Last month I attended a Christmas tea at the Chapel Royal organised by the Friends of the Pavilion Gardens Café. There were the usual sausage rolls and mince pies and talk of Christmas plans, but this year there was also worried discussion about the future of the Royal Pavilion Gardens.
I was impressed by the broad range of people attending this modest event, including two past mayors, a former MP, members of several political parties and community groups such as the North Laine Community Association, the Max Miller Appreciation Society and the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal, which I chair. Almost everyone seemed concerned about plans for the Gardens.
In fact, plans have been under internal discussion since 2017, when the Royal Pavilion and museums service was under Brighton and Hove City Council’s control.
However, until last summer, there was almost no community consultation. I first learned that plans were in preparation when, in late 2018, we launched the campaign to get a statue for Mary Clarke, the first suffragette to die for women’s right to vote.
Mary and her fellow suffragettes had a close historic connection with the Estate. We suggested the statue be sited as close as possible to Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, both to be accessible to school parties and to raise awareness of women’s rights and the struggle for democracy.
It swiftly emerged that the museum service would not support any proposal to have the statue in the Gardens, even in the inconspicuous area we proposed, near the modern Education Pavilion.
We were told the 2005 decision to site the statue of comic Max Miller in the Gardens had been a mistake, that it would be moved and that proposals for further statues would be opposed – there’ll never be another!
The reason given was that the Gardens provide a “unique” example of “Regency design”. We were informed that though “grade II listed” by Historic England, they recently had been declared “at risk”.
Also that Historic England was working with the museum service to restore the Gardens to the original John Nash design, with proposed funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, money which could be lost if our proposal were to be accepted.
The Heritage Lottery Fund stresses that its applicants must encourage inclusion and widespread community engagement. Despite this, all suggestions from us to the museum service that the planned bid might be strengthened by stressing the wider history – including connections with the struggle for suffrage, wounded Indian soldiers and British military amputees – have fallen on stony ground.
So have our proposals that the Gardens could be better protected by increased security and enforcement, decent lavatories and the removal of inappropriate additions such as rickety wooden fencing and artificial grass.
At first, I took the “Nash justification” seriously. However, over time, it has seemed less compelling. Historic England’s own 1987 online entry, which records its decision to list the Gardens, reveals that “virtually nothing of Nash’s layout survived”, including very few trees.
The present design is a re-creation, as close as possible to Nash’s vision, but adapted to planting and structures which came into being much later. The re-creation started in 1982, alongside the Pavilion restoration.
Furthermore, Historic England’s “at risk” register of 2017 identifies that “landscape restoration” in the “late 1980s” led to “increased popularity with visitors … affecting their overall condition.”
It adds: “The special character of the Gardens is also being eroded by a disparate range of fencing, litter bins, signage and lighting and these combine to weaken the sense of the Gardens’ rich history for visitors.”
It states that Historic England will work with the council “to develop a ‘conservation management plan’ which will identify how to redress the balance (my emphasis) and develop a strategy for keeping the historic gardens in good condition for visitors to enjoy for many years to come”.
This acknowledgement of the rich history of the Gardens and the focus on visitor enjoyment and protecting the overall condition of the Gardens suggests less of a purist focus on the Nash design, which in reality cannot be fully re-instated, than on the importance of good upkeep of the existing Gardens, along with a genuine understanding of their extraordinary heritage.
Their “special character” must surely include the period after 1850, when ownership of the estate passed to the people of Brighton.
Previous “conservation management plans” have barely involved the community. However, recent and slightly more open consultation by the trust which now manages the Royal Pavilion and Museums Service reveals that while most trees are protected, some mature planting may go.
It also confirms that when the trust submits its imminent final bid for Heritage Lottery funding, it will probably include a proposal for fencing the Gardens.
This has caused concern among local people who fear the trust may damage the gardens, charge for entry or hire the space out for daytime private use.
Even those who support overnight closure, for reasons of safety and to protect the Pavilion, worry that the Gardens, like the Pavilion, may become steadily less accessible.
Community groups are likely to ask for written guarantees that the Gardens will remain free and open every day of the year.
The formidable Max Miller Appreciation Society, which funded the comic’s statue, complains that it has only recently been consulted. Committee members strongly assert their statue is contractually protected from removal without their consent.
The long-standing proposal for a statue of Mary Clarke, “in or very near the gardens”, enjoys widespread community and unanimous all-party council support – but is not even mentioned in the trust’s consultation documents.
Despite this, trustees of the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal say they will continue to promote the cause of this heroic and inspirational woman.
The Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust has inherited a difficult situation. However, trustees should heed the community, which after all owns the estate, and delay their final bid for lottery funding until they can be sure they have genuine support.
Trustees should remember that while John Nash made a garden for a prince, they are restoring the gardens for the people.
Jean Calder is a campaigner and journalist. For more of her work, click here.
Very interesting article!!
I don’t much like the idea of statues because the decision as to who gets one is so subjective and is usually determined by who’s got the most money and influence. A blue plaque for Mary Clarke in a place she was associated with would be lovely.
I wish we had money and influence! We’ve been struggling since 2018. Getting any statue for a woman is difficult, but to get one for someone who had been so comprehensively forgotten -despite her historic importance – is a real battle. We think images of courageous women are needed to inspire young people, especially girls. See maryclarkestatue.com for more details and information about the design
This article might appear to be about statues but there is so much more hidden away here. The siting of statues is the least of our concerns when you hear that they still want to put up a fence around the Pavilion grounds with the main intention being to close it off at night.
Your knee jerk reaction to that idea might be that it’s a good thing – to improve security and to fence off a heritage site. However this is actually a commercial decision, with the trust looking at their fundraising and running costs options.
Lottery money is being sought and we of course would welcome that spending – although it’s actually the Madeira Terraces that most need repairing, not the Pavilion Gardens.
The gardens have had several layouts over the decades and it’s not clear why the space should still follow Naish’s original design when little of the original planting remains.
What is wonderful about the gardens now is the way we all use them to sit outside in a pretty and peaceful city centre space, and that includes the evenings when many people use the park as a social meeting place rather than go to an expensive pub or restaurant. The gardens also offer many short cut routes for those of us on foot, and it’s not just tourists who go to see the Pavilion all lit up at night.
It would be sad to see the gardens somehow mothballed in an earlier time, and fenced off at night, and the biggest fear is that the area is closed off for ticketed events which most will not be able to afford.
In some of the plans it has been suggested that the cafe should be knocked down, so as to create a new park entrance opposite the Theatre Royal.
I’m guessing they might like to move the Max Miller statue so as to create a wider entrance at that northwest corner of the park instead instead.
Note too that the new cafe/restaurant that will form part of the recently-renovated Dome Theatre buildings overlooks that section of the park.
If they get the funding then it could all look fabulous. But a true ‘people’s park’ is not one that is locked up at 6pm each evening.
Des Billy Short have a link please to the plans he mentions about the cafe? He writes:” In some of the plans it has been suggested that the cafe should be knocked down, so as to create a new park entrance opposite the Theatre Royal”
If I remember correctly this was discussed before, and the idea of knocking down the iconic art deco cafe was very unpopular.
There was then a campaign to retain the cafe and to keep the current leaseholders.
The new perimeter fence will however need new entrance points somewhere, and on each side.
There was also a plan to have a wholly new entrance on the east side of the Pavilion, linking into a pedestrianised area as part of the Valley Gardens scheme, phase 3. My hope is they don’t lose the three iconic ponds, in making that new gate.
It would indeed be good to see a copy of the latest plans, if they are available.
Note that one of the reasons they give for a fence to be erected is so that the park can be secured at night. Several fake reasons are given for the need for this fence, including a litter ‘problem’.
The litter problem is in fact that the bins often overflow on busy summer evenings as people responsibly try to dispose of their picnic waste. And the bins are only full because nobody empties them after 4pm. Which is not a litter problem – it’s a staffing problem.
A second claim of anti special behaviour in the gardens is where someone nips behind a tree to have a pee. And of course that only happens because the public loos are closed too early or, as now, closed completely.
The plans are supposed to include new public loos for this central area – but it will be interesting to see if the new loos will be inside or outside the proposed fence.
Obviously my concerns here are about a further erosion of access to public spaces and public facilities. I personally spend a lot of time in the Pavilion Gardens year round, because I’m often taking photos in there. It’s a lovely safe and sheltered outdoor space where you see very little anti social behaviour, even late at night.
Not sure about safe and sheltered, the gardens are certainly not looked after as they were, (i’m probably showing my age). I would agree not quite the right area for statues. Also given all the well publicised dodgy behaviour there at night i can quite understand why they should be closed at night. It’s not worth spending a lot of money on doing them up just to have them trashed again. Look what’s happened at the level, and learn.
Sadly I think that the proposals to enclose the gardens and close them at night is purely for commercial reasons and the claim to restore the gardens to Nash designs is a smokescreen.
They even doctored the figures on anti-social behaviour in the area the last time they proposed the scheme.
Our public spaces are increasingly hired out for commercial events and closed off to the public. While I understand that local authorities, starved of central government funding, see this as attractive. It means that we lose the amenity that these open spaces provide. In the summer may people use the gardens at night. many of us use it as a right of way day and night all yeaar round.
I can forsee the “restored” gardens being hired out for weddings and corporate events and closed to the public day or night. Sadly guarantees from the Trust won’t be worth the paper they are written on.
Agree, 100 per cent
You could say exactly the same thing when Pride takes over Preston Park or trashy so called events take place in Stanmer park or Waterhall. Or a Christmas market takes over Valley Gardens. I am happy for the Trust to sort this out rather than the council. You wont please everyone, but something has to be done.
Well done to Jean Calder for highlighting this issue – which is going before a council committee very soon.Good to have a reminder that the 1980s work on the gardens did not so much preserve Nash’s original but recreate a fake version of it. Many will remember the gardens looking like WW1 trenches when the work was done. It will do nothing for the enjoyment by residents or visitors of the Royal Pavilion or its Gardens to have a repeat of that.
As for statues. Jean Calder is right to remind people of the attempt by some of the largely self appointed Brighton arts establishment to prevent the Max Miller statue being returned to its position in the gardens close to the city’s theatre area, an important strain of which Max represented – even though that’s a part of our arts/entertainment heritage looked down in by so many in that “establishment”. One arty bigwig at that time wanted it put on the Aquarium roundabout.
There will be many of us willing to take up the metaphorical cudgels again if there’a another attempt to move it.
There have been 2 long term aims of whoever has run the Royal Pavilion. (1) to get rid of the long established and much loved Pavilion Gardens Cafe. ( And if not that, to make life as difficult as possible for its Brightonian owners). That’s another battle the Pavilion can’t win.
(2) to be able to fence the gardens off so they can be rented out much more for private functions. Many believe the so-called security issue is a red-herring.
Think the idea this time is to properly restore the gardens, not to make a mess of them which is what happened in the 80’s. As for private functions i repeat that is exactly the same as Pride taking over Preston Park for a weekend and making it unusable to the people of Brighton for at least a week afterwards, ditto events in Valley Gardens and other Parks. Also think the timing and order of these posts need looking into, it could give an overall biased opinion.
Jean Calder is absolutely right in wanting a statue to commemorate Mary Clarke in Pavilion Gardens. She did a marvellous thing when she was a founding member of the Women’s History Group B&H, and there are now several blue plaques around our city to commemorate remarkable local women, thanks to Jean’s pioneering efforts. Mary Clarke richly deserves a statue in Pavilion Gardens, where girls and boys going into our Museum and Art Gallery will be sure to see it. Pavilion Gardens are a great place to meet friends, to enjoy a cup of tea in the outdoor cafe, and to appreciate the view of the Royal Pavilion, and to relax in the garden, a green oasis in the middle of our marvellous city. Where better to commemorate Mary Clarke, who played such an important part in getting the vote for women in this country?