Pimlico

Cresy's map showing Pimlico east and Pimlico west

From Cresy's 1849 report

Tichborne Street after the slum clearance

Ordnance Survey map in Brighton History Centre

A local slum

By Peter Crowhurst, North Laine resident

Pimlico was an area consisting of two little streets called Pimlico East and Pimlico West that lay between Pym's Gardens and Bread Street. It was about the worst slum in Brighton. In the late 1860s much of the area that included Pimlico and Thomas Street was cleared and rebuilt as Tichborne Street.

The walls are covered with lichen

In 1849, in his report on the health and condition of the inhabitants of Brighton, Edward Cresy paid particular attention to this part of Brighton. Of the nearby streets in North Laine, he wrote that Orange Row, Pimlico, Foundry Street, Spring Gardens and Thomas Street were areas where diseases prevailed, often the result of sulphurated hydrogen "which arises from the excrement retained in cesspools. It pervades all the breathing places found at the back of buildings. Many of the houses are wretchedly damp, constructed with inferior bricks and mortar made of sand. No methods are available for getting rid of the rain water. The walls are covered with lichen, and with the decomposition of vegetable matter the inmates seek the imagined restorative powers of the public house."

Pulled down

In the early 1870s much of Pimlico was pulled down and Tichborne Street was created from what had been Pimlico east and west, and the former Thomas Street.