Ashby's Malthouses, North Laine

Photo:Drawing of Cheltenham Place Malthouse

Drawing of Cheltenham Place Malthouse

Refreshment for the people
By Carla Knight

I am researching my great great grandmother's family, the Ashby's, who came to Brighton in 1850s to open a boys boarding school in Gloucester Place, No 23, now demolished.  Great grandmother's aunts seem to have run this school for some years until their father Edward Ashby died in 1855.   Both sisters were unmarried as far as I know.

No trace of Gloucester Place is mentioned in your site of old Brighton's North Laine.  I'm not sure if it is covered by Gloucester Street.  What really interested me was that a few streets away at 40 Cheltenham Place was Ashby & Co malthouse, Ppresumably the two sisters sneaked down there for a few quick reviving pints before attending to the needs of their young gentlemen boarders. 

Does anyone have any material relating to the malthouse or the school at Gloucester Place as these schoolmistresses seem to have led interesting lives for 'spinsters'?

This page was added on 26/08/2010.

Comments/reviews:

If you select 'My Street', Carla, you will find some items for Gloucester Place, and - also on My Street - you will find a brief mention of the Malthouse under Cheltenham Place.

By Maureen Brand
On 26/08/2010

Carla, if you go onto the James Gray site at http://regencysociety-jamesgray.com/volume25/source/jg_25_196.html, you will find photos of Gloucester Terrace.

By Peter Crowhurst, Vice Chair of NLCA
On 27/08/2010

Thanks to everyone who has posted a comment about the Ashby's Boys School. As I am writing a book about these Ashbys, I would like to ask where school advertisment comes from as it seems to have run from 1851-1855 - a relatively short time maybe because in 1856 only one Miss Ashby was left running the school. The other one, the younger Sarah Ann, either left to get married or left Brighton. The annual fee for the school £30-40 seems to have been quite high although it included a pew rent, at St Peter's presumably? That seems to be the nearest church to Gloucester Place.

Does anyone know how the boys would have bathed? Would they have been dipped in the sea by someone like Martha Gunn or just bathed independently...? Any information on bathing would be good.

By Carla Knight
On 08/09/2010

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