BPC00136
Aquatint published by J Izard, St James’s Street, Brighton, c1810. Images of Brighton describes the West Indian merchant, J B Otto, as the financier and developer of the Royal Crescent. Unrecorded in Images of Brighton, another print of the Crescent has the title ‘Robert Hankeys Esq, and the Crescent, Brighton’, so possibly Hankeys was a co-developer. Roles and Beevers (Pictorial History of Brighton, 1993) describe it as the most ambitious development of its time. It was started in 1798 but, owing to Otto’s financial problems, not completed until 1807. It was the first terrace to be built facing the sea and was of a timber-frame construction, with brick infill and glazed mathematical facing tiles. No architect is known.
Images of Brighton 1116 and illustrated on page 109.
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Both images of Royal Crescent:
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