The most lovely space in the centre of town, a haven from the bustle, a world of its own. Bob Young and, below, Amanda Ogilvie look at the wonder of St Nick’s Rest Garden  

Opposite St Nicholas Church on the other side of Dyke Road is a handsome Grade II listed archway. If you push through one of the heavy green gates beneath it, you’ll find yourself in a spacious and delightfully leafy park. Even though this space has always been open to the public, it’s one of central Brighton’s largely unknown and hidden places.

This is the St Nicholas Rest Garden. It was the third of the burial grounds associated with the old parish church, the earlier ones being the Churchyard itself and the ‘new’ northern burial ground (now the children’s playground). When these two cemeteries were full, land was acquired on the west side of Dyke Road and the eminent Brighton architect Amon Henry Wilds drew up a scheme for its layout.

Wilds proposed a long row of 23 burial vaults on the northern edge, an entrance gatehouse in the form of a small fortified castle and, most intriguingly of all, a ‘burial pyramid’ with room for several thousand coffins. In the end only 14 of the vaults were built, the entrance gate was simplified, and nothing more was heard of the pyramid!

Burials started in the Rest Garden in the early 1840s but stopped in 1854 when new public health regulations designed to control cholera came into force. In the 1940s, the central area was cleared of its memorials by the Council and the displaced tombstones were used to line the perimeter of the space. Fortunately some of the more splendid of the big ‘box’ tombs were left undisturbed in their original positions.

Before any tombstone was moved, Council staff meticulously recorded the wording of the inscription. A record of these can found via the Brighton Mortiquarian website. There also you can find the life stories of some of the more extraordinary ‘residents’ of the Rest Garden. Here are a few:

Sir Richard Phillips (1767-1840) whose massive box tomb is just inside the gates devised and published class materials for schools (part of his ‘pioneering system of education’) and wrote many very important books — or so he claimed! If you read the inscription on his tomb you’ll see that he was also an absolutely exemplary family man. Do take all of this with a pinch of salt though because Sir Richard concocted the wording of the inscription himself.

Baroness Erskine (d.1851) and her aunt Rachel Bond are buried in a splendid ‘tabletop’ tomb beneath the tree next to the Tierney family vault. The carved stone decorations along the top edge and the sides of the tomb are very beautiful.

One of the most eminent of all the people in the Rest Garden is Sir Martin Archer Shee (1769-1850). He was President of the Royal Academy of Arts and a top-ranking portrait painter. The aristocracy and even Royalty were amongst his clients. As such he could have been interred in Westminster Abbey but chose instead to be buried in the leafy surroundings of the Rest Garden.

As well as all the history there is a terrace with roses, lavender, flowering borders, and an olive tree — together with a splendid sea view. 

The Brighton Mortiquarian is at https://mortiquarian.com. Select “Recording Our Deceased” for access to the inscription records and Mortiquaria to reach masses of information about named people.

Not many people know this, but the Rest Garden is owned by the incumbent of St Nicholas of Myra, Brighton – aka the vicar of St Nick’s, so this remarkable place is, in effect, the vicar’s garden held in trust for the parish.  

Thank the Lord. Maintenance of this closed burial ground is still the responsibility of Brighton & Hove City Council as are the other two green spaces around the church. But in a strange twist, closed burial grounds remain subject to ecclesiastical law – which means that to do anything, permission is required from the Diocese of Chichester.

Only one of the 14 burial vaults has an opening door, today used to store equipment for the cheery band of volunteer gardeners who work to keep the space as lovely as it is. Bear them in mind when your dogs are doing what dogs do, and be grateful that the vicar is a dog lover. For years animals were forbidden to come through those remarkable, heavy gates.  

The Rest Garden even has its own angel – a local who takes his nightly stroll with a litter picker, removing debris as he walks.  One balmy sunny evening, wearing a straw hat, our hero was approached by someone who asked if he was the vicar. To which he replied ‘No – but I know a man who is!’

How different this little-known hideaway must be to Wilds’ original idea – used daily by dog walkers, garden lovers, people in need of a peaceful green space in the middle
of this fantastic, mad, busy city.  And the occasional tent.

The other day a friend offered to buy me lunch. This is always nice. “So,” I said, “fancy a trip to Brighton?” What he said next surprised me, which perhaps goes to show that while we are on good enough terms to call each other friends, we don’t know each other that well. 

“I loathe Brighton,” he said. This surprised me quite a bit as it happened, because not only is he very nice – I’ve never heard him say he loathes anything before – he is also gay, and I’ve always thought, lazily perhaps, that if you’re gay you approve of the very idea of Brighton. How wrong can one be? 

I once went out with a woman who, when I told her I was moving to Brighton, said “I hate Brighton.” Why? I asked. “I don’t like it.” Why don’t you like it, I asked. “I hate it.” At this point I realised the conversation was getting a bit circular. So I gave up and moved to Brighton. In her defence, she was very much a posh frocks from Harvey Nicks kind of woman and, I suspect, a Conservative voter, so I could see why Brighton might not have been her cup of tea, but still. 

I suppose you either have this place in your bones or you don’t. Doctor Johnson, whose words I normally hang on, said that the main problem with  Brighton was that you couldn’t find a tree to hang yourself from once you realised how horrible it was living here, but back in his day it was called Brightelmstone and there really weren’t that many trees. I wonder whether Doctor J had an inkling that there would one day be a kind of competition between London and Brighton. That people would leave the capital to come here and say “You know what? This place is loads better. Or at least just as good, and there aren’t any bankers.”

Well, you do get bankers here now, or at least rich celebrities but they tend to stick to one area and don’t spoil the place for the rest of us. Brighton seems to be fairly gentrification-proof, however many heartbreakingly swanky properties there are. The addresses whose names begin with “Montpelier” may be many and costly, but a few seconds walk away and you get to see… well, you know, the kind of people Brighton is famous for. A colourful bunch. 

This is not to sugarcoat things – the dreadful homelessness, the beggars, the addicts, the people who’ve had a
rough time and aren’t going to be having a better time any time soon, but it’s better to have a town like this than to have a town like London that has been hollowed out by wealth. At least here, the views are free to rich and poor alike. 

What a lot of noodles there are in those beautiful Tonkotsu ramen bowls, the iconic soup from Japan which has had London slurping since it first opened behind the Tate Modern in 2007. By Gilly Smith

This pit stop is the latest of Brighton’s mid-market feasting stations, scooching into the wide pavements of New Road where Polpo once served its small Venetian plates.  This is all about home-made noodles; Tonkotsu’s motto is “If you don’t make your own noodles, you’re just a soup shop”,  and are made in three different types in-house daily using mid-century machines imported from Tokyo. And there’s plenty of ‘em, soaking up the made-from-scratch broth of high welfare pork or chicken, simmered for hours and topped with all sorts of ggodies. Try the roast pork belly, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, spring onions, burnt garlic oil and a seasoned Clarence Court egg.   

We loved the Eat the Bits Chili Oil and the vegan Mushroom Miso ramen which we suped up with a spicy scotch bonnet hot shot. On the side, the cucumber with mustard seeds and cauliflower wings were winners and will please the crowds of Brighton vegans demanding super tasty and stylish dishes. The service is great, the design Brighton-made and even the beer comes from local UnBarred brewery. The Sake was made specially for the restaurant by the Tsuji Brewery in Okayama which is very cool indeed.

Why then does the delicious chilli oil and soy come in unnecessarily carbon heavy plastic pots and the prawns have to travel all the way from India when we live on the coast?  

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It’s a mid-May Monday and we’re watching the world go by, an espresso in one hand and couple of pastels de nata on our rickety pavement table.  

Latina is a little bit of Lisbon on the Dials, and has been serving up much more than coffee and cake in its five years as one of only two Portuguese cafes in town. 

Its bacalhau and suckling pig de Negrais are, according to expats, as close to the real thing as you’ll get around here. When The Whistler put a shout out for the best salads in town for this month’s Feedback (above), the most popular was Latina’s marinaded octopus. 

It’s an unlikely success story. When Adelia Pereira moved from Lisbon to London nearly 30 years ago, and to Brighton 14 years later, she couldn’t even cook. “I loved food, but I never really cooked it,” she admitted. “But now every morning I come in and say ‘OK, I’m going to cook this.’ But I never know what I’m going to do the day before.” Yet the menu is reassuringly familiar. “It feels like home,” said Nino as he waited for his salt cod croquettes take-away.  

Adelia says it’s been business as usual during lockdown with take-aways doing a “good enough” trade. But it’s on the street that this food is meant to be. “We have a thing in Portugal. You drink, you eat. You just get some croquettes and a beer or a glass of wine. That’s it.”

Gilly Smith 

One block, a great pub on each corner. And it just didn’t feel right when The Welly was closed. It felt like a car with one wheel missing. But now the wheel is back on

We think it’s the perfect time,  yeah absolutely the perfect time. I mean, we’ve got a perfect storm of people who’ve really understood what they’ve missed over the last year, what everyone’s really missed. The people interaction, the community. There’s been community spirit, but there’s been a lack of opportunities to engage”. 

The Whistler is talking to Paul and Gabby Wimhurst, the people behind the re-opening of The Duke of Wellington – The Welly – and we asked the inevitable question about the risk of opening up during the lockdown. And Paul’s on a roll. 

“So I think this is the perfect time because obviously, pubs can play a part in that wider community engagement. So as things wake up, this is how we see it, as people start to shake their heads a little bit and wake up, it’s a great time to be opening a pub that’s been closed for a year and a bit. Yeah. So yeah, we think it’s good.”

Paul and Gabby have been “running pubs now for about three years up in Soho. Mainly that was The Red Lion in Kingly Street, and we also had The Lyceum on the Strand for a while, so that was our time running pubs, but we’ve spent a fair bit of time in pubs” 

Doing research? 

“Yeah, exactly.”

Gabby was born in Mouslecoomb “but spent most of my time in and around central Brighton, so we were always knew that we were going to come back to the south coast.

“We heard about this during lockdown – that was just after Bertie, the previous landlord, decided to move on – and once we knew there was an opportunity here, we grabbed it with both hands. Couldn’t wait to get back. All our friends are round here. It felt really isolating being in London, especially during lockdown.”   

Round here, if you like pubs this is a good place to be. “Yeah, that’s something that we can’t wait to become part of, the pub community. We’ve already made contact with everybody. The thing is, they’re all good pubs and we’re not going to try to compete. For instance, we’re not going to do a food offer, and that’s probably been driven by the fact that the others do such good food. So rather than try and compete, we’re viewing it that we want to complement the pubs around the block, you know.” 

And so what is your sell? What’s your USP? “We’re hopefully just going to build on what it’s always been – a great pub for watching sport and taking part in team sport. We’ve also got a great garden which we’ve made a bit more comfortable and spent some money on it. We’ve got the function room upstairs as well, and hopefully (mini theatre) Sweet will be back later in the year, so we’ve got the opportunity to… not change the way it feels, but enhance it and maybe just broaden its appeal a little bit. 

“I think we’ve recruited a super team, that’s something that we’re really excited about. We’ve got four people who we think are really unique in their own way and they’ve all got something really, really great to add. So we’re hoping that it’s the personalities and the people that people are going to come in for.”

Can you name the 13th Best Cheese in the World – at least as judged at the World Cheese Awards in Bergamo in 2019? It’s a ludicrous concept of course, every cheese is unique, like every wine, but when the answer is Brighton Blue who in this city is going to argue?

From the start I have to admit it’s not made in Brighton; we suffer from a serious shortage of cows. It’s made by Mark and Sarah Hardy at High Weald Dairy, near Horsted Keynes. So why is it named after Brighton? How many other places are there in Sussex beginning with B? Burgess Hill Blue? Billingshurst Blue? They don’t quite have the allure that our city brings to the table.

What is it about the cheese that’s so special? It’s a question of texture and flavour. For texture it sits midway between soft and hard: it holds its shape but isn’t hard or crumbly like a Stilton. It’s all a question of how hard they try to separate the whey from the curds. Mark and Sarah don’t try too hard but, once the cheese is made and in the store, they turn it three times a week to aid the loss of moisture. That gets it exactly right.

But what’s really special is the flavour. It’s slightly salty with a delicate almost perfumed taste. It’s exquisite. That flavour comes from the mould, which is Penicillium roqueforti. That’s the same mould used to make Roquefort (and, incidentally, Stilton), but the Hardys use a milder version – number 3 on a scale of 1 to 9, whereas Stilton uses a 7 or 8. It’s cultivated now, but it’s ultimately derived from the wild moulds found in the limestone caves at Roquefort.

When you look at the cheese you see that the blue colour is not diffuse through the cheese, but it’s in clumps and sometimes in streaks. This makes some people think that the mould has been injected. It’s not; it’s mixed into the milk at the very start of cheese-making. But it doesn’t go blue at this stage because for that it needs oxygen. 

So the cheese is made, left to sit in store for a week, then pierced with a battery of long needles. Oxygen diffuses through the shafts created when the needles are removed and the blue colour and flavour start to develop. It’s usually ready to eat after 7 weeks, but cheese is a living thing and no timing is set in stone. 

Blue cheeses often become even more interesting with time and I look forward to keeping my next Brighton Blue for a bit to see how it develops.

Which wine should you drink with it? I’ve written before about matching fortified wines – Sherry, Port or Madeira – with blue cheese, but Brighton Blue is too delicate for that. Red wine (but again not too overwhelming) would be fine. A Sauternes would be marvellous as would any sweet white wine that isn’t too cloying.

Local social media channels fizzed last month upon learning pop poppet turned actual actor Harry Styles and his TARDIS had landed in Powis Square. Filming for Amazon’s “My Policeman” (the novel about a gay bobby in 50s Brighton) was afoot. Locals of all ages and genders grabbed their cameras and offspring, gathering for a game of ‘Where’s Harry?’

This Hollywood incursion shouldn’t surprise, given how important the area is for cinema. Take the Western edge of Whistler Country, St Ann’s Well Gardens, which predates Hollywood by over a decade as a moviemaking centre. From 1897-1904, the pleasure gardens’ owner George Albert Smith, arguably the most important of the Brighton [Hove Actually] School of pioneering filmers, made movies here.

[Dear readers: I will ignore William Friese-Greene in this article. Not just due to minimal Dials links. A plaque in Brighton’s Middle Street says he invented cinema there. No he didn’t. The first moving pictures were shot in Leeds by a French dude. Friese-Greene was primarily London-based at cinema’s inception anyway. I’ve made an entire YouTube video about how full of lies that plaque is. WFG mythology denigrates the achievements of the real Hove cinema pioneers. It. Must. End. Grrr.]

The much more pleasingly acronymed GAS, meanwhile, has many cinematic firsts to his name. First colour moving images? Check. Editing between different angles? Using cutaways from an establishing shot? A title card? Copyright notice? Yes to all of the above. Smith’s sheer volume of output (35 short films in 1897 alone) might be a factor in how many key elements of the language of movies he established.

Initially basing his studio in the Pump Room [which was demolished in 1935 after the well spring dried up], GAS was mindful that clear coastal daylight made Hove rather than smoggy London a cinema hotbed. In 1901 a glass walled studio was built to house faux interior sets. Some of Smith’s innovations (eg primitive colour footage) came after he’d upped sticks to Southwick three years later. Filmmaking ended at St Ann’s Well soon after. The council acquired it as a public park in 1908.

Fast forward 40 years and the south eastern edge of Whistlerland housed the grandly named Brighton Film Studios, operating from 1948-1966 in a former sunday school and auction house at 51 Centurion Road. 

Despite its longevity it struggled. In 1950 not a single movie was produced in Brighton & Hove. Fifty years earlier, dozens (albeit of much shorter duration) were shot in St Ann’s Well Gardens alone.

Advanced cameras and lights, with the accompanying move to primarily indoor shooting, meant seaside towns no longer had any advantage. Brighton’s provincial set-up couldn’t compete with edge-of-London titans like Pinewood and Shepperton. The sun (or lack of reliance upon it) has sadly set upon our local film industry.

What would Esmé Collings, bitter rival of William Friese-Greene [you said we wouldn’t mention him – Ed] make of it all? In 1896, while living at what is now 56 Dyke Road, Esmé directed the world’s first ‘adult movie’. Of course “A Victorian Lady In Her Boudoir” was tame by modern sensibilities, offering a brief glimpse of bare ankle at its, er, climax.

That said, we suspect the crowd gathered a stone’s throw away in Powis Square recently would happily eyeball far less (a gloved hand or flash of side-ear perhaps) belonging to Mr Styles. With ITV returning soon for more Grace TV movies, the area is back in the film spotlight for tales of spice, vice and police at least. Welcome to life in the West Hills of Diallywood, folks x

“Music has always been the
band aid that sorts everything
out” Fable tells Harrison Kirby

You know that feeling? You hear something on the radio and it just stops you. In the old days you’d sit quietly and hope the DJ says “And that was “Womb” by Brighton’s Fable”. Now, you’re more likely to jump on Shazam. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens. 

If you mourn the death of 90’s music, Fable might be exactly the artist you’re looking for. Think Thom Yorke and Massive Attack and you won’t be far off beam. It’s a unique sound and she’s got an incredible voice, it’s all there. But like so many extraordinary artists, the work might sound fresh and bright, but often comes from a dark place. “I’ve definitely battled depression for a long time. Music’s always been a band-aid that sorts everything out”.

She talks of “having a little bit of a wobble and a breakdown due to being a bit too neurotic about controlling things and who I am” but it was the tragic suicide of her ex-girlfriend that really sent life spinning. 

“I was thinking of giving up music completely because the only people I saw succeeding were people in much wealthier positions than me. They had a trust fund and all that. My friends were able to focus purely on music and not on how they’re going to pay their bills. I think that was a big part of it. It felt like the thing I’ve been chasing since I was very young felt like a childlike, unattainable dream for someone from my background. So, I moved away”.

But you know, it only takes one call… 

“I got a call saying an indie label called Naim were interested, and that kind of sprung out of nowhere. I think that after giving up on something that you’ve spent your whole life being passionate about, that kind of acceptance of ‘I don’t have to let this happen’. It was the letting go aspect allowed things to flow back into my life”.

And things are flowing and she’s preparing to release her debut album.

“Having that reflection time through the whole of the lockdown was an amazing thing to happen. It’s an awful thing to happen to the world but for me, at the time, it was the down, quiet time that I needed to really write without the stress. Because it was all sort of up in the air, we didn’t really know when things were going to come back to life it was a really nice lull period to write, which is quite a blessing. Normally you don’t get so long to create a piece of work!”

On top of her music, another one of Fable’s biggest prides is her work for My Black Dog, a mental health charity that specialises in providing personal, anonymous support for those suffering with depression.

“They are such an amazing charity, so needed at this time. I think throughout the pandemic people have forgotten how to talk to each other socialise. It’s different to the Samaritans in that the volunteers have all experienced mental health traumas of their own.”forward and embracing “this whole process of just relaxing a little bit and realising that life is simpler than you’re making it out to be. The next project is the video for my next single called Shame. It’s about our apathy, the addiction to capitalism, it gets quite political.

“After that there’ll be another single and then, hopefully, a tour. I’m just focussed on more content, some more videos. Just building a bit more of a picture up before I release the album, hopefully in September. It’s kind of all, weirdly enough, fallen into place. Thank you, whatever happened!”

Going to shows at The Fringe can sometimes feel like a bit of a lucky dip – put your hand in, who knows what you’re going to pull out – but a show about Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli? Come on, that’s easy.

Emma Dears, who wrote and created the show, stars as Liza in this sweet, empathetic telling of the tragic mother-daughter tale, with Helen Sheals as Judy and it’s just lovely. OK, it’s a fantastic story and the songs are… well, you know the songs. Judy sings Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Liza counters with Cabaret. Judy sings from A Star Is Born, Liza counters with Maybe This Time. It is, needless to say, completely lovely.

Emma and Helen – who both come armed with serious pedigrees (Les Mis, Miss Saigon, Brookside, Downton Abbey) – are both warm and funny and both, clearly, enjoy every minute of it. It’s on tonight and tomorrow night at The Warren and… go. 

https://www.brightonfringe.org/whats-on/judy-liza-musical-154044/

You ever fancied chancing your arm at being a writer? Well, as chance would have it… The West Hill Writers Group meet every Friday afternoon to focus their energies under the guidance of Anna Burtt.

“I joined the West Hill Writers Group this January, via Zoom sessions”, said group member JE Seuk. “Already they’ve shared insights, motivation, discipline, and community beyond all expectations. I can’t wait for meetings to resume in-person at West Hill Hall at the end of June.”

There’s also a new bursary for underrepresented writers. There’s a group anthology to be published in coming months. Advice about agents and publishing, opportunities for personalised feedback, writing exercises, and more.

If you find yourself itching to join but anxious about fitting in, know that there is no one size fits all West Hill Writer. “The ages range from 20-something to 70-something,” said Seuk. “Some have decades of writing experience, while others write for fun after the kids are tucked off to bed. Some voices are literary, others commercial. We’re all different, but we all love writing”.

More info at:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/west-hill-writing-group-summer-2021-tickets-156082608283.