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BRIGHTON |
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as the northern entrance to the grounds, is the most satisfactory part of the whole.
The Dome and the buildings that adjoin, mostly of brick and iron, were designed by William Porden, and erected in 1803-9. With a fountain in the centre and horses in the stalls all round, the dome itself was probably far more effective than fitted as an assembly room, well as the work has been done. The Picture Gallery, Museum, and Public Library that form part of the same block have recently been reconstructed and greatly improved. The former contains a superb mosaic portrait of George IV. executed in Rome for one of the Popes, a copy of a picture in oils by Sir Thomas Lawrence. The Museum is rather of general than of local interest, and has a fine collection of Stone-Age implements. In the Dyke Road is the Booth Collection of British Birds, bequeathed to the town, where may be seen specimens of our birds beautifully set amid their natural surroundings and all the work of one man.
In 1797 a Brighton miller anticipated American methods by moving his windmill for a mile across the country to a convenient brow of hill near Withdean; no less than thirty-six yoke of oxen were pressed into the service, and it must have been a picturesque scene.* It appears to have been perfectly successful. We get an interesting though not very consistent account of the place in Richard Gough's edition of Camden (1806). " Brighthelmstone, from a flourishing and fortified town now greatly reduced by the incroachments of the sea, is of a square form, the streets almost at right angles to each other, and situated on the
* Antiquarian Chronicle, July, 1882. |
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