James Gray: Three photographs of 2 July 1967, before excavation started as the first phase in construction of the underground car park. jgc_29_052
2018: The Regency Square lawn is now in three stepped sections. These sections mirror the three car park floors beneath the square. (Photographer: Suzanne Hinton)
James Gray: See jgc_29_052. jgc_29_054
2018: The main change is the clutter of the underground car park entrance, bushes, railings and the BA i360 tower with the viewing pod just in sight at the top of the image. The bugler on the top of the Royal Sussex Regiment Boer War memorial is dwarfed. In 1967 he looked as prominent as the helter-skelter on the West Pier. (Photographer: Suzanne Hinton)
James Gray: Regency Square is little changed, but the buildings in the next two photographs [jgc_29_093 and o94] have gone. jgc_29_091
2018: The early 20th century image shows all the houses in the north range of Regency Square from No 22 on the left (west, next to Preston Street) to No 42. By 2018, all the smaller houses have lost their canopies, but No 40 has regained one. (Photographer: Suzanne Hinton)
James Gray: Regency Square, probably about 1870–73. jgc_01_112
2018: The south-east corner of Regency Square was originally private houses numbered 67, 68 and 69 Regency Square although the block has also been 129 and 130 Kings Road. Matters were simplified in the late 19th century when the whole block became Abbotts Hotel. A modern block of flats was built on the site in the early 1960s. (Photographer: Suzanne Hinton)
James Gray: Regency Square. The low single rail was removed when the Boer War Memorial to the Royal Sussex Regiment was erected in 1904. The gardens remained a private enclosure for more than 100 years after the building of the Square. jgc_01_114
2019: The spire of St Mary Magdalene Church is just visible over the roofs of the north range of houses in the square. It is also visible in jgc_01_121. (Photographer: Suzanne Hinton)
James Gray: View of the Square from the West Pier in the days when there were tennis courts there. The exact date is not known but from the names of the hotels and guest houses which can be seen the period would be about 1930. The external railings which had enclosed the square since it was laid out a century before went for salvage during the 1939–1945 war. jgc_01_116
2019: The 2019 view was photographed by a staff member of the BA i360 from the roof of the ticket office (western toll booth). To the left, the spire of St Mary Magdalen Church in Upper North Street is visible in both images.
James Gray: No comment. Additional Information: Unveiling the Royal Sussex Regimental Memorial Brighton October 29 1904. jgc_01_119
2019: The Royal Sussex Regiment war memorial has not changed in 115 years. The houses in Regency Square are sprucer, many having been stuccoed and painted. (Photographer: Suzanne Hinton)
James Gray: No comment. jgc_01_120
2019: The James Gray image was probably taken from the roof of one of the West Pier toll booths in order to capture the bustle of fashionable society in the original picture. In 2019 the rather scruffy garden of Regency Square has a car park under its lawns, some shrubs at the north end and the well-tended Victorian or Edwardian flowerbeds are long gone. (Photographer: Suzanne Hinton)
James Gray: Regency Square. jgc_01_135
2019: The ground floor of 131 Kings Road has changed from being a grand private residence on the south-west corner of the square into a restaurant. The listed Grade II* property was built for the Duke and Duchess of St Albans by Amon Henry Wilds in 1828-30 and its address was originally St Albans House, No 1 Regency Square. In the early 1900s the ground floor was altered for commercial use and since 1965 has been The Regency Restaurant, one of Brighton’s longest established eating places. Its menu is mostly fishy. (Photographer: Suzanne Hinton)
James Gray: Photographic copy of the well-known painting depicting the removal by oxen of the West Mill, from Regency Square to the Dyke Road, in March 1797. jgc _26_081
2018: In 1797 little existed in Brighton west of West Street. It is not clear exactly from where the artist viewed the scene but St Nicholas’s Church can be seen in the distance.
James Gray: Photographs [jgc_01_210, 211 and 212] taken at different times during the past 50 years and showing a King’s Road very little altered from today. Opposite the West Pier, in 1926. It looks as if the Royal Sussex monument was having a spring–clean. In the following year, 1927, the design of the tall lamp standards, which had remained unchanged since 1893, was altered to the present design of two globes instead of one. jgc_01_212
2019: Moving from left to right (north to south), Nos 65 and 66 Regency Square have survived intact, but the whole corner block formed by Regency Square and King’s Road was demolished (see jgc_01_126) in the 1960s to make way for Abbotts flats. Sussex Heights towers over the 1960s skyline of the Hotel Metropole and its one suriviving chimney. Although the lamp standard referred to by James Gray is much altered, it still carries the plaque which tells of the day in September 1893 when the mayor officially inaugurated the use of electric light on the promenade. (Photographer: Suzanne Hinton)