Royal Crescent, Brighton

Royal Crescent is a crescent-shaped terrace of houses on the seafront in Brighton. Built in the late 18th and early 19th century as a speculative development on cliffs east of Brighton by a wealthy merchant, the 14 lodging houses formed the town's eastern boundary until about 1820.

It was the seaside resort's first planned architectural composition, and the first built intentionally to face the sea. The variety of building materials used include black glazed mathematical tiles—a characteristic feature of Brighton's 18th-century architecture. The crescent of 14 houses was the first to be built facing the sea and to be designed in harmony with it. Brighton's 18th-century development had been haphazard and unplanned, and Royal Crescent also represented the first unified architectural design, planned as a set-piece and overseen from start to finish by one man. The grand scale was intended to attract middle- and upper-class residents, both permanent and seasonal, and it was immediately successful: early tenants included the Rice family, a brewing dynasty from London.