North, south and west garden walls, vault and garden structures comprising the Secret Garden, Kemp Town, Brighton

The Secret Garden, a walled garden within Kemp Town, Brighton, was planned and laid out from the mid-1820s to serve 32 Sussex Square. Associated with Laurence Peel, the garden walls likely date to around 1830.

The garden is enclosed by walls built of William Ranger’s Artificial Stone. The north and west walls are tall, standing eight to ten feet high at street level. The ground slopes away from the northwest corner, and retaining walls of Ranger Artificial Stone are used to level the garden floor below street level. The walls are constructed with blocks of Ranger Artificial Stone and have a projecting coping of stone and concrete. A rectangular entrance with a wooden door is located at the northern end of the west wall, leading to later steps that descend into the garden; the cantilevered nature of the platform suggests this entrance might be original. The south wall, also of Ranger Artificial Stone, forms the property boundary to the south.

The interior faces of the walls show roughly 2-foot by 9-inch blocks laid horizontally. The roadside elevations are rendered, but erosion has in places removed the fine finish to reveal the coarser stone blocks underneath. Copings, visible where foliage allows, are made of coarse aggregate concrete and Ranger Artificial Stone slabs.

Beneath the northernmost section of the west wall, a vaulted entrance in Ranger Artificial Stone extends under the pavement, presumably leading to a passage to the house. A timber-framed, open-fronted loggia is situated adjacent to the vault, and to the south is a timber-framed garden room featuring a canted bay with six-over-six pane sash windows.

The lower, significantly altered and repaired eastern wall, which combines brick and bungaroosh construction, is located where an original cross wall was shown on the 1875 Ordnance Survey map and contains a blocked entrance. This eastern section is not included in the listing.