The Kemp Town Estate: the back story

About The Kemp Town Estate: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Brighton Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

The Kemp Town Estate, at the eastern end of Kemptown, was conceived and financed by Thomas Kemp in the 1820s: Sussex Square, Lewes Crescent, Chichester Terrace and Arundel Terrace, designed by Charles Busby and Amon Henry Wilds and built by Thomas Cubitt. Between the terraces lie the Kemp Town Enclosures, 7.5 acres of Grade II listed private gardens owned by the freeholders of the estate’s 105 houses.

Of all Brighton’s Regency set pieces, none is grander than the great cream terraces of Kemp Town, curving down to the sea at the eastern edge of the city.

Thomas Kemp’s estate

Thomas Kemp developed the estate in the 1820s as a new town of grand houses above the sea: Sussex Square, Lewes Crescent, Chichester Terrace and Arundel Terrace. It was designed by Charles Busby and Amon Henry Wilds, and much of it was built by Thomas Cubitt.

Walk the pavements of Sussex Square and Lewes Crescent; the gardens themselves are private.

The private gardens

Between the terraces lie the Kemp Town Enclosures, 7.5 acres of gardens split by Eastern Road and listed Grade II. Henry Phillips landscaped them in 1828 with more than 20,000 plants. They are a private communal garden, owned jointly by the freeholders of the estate’s 105 houses and run by Kemp Town Enclosures Ltd.

The tunnel and Alice

A tunnel from the South Garden to the Esplanade was added in about 1830. It is said to have inspired the rabbit hole in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Lewis Carroll visited Brighton to see his friend the Rev. Henry Barclay, who ran a boys’ school at 11 Sussex Square from 1871 to 1888.

Seeing it

The terraces are best seen from the pavements around Sussex Square and Lewes Crescent and from Marine Parade below; the gardens are private. The estate marked its bicentenary in 2023.

Our advice: walk east along Marine Parade from the Palace Pier and turn up into Lewes Crescent, then back through the village of St James’s Street.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with The Kemp Town Estate: the back story before you go.