Pelham Institute

Pelham Institute

Working men's club, now store. Located on Upper Bedford Street in Brighton, the Pelham Institute was designed by Brighton architect Thomas Lainson in plans dated 25 August 1876 and built in 1877 for Archdeacon Hannah. The building replaced the Zion Chapel of 1829 on the same site.

The structure is built of purplish brick in English bond with red brick and terracotta dressings. Tile hanging adorns the peaks of the gables and one dormer. The roofs are tiled, with all elevations gable-facing except for the half dormer to Upper Bedford Street, which is hipped.

The building comprises three storeys and dormers over a basement, rectangular in plan with three main elevations. The principal elevation to Upper Bedford Street has a four-window range. A three-window range faces Montague Street, while St George's Terrace has scattered fenestration. The style is High Victorian Gothic.

On the Upper Bedford Street elevation, a segmental pointed-arch entrance is set within a gabled aedicule supported by plain brick corbels. The original plank doors remain, the left-hand door retaining original wrought-iron hinges, with all glazing bars of original design. Unless otherwise stated, all openings are flat arched. The right-hand window ranges are treated as a gabled bay with a stepped chimneybreast projecting from the second floor and a stack rising to the gable peak. A pair of narrow lights flanks the entrance, with a pair of windows above set under a pointed-arch tympanum. The second floor beneath the gable contains three pairs of two-light windows, the central pair set in a pointed-arch recess within the chimneybreast.

The left-hand section at the corner features what appears to be an original shop front, with a broad four-light window to the right. Ground-floor windows are connected by a springing band-hood moulding. An ornamental brickwork storey band separates the ground and first floors, with a springing band to first-floor windows and a sill band to all second-floor windows. These mouldings continue across both returns. The left-hand section terminates in a dormer with truncated gable, beneath which are six second-floor lights grouped around a white stone plaque set in a pointed-arched aedicule. Another white stone plaque appears above the entrance.

The left return features a segmental-arched ground-floor window near the corner and a pointed-arched entrance, with a loading bay and wood door to the rear. First-floor windows match those already described. Second-floor windows in the first and third ranges are set in pointed-arch recesses, with a pair of narrow lancets topped by a plaque in a pointed aedicule between them. A stack emerges from halfway up the gable, and another stack stands in the left party wall.

The right return is highly asymmetrical. A segmental-arched ground-floor window near the corner is adjacent to a seven-light window. A stairwell window interrupts the storey band between ground and first floors at the corner. On the first floor to the right is a window composed of three narrow lights under one pointed-arch tympanum. To the left, a chimneybreast projects from the wall, supported by a blind pointed arch, with a small window in the middle of the chimneybreast between the first and second floors. A tall window with pointed-arch tympanum rises near the corner on the second floor, terminating in a projecting gable above the eaves. To the right of the chimneybreast, which also projects above the eaves, are three narrow lights in a barely articulated dormer.

A plinth of one brick's thickness runs at the foot of all walls. The sills to all ground- and first-floor windows are splayed and faced in terracotta.

The interior has not been inspected.

Contemporary sources record that the Pelham Institute was erected for the benefit of the working people of East Brighton, as a place where working men could find refreshments, recreation, social intercourse and opportunities to spend time without exposure to the temptations of public houses. The architectural style and the fact that Archdeacon Hannah served as President identify the building as an Anglican slum mission. The ground floor contained general-purpose rooms including a reading room, kitchen, non-alcoholic bar, games room and smoking room, with a lecture and mission room on the first floor. The second floor contained bedrooms let to single men at one shilling per night or three shillings and sixpence per week. Lainson's plans identified the structure as a Workmen's Club; street directories from 1879 onwards refer to it as the Pelham Institute. An alternative design in the French Second Empire style, dated to the same period and also by Lainson, is preserved among plans in the Registry Office at Lewes. The building is owned by the Borough Council and is currently let to the Mid-Sussex Judo Club, which uses it as a storage facility.