BPC00458
Steel engraving, no artists mentioned, published by W Leppard of 17 East Street, January 1842.
Today the residential streets now called Rose Hill and Rose Hill Close are either side of the Ditchling Road, where it crosses Viaduct Road and Upper Lewes Road. On W Sanders’ 1850 Plan of Brighton and its Environs our present Rose Hill Close was called Rose Hill North, and our Upper Lewes Road was called Shoreham Road. The present short terrace of houses called Rose Hill that joins Union Road with the Upper Lewes Road, where the artist is standing, was undeveloped at the time of this print, and the current Park Crescent Terrace was the site of Paradise Place. The open green lawn in front of the church is The Level, and on the other side of the wall and gate posts to the left was Paradise Place, which had a short terrace of homes on its south-western end, and then there were Ireland’s Royal Pleasure Gardens. These gardens closed shortly after this print was published, and by 1849 the building of A H Wilds’s Park Crescent development had started. In this scene the artist is on the open farmland of Rose Hill, looking down what is today the final section of Ditchling Road, as it joins the Lewes and London Roads just north of St Peter’s. In the right-hand distance can be seen the Dome, the Pavilion, and to the right is the Town Hall. In the 1851 Post Office Directory of Sussex, Rose Hill East, which is out of view to the left and somewhat behind the artist, is described as being the home of Alexander Dods, nurseryman, seedsman and florist of Rose Hill Nursery.