St. Aubyns Mansions

In 1899 Hove Council approved plans for St. Aubyns Mansions submitted by developer Lainson & Sons.

St. Aubyns Mansions

The plans showed eight luxury residential flats each stretching from the front to the back of the building. It was intended to be but the first stage of a grandiose development of similar blocks disposed around a ‘St. Aubyns Square’, somewhat after the fashion of Brunswick, and taking in what later became the King Alfred site. However the scheme never progressed further than this single block. At the time it was said to be the nearest residential property to the sea along the entire Brighton & Hove coastline. It may still be. During the war it was requisitioned by the Navy as part of the King Alfred training complex and after the war remained semi-derelict for several years until it was restored and converted to modern occupancy standards.

Over the years it has had two famous occupants: Dame Clara Butt, the contralto singer, and Vesta Tilly, the male impersonator and music hall entertainer. Two blue plaques have now been installed commemorating their periods of residence and were unveiled on Friday, 19th August, 2011.

Dame Clara Butt was born at Southwick in 1872, educated at South Bristol High School and won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in 1890. She made her professional debut in Sir Arthur Sullivan’s ‘The Golden Legend’ in 1892. Bernard Shaw wrote that “she far surpassed the utmost expectations” and  Sir Thomas Beecham famously announced,  “On a clear day you could have heard her voice across the English Channel”. She lived at 4 St. Aubyns from 1903 to 1906.

Vesta Tilley, born in 1864 made her first stage appearance as a singer & dancer in 1868 and first donned boy’s clothes in 1870 to parody a Music Hall tenor, Sim Reeves, which was an instant success. She appeared frequently at the Hippodrome  in Middle Street, Brighton. She became Lady de Frece when her husband was knighted in 1919 for services to the war effort. She bought flat 4 at age 83 and lived there until shortly before her death in 1952.

Delia Ives, Volunteer Digital Media Team

At Work With…

I first saw the Royal Pavilion one sunny afternoon in July 1993.

I had just finished my last GCSE exam when a friend suggested a celebratory trip to Brighton. I remember driving past the Royal Pavilion having no idea what this exotic building was, but it was one of the most beautiful places I had seen.

My next visit to Brighton was in my last year at University in 1998. I fell in love with the city, instantly making it my home. I enrolled on a Museum Management course and, while studying, read an article by the Royal Pavilion & Museums‘ Head of Retail.

At a time when national museums became free to visit, she was writing interesting thoughts on the importance of income generation. This was right up street and I applied for work experience. As my student loan trickled away, the gift shop manager took pity on me and arranged some paid work, eventually leading to a full time position.

Our head of commercial and business services was already looking at how we developed our customer service and I found myself at the exciting centre of creating a new booking office and implementing a new ticketing and telephone system across our venues.

This sweeping change has been an amazing challenge and the benefits for customers and the Royal Pavilion & Museums service have been bountiful. Constantly striving to improve how we work, my team has been actively engaged in systems thinking, a performance improvement exercise, and I recently had the great pleasure of watching a demonstration of the Business Objects work my booking office colleague has been involved in. This is a powerful piece of reporting software that will quietly revolutionise how we gather and present our figures giving us tools to further develop the service in a much more customer led way.

I have been so fortunate in the opportunities I have been given with the Royal Pavilion & Museums and the support I have received. Although the beautiful Royal Pavilion is thankfully little changed since I first clapped eyes on it back in 1993 I can now count myself among the number of people actively improving that all important income generation I read about as a student some 11 or so years ago. I look forward to an exciting future.

Lucy Cheffy, Booking Office Manager

Favourites from the Royal Pavilion Gardens – Myrtus communis, True Myrtle

One unsung element of Regency garden style, as seen at the Royal Pavilion, is the use of different greens. The evergreen envelope acts as a foil for the more showy, or even to modern eyes, gaudy colours of the flowering plants.

Myrtus communis, or True Myrtle

Some evergreens do of course flower. Our evergreen plant of choice at the moment is Myrtus communis, or True Myrtle. The two shrubs in the garden are currently smothered in gorgeous fragrant flowers.

Each one has a base of pure white petals and a boss of white, pollen tipped, stamens. The whole effect is deliciously fluffy, and really very lovely. These flowers were famously used in Queen Victoria’s wedding bouquet. Originally from the Mediterranean and North Africa the plant is a source of essential oil – gently fold a leaf and the released fragrance is quite pungent.

If you walk along the perimeter walk from the William IV gate to the north, towards the east front of the Pavilion you can’t miss the best of the two specimen shrubs (and will also see the surprising ‘vanishing trick’ where the building suddenly disappears in the shrubbery). The second can be found close to the Lily pond further along this path.

Myrtus communis, or True Myrtle

In the Autumn the flowers are followed by glossy blue-black berries, which the birds love. We follow an organic policy in the Gardens and Myrtle is as insect- and bird-friendly as possible.

Do drop by and revel in this small wonder.

Volunteer Gardener, Royal Pavilion Gardens