Charles Knight, 23 & 24 New Road, Brighton, 1940. V&A Museum, London.
Messrs. Crabb & Son,1 wine merchants, occupy one of the largest and most important of the remaining cobble-fronted houses; it stands at the corner of Church Street and New Road. The business was established in 1808; the house existed in 1790 and that may be taken as its date. The wide bow front, with its large, brick-surrounded, cream-painted windows, suggests a private residence; and indeed it is reputed to have been built to accommodate the Court retinue.
No. 23, the adjoining house – Messrs. B. & H. Drury,2 theatrical stores, established 1840 – has a later frontage. It may possibly conceal an older structure; but George IV himself is given as the landlord in the earliest existing deeds of the premises, and there seems no need to hunt for further evidence of the date. Like its neighbour, it was at first a private dwelling; and very pretty it must have been when a doorway of the period supported the iron veranda and the two narrow bow-windows projecting from the brick wall. The very strong resemblance of No. 23 to houses in Richmond Terrace3 which are known to have been built by Amon Wilds sen.,4 in or about 1818, has convinced Mr. Anthony Dale5 that it, too, is old Wilds’s, and ‘his best house in Brighton’.
Recording Britain, Vol 4, Sussex, p 166-167.
Image: Charles Knight.
Text: Arnold Nottage Palmer
1 From Crabb & Son’s Wine List, 1963/63: “W. J. Crabb & Son, Brighton’s oldest family Wine Merchants, established in the reign of King George III in the year 1808, and today controlled by Messrs. Bernard and Ivor Crabb, whose personal attention and experience are at your service; and at our Hove Branch Mr. Edmund Crabb is in attendance.” The company was presumably named after William Joseph Crabb (1827-1902), who is listed as a wine merchant in the Census in 1871 and 1881. But if the firm started in 1808, there’s some degree of mystery who founded given that WJ’s father Joseph Crabb MRCS (1791-1837) is listed as a surgeon. Was wine his side hustle? WJ’s son, Arthur Crabb (1875-1949), is listed in the 1911 Census as a wine merchant, married aged 35, and head of a 9-room house. When Arthur died, he left the equivalent of £800,000 to his wife and two sons, Bernard and Ivor.
2 Records for this business have proved tricky to find. But I did locate a listing for ‘Drury B. & H. Ltd., theatrical wig makers’ in the 1939 edition of Kelley’s Directory of Brighton & Hove, which also contains a second listing for ‘Drury B. & H. Ltd., scenery stores’ in Coalbrook Rd, Kemp Town. There’s also a connection to theatrical shows being staged on the Balkan Front during WWI. Documents list a production of Bluebeard (a pantomime in two acts) staged by British forces in Thessaloniki in 1917 “under the direction of Cpl. W. H. DRURY”, with “Costumes and wigs specially executed for this production by B. & H. DRURY, Brighton.” A second reference, contained in a 1918 letter home by a Captain G. M. Butt of the Army Service Corps, states: ”The other show was really magnificent & when you see it was run by a Drury & wigs & costumes by Drury's no wonder he in that division so professional advice is available & any costume imaginable can be got, but the talent was so good, the singing A1, even to quartets, the funny man a scream, the whole thing full of wit & free from vulgarity, it would take even at home I believe.”
3 Richmond Terrace runs adjacent to The Level, on its eastern side, before turning into Lewes Road, one of the main routes out of Brighton, heading north-east.
4 Amon Wilds (1762-1833) was an English architect and builder. Along with his son, Amon Henry Wilds, and partner Charles Busby, he was responsible for a great deal of Brighton’s post-Regency architecture. He was instrumental in the design of the Kemp Town Estate in the east of the city. His signature motif was the ammonite pilaster, a pun on his first name.
5 Anthony Dale (1912-1993) was an author, historian, conservationist, and one of the founders of the Regency Society in 1945.