Pelham Institute

Thomas Read Kemp's Kemp Town estate, "arguably the most famous district in Brighton", was developed as a carefully planned estate of about 100 grand houses for the rich people who were increasingly attracted to the fashionable resort. Kemp Town was isolated from the rest of the town, about away, and an old trackway running west–east along the inland side of the East Cliff developed into an important route—Eastern Road. In the mid-19th century, the area around Eastern Road developed rapidly as a poor, mixed-use area, with institutional buildings, streets of small terraced houses, light industry and a few larger houses. A Nonconformist chapel had also been built in 1829, The area became known as Kemptown . Hannah was concerned about the social and physical welfare of Kemptown's large working-class population, whose poverty restricted their opportunities for education and recreation. He also felt that the many pubs in the area encouraged people to spend their money on alcohol. He was made archdeacon of Lewes in 1876 and in the same year founded a "slum mission"—similar to a church-sponsored working men's club—on the site of the closed chapel of 1829, near the junction of Upper Bedford Street and Eastern Road. Bristol Road Methodist Church and several housing developments, to design a building with space for all the required facilities. He carried out the work in 1877, and from 1879 the building bore the name Pelham Institute. In January 1945, under the name Pelham Mission, the building was issued with a worship licence for "Christians not otherwise designated" under the terms of the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855. Local slum clearance began in 1926 when the houses around the Pelham Institute were cleared and replaced with lower-density development. Demolition continued through the 1930s and resumed in the 1950s after World War II. By 1959, the working-class population in the Eastern Road area was much lower, and the Pelham Institute closed. Ownership transferred to Brighton Borough Council. The club had to move to another building nearby in July 1994. The Pelham Institute was listed at Grade II by English Heritage on 23 June 1994. In February 2001, it was one of 1,124 Grade II-listed buildings and structures, and 1,218 listed buildings of all grades, in the city of Brighton and Hove. The building is not within any of Brighton and Hove's conservation areas, ==Architecture==

Thomas Lainson designed and built the Pelham Institute in the High Victorian Gothic style, which was used frequently for slum missions such as this. It is a three-storey building of purple brick laid in the English bond pattern and dressed with terracotta and red bricks. There are also small areas of tile-hanging, and the roof is tiled and has dormer windows. Three faces are visible: one south to St George's Terrace with irregularly placed windows, the main (western) façade on Upper Bedford Street (with a regular four-window range), and a three-window range facing north on to Montague Street. Most windows are flat-headed. The main entrance is to Upper Bedford Street. A doorway, with a 19th-century two-part wooden door with iron hinges, is recessed into an aedicula with a corbelled pointed arch and a gable above. At second-floor level, a chimney-breast projects slightly and steps up to the gable of the roof, which is topped with a short chimneypot. A window is set into the base of this projection. On the floor below, the four windows are arranged as two narrow pairs below a semicircular tympanum of red brick. The northwestern corner forms a gable-topped bay, again with a stepped chimney-stack. A thin string course runs around the building above the windows, forming a continuous hood mould. The Montague Street (northern) elevation has single or paired windows under segmental arches; a large stone plaque sits in a recess above the centre windows. At ground-floor level there is another pale stone plaque, a broad segment-arched window, an original wooden entrance door and another wooden door leading to a storage bay. The south façade, on St George's Terrace, has a segment-arched window in a red-brick surround at the southwest corner and a much wider and taller flat-arched window alongside. The string course diverts to go round a taller flat-arched window in the southwest corner at first-floor level. Diagonally above this are three narrow windows below a pointed arch with a red-brick tympanum. A projecting chimney-breast starts immediately to the left and rises beyond the eaves, terminating in a squat chimney-pot. Three small windows and a tall, narrow one light the second floor. The façade is very irregular and lacks symmetry. ==See also==