Brighton and Hove. It was part of the A27 cross-country trunk route until the Brighton Bypass took this designation in the 1990s; since then it has been designated the A270. The road runs northeastwards from central Brighton through a steep-sided valley, joining the A27 at the city boundary and continuing to Lewes, the county town of East Sussex.

Description and designation
Lewes Road is one of the main entry routes into Brighton, and therefore gives "many visitors ... their first impression of the city." Sitting at the bottom of a dry valley with hills on each side, particularly alongside the northern part of the route, the road is sheltered and hidden from distant views. It is an important commercial and industrial area for its surroundings and the wider Brighton area, and is known as the city's "academic corridor" because of the presence of the city's two universities, Brighton and Sussex. it runs for northwards to the city boundary from Waterloo Place, where it diverges from the A23 (London–Brighton road). This point, close to the rear of St Peter's Church, is at the southeast corner of The Level. The road forms the eastern boundary of The Level, then meets Union Road and Elm Grove at a major junction. Elm Grove is the main route to Brighton Racecourse; it originated as part of a Roman trackway which formed part of the ancient trackway across the South Downs to Lewes (Juggs Road), and was developed with housing from the mid-19th century. The next major junction is the Vogue Gyratory, where Upper Hollingdean Road, Upper Lewes Road (both of which link Lewes Road with Ditchling Road, another major route) and Bear Road meet the Lewes Road. This was the northern boundary of Brighton until the borough was expanded in 1928; to the north and east was the parish of Preston, and the residential area east of Lewes Road and north of Bear Road (now known as the Bear Road area) was historically known as East Preston. In this area there is also some industrial development on the east side of the road, and the University of Brighton has several buildings. North of this, the Moulsecoomb council estate was built in several phases in the mid-20th century alongside the Lewes Road. Further north, the road passes the east side of a deep valley originally known as "Cold Dean", between Hollingbury and Stanmer. Scattered farm cottages near Lewes Road were the only buildings in the valley until Brighton Corporation developed it for council housing from 1950 as the Coldean estate. The designation of Lewes Road within the British road numbering system has a complex history. For many years the A26 road ran from Maidstone, the county town of Kent, to Brighton, and the entire length of Lewes Road within Brighton bore this number. The A27 trunk road joined it at the Upper Lewes Road junction. When the A26's southern terminus was moved to Newhaven, the whole of Lewes Road took the A27 designation: the section between Upper Lewes Road and The Level became a spur of the A27. The Brighton Bypass was completed in 1995, and Lewes Road took the number A270 as far as the bypass. ==History==
History
was built in the late 18th century alongside Lewes Road but was redundant by the 21st century. A route has existed for centuries between Brighton and Lewes, the county town of East Sussex (and historically of Sussex as a whole), which is to the northeast. The historic route to Lewes ran in a more easterly direction on a drove road across the South Downs; it still exists as footpaths and byways. It was travelled regularly by the wives of Brighton fishermen, who carried the fish to market at Lewes: fishermen were known locally as "jugs" or "juggs", and the eastern section of the old route is called Juggs Road. The present road, which takes a north–northeasterly course along a valley from the centre of Brighton as far as Falmer, existed by the 18th century and became a turnpike in 1770; the toll gate at the Lewes end survives, but that at Brighton—near the Bear Inn—is no longer standing. Development of Lewes Road started at the south end, closest to the centre of Brighton, and was confined to the east side at first because the open ground of The Level was to the west. Until the creation of "Greater Brighton" in 1928, when the borough of Brighton absorbed territory from several surrounding parishes, the borough boundary was at Bear Road. North of this was the parish of Preston, and the land south of Moulsecoomb and east of Lewes Road now covered by the Bevendean estate was in Falmer parish. In 1940 it was "a small settlement with an 18th-century farmhouse". Preston Barracks was built on open land on the west side of Lewes Road in 1793–1795, when war was threatening in Europe. Facilities included accommodation, a hospital and a riding school, and "a small community grew up" on the east side of the road in connection with the barracks. Brighton and Hove City Council bought the rest in 2002 and unveiled a £150 million redevelopment scheme in 2016 in conjunction with the University of Brighton. This developed into the "Big Build" scheme. An earlier proposal for a mixed residential and commercial development, announced in 2003, foundered during the 2008 financial crisis; an alternative scheme was put forward by the University of Brighton in September 2009. The "Big Build" project started in 2018. The scheme provided five halls of residence for 800 university students, an academic building, gymnasium, student union building, car park and a pedestrian bridge above Lewes Road connecting the various buildings. and the bridge opened in September 2022. As part of the £300 million scheme, the university announced in late 2021 that it would close its three sites at Eastbourne and consolidate their facilities at Lewes Road. Brighton's first piped water was supplied from a small pumping station on the west side of Lewes Road in 1834. It was expanded in 1853 but was superseded by the new Goldstone Bottom pumping station in Hove in 1866. Attempts to restart pumping work at Lewes Road in 1896 were unsuccessful because the supply had become polluted, and the works was demolished in 1903. Soon after this, in 1910, industrial development began nearby with the opening of Allen West & Co. Ltd's first factory near the junction with Natal Road. This electrical engineering company expanded to become one of Brighton's largest employers, and it opened several factories along Lewes Road in the interwar period. Brighton's first council houses were built in the Elm Grove area in 1897, but only in the 1920s with the commencement of the Moulsecoomb estate did significant council house building start. The development of Moulsecoomb was part of a council policy of "providing good family housing in the more healthy environments away from the town centre". Wartime restrictions and bomb damage in central Brighton meant that by the 1950s much more new housing was needed, and the council's policy of developing outlying estates resumed. Large developments of houses and flats took place in Moulsecoomb—expanding it to cover land on both sides of Lewes Road—Bevendean, at the south end of Moulsecoomb, and Coldean, northwest of Lewes Road. The opening ceremony for the line, on 6 August 1869, started with the ceremonial laying of the final brick of the viaduct. The west end of the viaduct immediately adjoined the platform at Lewes Road station. Passenger trains and goods trains ceased in 1932 and 1971 respectively, and Brighton Borough Council bought all the infrastructure including the viaduct, which was mostly demolished in April 1976. The remaining arches at the western end were demolished in 1983 as part of the scheme to build the Vogue Gyratory and the Sainsbury's supermarket, which has a series of arches on its façade to commemorate the viaduct. In relation to politics, "Lewes Road" was the name of a ward within the Borough of Brighton between 1894 and 1983. In 1926, during the general strike of that year, tensions linked to the proposed operation of local tram services with volunteer labour came to a head in the Battle of Lewes Road on 11 May, when "vicious struggles" broke out between 4,000 strikers and police officers. ==Buildings==
Buildings
Waterloo Place, where Lewes Road begins, was designed as a 14-house terrace in 1819 by Amon Wilds and his son Amon Henry Wilds. The southernmost pair survive alongside the A23; Lewes Road itself starts alongside the "brutal intrusion" of the Phoenix Building, part of the University of Brighton School of Art, which was designed in 1976 and which replaced the other 12 houses. Behind this is the site of Tamplin's Brewery (latterly the Phoenix Brewery), established as one of Brighton's main breweries in 1821. Only the adjacent pub (latterly called the Free Butt; now closed), built in the same year, and the Italianate brewery office of 1893 survive. These houses are next to the former Brighton College of Technology, a Grade II-listed Jacobean Renaissance-style building of 1895 which was converted into flats in 2007. Hanover Crescent, one of several set-piece residential crescents in Brighton, was built between 1814 and 1823, again as a speculative development to the design of Amon and Amon Henry Wilds. being the only buildings north of Old Steine on the turnpike. Six more were added in 1859 at the expense of the Vicar of Brighton Henry Michell Wagner and his sister Mary. North of the Elm Grove junction, the land on the west side of Lewes Road was common land until 1822, when it was sold to local entrepreneur James Ireland who established the Royal Gardens there. The large houses of Park Crescent was in turn built here from 1849. Densely built smaller streets west of Lewes Road and north of Park Crescent, such as Caledonian, Aberdeen and Inverness Roads, were built in the 1860s, as was the whole of the east side of Lewes Road as far as the present Vogue Gyratory. The most significant development on this side was the "impressive" gault brick Gladstone Terrace, dating from the late 1860s. On the east side, the Franklin Arms pub was destroyed by a bomb on 21 September 1940 and was rebuilt after the war. Further north, near where the railway viaduct crossed the road, were the Lewes Road Congregational Church (1878) and its church hall of 1892, and the Connaught Institute (1879). The demolition of the viaduct and the construction of the Vogue Gyratory on its site brought great changes to this part of Lewes Road. The Vogue Cinema opened in 1937 as the Gaiety and was Art Deco in style. thereafter the building stood empty until a large Sainsbury's supermarket opened on the site in April 1985. On the northeast corner of the gyratory is the Bear Inn, a historic pub with 18th-century origins but since rebuilt. Its name derives from the bear-baiting which regularly took place at the pub. The inn gave its name to Bear Road and, by extension, the whole residential area north of Bear Road and east of Lewes Road. ; Wild Park is bottom left. North of the Vogue Gyratory, beyond the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Lewes Road depot of the Brighton & Hove bus company, many of the buildings are associated with the University of Brighton, whose "Big Build" project resulted in much rebuilding from 2018 onwards. Allen West had several other factories along this part of Lewes Road, but all have been demolished. As well as Mithras House, there is the ten-storey Cockcroft Building (1962–63), the Aldrich Library (1994–1996) and the Huxley Building (2010). Further north, the housing of Moulsecoomb, described in 1940 as "a model village", and now dominates both sides of Lewes Road. In the 1920s development stopped at The Highway, where The Avenue was later built to connect the Bevendean and East Moulsecoomb estates, and the land beyond was still farmed. South Moulsecoomb, commenced in 1923, was the earliest part; the denser North Moulsecoomb followed in 1926–30; East Moulsecoomb was started in 1935, just after the development of the adjacent Bevendean estate; and the Bates Estate or West Moulsecoomb, mostly 1950s and 1960s flats, took up land on the west side of Lewes Road. One older building survives on this side: Moulsecoomb Place, the Grade II-listed 16th-century manor house. It was bought by Brighton Corporation in 1925 and was occupied by its Parks and Recreation Department; it also housed various recreational facilities for the estate's residents, Close to the city boundary at the north end of Lewes Road are the Brighton Aldridge Community Academy, built in 2010–11 and set back from the road into the hillside, Churches St Martin's Church is the Church of England parish church serving this part of Brighton. It stands on the west side of Lewes Road near the Elm Grove junction. It succeeded a smaller building and was built between 1872 and 1875 to the design of George Somers Clarke. The church was built on the initiative of Arthur Wagner to commemorate his father, the Vicar of Brighton Henry Michell Wagner, who had died in 1870. replacing an older chapel further south on the road. This was built as a Congregational church in 1878 in the Italian Gothic style to the design of architect A. Harford. The Brighton meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is on the north side of the Vogue Gyratory. It was registered for worship in August 1993. The former Connaught Institute, which had entrances on Lewes Road and an adjacent side-street, was built in 1879 as an institute for soldiers and manual workers, where religious services were held (it was registered for non-denominational worship in 1890) and educational facilities, medical care and other activities were provided. It was also used as an Anglican mission hall and an Evangelical church, but it went out of use in 2003 and was demolished in the following decade. ==Transport==
Transport
In 2016 it was reported that Lewes Road carried 25,000 vehicles daily. In 2012 the speed limit on the northern part of Lewes Road was reduced from to . The number of accidents fell substantially after this change. In 2013, Brighton and Hove City Council spent £1.4 million on converting one lane of Lewes Road in each direction into a shared bus and cycle lane with traffic light priority for cyclists and 14 "floating" bus stops (where the cycle lane diverges and passes behind the bus stop, allowing buses and bicycles to avoid each other). These were the first such bus stops in the United Kingdom. Vogue Gyratory The Vogue Gyratory was named after the Vogue Cinema, which in its last years was a venue for pornographic films. The new road system was completed in mid-1984. It is the meeting point of Lewes Road, Upper Lewes Road, Hollingdean Road and Bear Road. and the first tram ran on 25 November 1901 on the "Lewes Road route" (Route L) to Victoria Gardens (Old Steine). Routes E and Q to Elm Grove and Queen's Park Road respectively were established later and used the Lewes Road tracks as far as the Elm Grove junction. Short-lived Route M ran from the depot to Seven Dials, avoiding central Brighton, in summer 1922. Plans were also made to extend the tram tracks north from the depot along Lewes Road towards the developing Moulsecoomb estate, and the council and central government (who were required to pass a Light Railway Order) authorised an extension in 1920; but Brighton Corporation Tramways never took up the option and the permission lapsed. The network reached its greatest extent in 1951, but as the operation of trolleybuses became increasingly expensive following the nationalisation in 1948 of Brighton Corporation's electricity supply and the consequent loss of a cheap electricity source, the system was cut back and eventually withdrawn entirely in 1961. The Lewes Road trolleybus routes were replaced by conventional motor buses from 25 March 1959 and the wires were taken down. Buses bus on route 24 (Hollingbury–Coldean–Brighton city centre) at Gladstone Terrace in 2010 Lewes Road is an important corridor for bus routes, and buses are well-used. The service of three buses per hour between central Brighton and the University of Sussex in 1986 was first augmented by a limited-stop service from September 1991; the frequency was then doubled in May 1996 and rose again in 2001 (eight buses per hour) and 2002 (12 per hour). Services from the universities via Lewes Road to the Royal Sussex County Hospital and Brighton Marina started in 2002. running the full length of Lewes Road and replacing an older route whose frequency had fluctuated. Originally operated by Brighton & Hove, The Moulsecoomb and Bevendean estates are served by regular buses which travel to the city centre direct down Lewes Road. Brighton & Hove's longest route, the long-standing "Regency Route" to Royal Tunbridge Wells via Lewes and Uckfield, and its shorter variant to Ringmer, also provides regular services along the length of Lewes Road. By 2009 the various routes combined to give a bus approximately every three minutes to the city centre. one of three bus garages in the city. Until the bus industry was deregulated in 1986, Brighton Borough Transport, the council-owned bus operator responsible for many services in Brighton, was based at the depot. Railways The Kemp Town Railway, a branch line from Brighton to Kemp Town, crossed Lewes Road on a viaduct at a point just south of the historic boundary between Brighton and Preston parishes. A station called Lewes Road was in use between 1 September 1873 and 31 December 1932, when the line closed to passenger services; despite its name it was on D'Aubigny Road in the Round Hill area and could only be accessed from Lewes Road by means of a long footpath. Lewes Road Viaduct, which was long, was partly demolished in 1976, five years after the line closed to all traffic. The last section was removed seven years later. The site, and the land previously occupied by Cox's Pill Factory and the Vogue Cinema, was cleared to make way for the Vogue Gyratory and the adjacent Sainsbury's supermarket. ==Open space==
Open space
seen in 2014, with Lewes Road in the background Saunders Park occupies a site on the west side of Lewes Road between the Latter-day Saints meetinghouse and the site of Preston Barracks. It opened on 17 September 1924 on the site of the 19th-century waterworks and pumping station. Although it is "the only green space along the route" until Wild Park at Moulsecoomb is reached, its location on the busy road remote from housing means it is underused. The Extra Mural and Woodvale cemeteries occupy a sheltered, well-wooded hillside above Lewes Road and have been described as among "the most delightful spots in the whole of Brighton"; they are open to the public, and have been considered "one of the most pleasant and quiet places in Brighton in which to take a walk" since the Victorian era, when a guidebook was published with suggested walks around the Extra Mural Cemetery. The park has a sports area, a children's playground and a pond among other things. It is also the venue of Patchfest, an annual community festival which has live music. Further north, at Moulsecoomb, Wild Park was bought by Brighton Corporation in 1925 to preserve it from development and has been left as open downland, apart from the construction of some sports pitches. Wild Park and Hollingbury Hill together make up the city's largest Local nature reserve (LNR), covering west of the Lewes Road. The Wild Park area itself covers about , with a further adjacent to it used as farmland. ==Notes==
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