Gwydyr Mansions

Gwydyr Mansions
Gwydyr Mansions from the southwest
Location in the city of Brighton and Hove
General information
Status	Complete
Type	Mansion flats
Architectural style	Flemish Renaissance
Address	Rochester Gardens/Palmeira Square, Hove BN3 1JW
Town or city	Brighton and Hove
Country	United Kingdom
Coordinates	50°49′36″N 0°09′43″W / 50.8268°N 0.1620°W / 50.8268; -0.1620Coordinates: 50°49′36″N 0°09′43″W / 50.8268°N 0.1620°W / 50.8268; -0.1620
Groundbreaking	1890
Completed	1890
Landlord	Austin Rees (managing agents)
Technical details
Floor count	4
Design and construction
Architecture firm	Clayton & Black

Gwydyr Mansions is a block of mansion flats in the centre of Hove, part of the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. Built on the initiative of a Baptist pastor and designed by the prolific architecture firm of Clayton & Black, the "elegant" Flemish Renaissance-style building dates from 1890 and overlooks a central square. As originally built, the block had a restaurant and barber shop for residents; the latter is still operational.

The Wick estate was a large area of land north of the ancient village of Hove. Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, part of the Goldsmid banking dynasty, bought most of the land for development in 1830. The estate was 250 acres (100 ha) in size and consisted of farmland, pastures and woodland. Until then, Thomas Scutt and Thomas Read Kemp owned the land: they developed the high-class Brunswick estate on part of it, and sold the rest to Goldsmid.

Residential and commercial development was gradual but steady for the rest of the 19th century. One of the main developments was Palmeira Square, built in the 1850s and 1860s as an open square of housing with gardens in the middle and a public garden to the north. Holland Road, laid out in 1833 but still mostly undeveloped by the mid-1850s, led north from Palmeira Square. Goldsmid was created Baron Goldsmid of Palmeira in 1845, and the square took its name from this title; Holland Road was named after Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland (Lord Holland), a Whig statesman and friend of Goldsmid.

Holland Road Baptist Church was built in 1883 on land (known as the Goldsmid Estate) that was owned by Goldsmid's descendants; the terms of the Goldsmid Estate Act 1879 made it easier for parts of the 188-acre (76 ha) site to be sold for development. The church's first pastor, Rev. David Davies, proposed a scheme for a block of luxury flats opposite the church on a site between Holland Road, Palmeira Square and Rochester Gardens. The site was bought in 1890, and Brighton-based architects Clayton & Black were commissioned to design the building. Established in the 1870s, this firm designed many types of building in Brighton and Hove over a 100-year period and in an eclectic range of styles.