Brighton Day Out
- Jo Sampson
- Oct 28
- 3 min read
In September, team APM had an educational day out in Brighton. We visited the brilliant Regency Town House for a private tour, and then Scott Workshop in Newhaven, hosted by Chris Murphy Design.
Regency Town House
This is a Grade I listed townhouse in Brunswick Town in Hove. This area is one of the significant property developments designed and built during Brighton & Hove’s rapid expansion during the regency period. Now, the house is being carefully researched and restored by expert volunteers. This includes restoration of original features, but also the first set of colours and finishes applied to the walls by the first occupants.
Here are some of the things we learned;
The Georgians loved pink and green as a colour combination. We had assumed that (apart from George IV of Pavillion fame) they had a more muted sense of style, but colour theory and philosophy at the time inspired a bold décor palette in lots of the rooms.
Maintaining a Brighton town-house was very much a game for the wealthy. Although the house itself would have cost c. £3k (lots of money at the time, but relatively little compared to the large residences in London and the countryside that the same people owned) it was the decking it out and keeping up with the ever-changing, politically inspired fashions that would require the big money. The drawing room would require a mirror (carefully positioned to reflect the sea view inside) that would cost £500 (a sixth of the cost of the house!).
Curtains were changed every season. If you didn’t upgrade yours to whichever fabric was in fashion (often inspired by political events), your peers would suspect you were running out of money which was socially disastrous.
And even more wildly - every 10 years they would auction off their linens, tableware, etc and start again! All in the name of maintaining a good reputation.
Interior design was also used to emphasise the power structures among the serving staff working at the household. In most back-of-house rooms, woodwork was painted a plain ‘house brown’. In the office of the Head Housekeeper, the woodwork was finished to look like Oak, in a similar way to some of the main rooms of the house. This was a way of showing the staff that the Head Housekeeper had the ear of the owners and that she was to be obeyed.
The vaulted construction of the basement wine cellars is designed to be strong; not just to prevent the risk of the ceiling (and building above) collapsing, but to prevent theft from above. The value of the wine held in the cellars was immense, so it was very important to protect it. The underground space is perfect for keeping the wine a good temperature. It's giving us life goals!
We also enjoyed seeing the exhibition of works by Alice Mara and Philippa Stanton.
Scott Workshops
This is a workshop space where businesses that make wooden furniture and fittings can rent space and use shared machinery. We were given a tour by Chris of Chris Murphy Design
We saw that converting wood from rough slices along the trunk of a tree into finely finished boards that can be turned into high end furniture involves some enormous and pretty terrifying machinery. These need a lot of space, as you have to manoeuvre the boards at both ends of each machining process. This also produces a huge amount of sawdust (which is captured in very satisfying bags).
We saw the veneer press, and learned how veneer is bought in sequential batches, so that you can choose neighbouring slices to create a ‘bookmatched’ effect.
Solid wood expands and contracts a lot with changes in temperature and moisture, so a lot of the work involved in designing solid wood furniture is about managing the impact of this. Lots of the features we are used to seeing on modern day furniture are emulating traditional techniques developed for this reason. For example, the construction of doors with an outer frame with inner panels that are tapered towards the frame is designed as a way to allow that central panel to flex without the door warping.
We loved seeing the range of in-progress projects and tools at the workshop. It's a fabulous space and it was great to see how larger joinery pieces are constructed off site and to understand how the wood is prepared from rough sawn bits of tree!!
