Montpelier Crescent
| Montpelier Crescent | |
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The central section of Montpelier Crescent seen from the south–southwest
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| Location | Montpelier Crescent, Montpelier, Brighton, Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, United Kingdom |
| Coordinates | 50°49′46″N 0°08′53″W / 50.8294°N 0.1480°WCoordinates: 50°49′46″N 0°08′53″W / 50.8294°N 0.1480°W |
| Built | 1843–47; c. 1855 |
| Architect | Amon Henry Wilds |
| Architectural style(s) | Regency |
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Listed Building – Grade II*
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| Official name: Numbers 7–31 Montpelier Crescent and attached gate piers, walls and railings | |
| Designated | 13 October 1952 |
| Reference no. | 1380362 |
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Listed Building – Grade II
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| Official name: Numbers 1, 2 and 3 Montpelier Crescent and attached railings; Numbers 4, 5 and 6 Montpelier Crescent and attached railings; 32 and 33 Montpelier Crescent; 34–38 Montpelier Crescent |
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| Designated | 20 August 1971 |
| Reference no. | 1380360; 1380361; 1380363; 1380364 |
 Location of Montpelier Crescent within central Brighton
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Montpelier Crescent is a mid 19th-century crescent of 38 houses in the Montpelier suburb of Brighton, part of the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. Built in five parts as a set-piece residential development in the rapidly growing seaside resort, the main part of the crescent was designed between 1843 and 1847 by prominent local architect Amon Henry Wilds and is one of his most distinctive compositions. Extra houses were added at both ends of the crescent in the mid-1850s. Unlike most other squares, terraces and crescents in Brighton, it does not face the sea—and the view it originally had towards the South Downs was blocked within a few years by a tall terrace of houses opposite. Montpelier was an exclusive and "salubrious" area of Brighton, and Montpelier Crescent has been called its "great showpiece". Wilds's central section has been protected as Grade II* listed, with the later additions listed separately at the lower Grade II. The crescent is in one of the city's 34 conservation areas, and forms one of several "outstanding examples of late Regency architecture" within it.
Brighton (originally known as Brighthelmston) developed as a large fishing and agricultural village on the English Channel coast. Despite intermittent periods of decline and destitution, it was the largest town in the county of Sussex by 1600. In the mid-18th century, the damaging economic effects of a terminal decline in the fishing industry were reversed by the new fashion for sea-bathing, and the town's new role as a seaside resort began. Northwest of the old town, around the parish church and the road leading to Devil's Dyke and on to London, was an expanse of gently sloping downland known as Church Hill. It was given over to sheep-grazing and was owned by two prominent locals: MP Thomas Kemp and John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset.
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