St. Nicholas Church
Situated just north of our area, St Nicholas Church, the oldest surviving building in Brighton, was started in Norman times although the present building dates from the 14th century. The mother church of Brighton, St. Nicholas was built on a steep hill overlooking the old town. For many years it was the only chuch in Brighton, at that time essentially a fishing village. The interior was remodelled by Richard Carpenter in the mid 19th century. Carpenter also designed the Wellington Memorial Cross which remains at the church to this day.
One of the church's treasures is a drum shaped font carved from a single piece of Caen stone in about 1160.
The graveyard contains the remains of many people associated with the Regency era including Martha Gunn, Phoebe Hessel, Captain Nicholas Tettersell, Amon Wilds and Sake Deen Mahomed.
Martha Gunn was known as the queen of the Brighton dippers from 1750 until her death, at the age of 88, in 1815 operating bathing machines on the beach, she helped fashionable ladies in and out of the sea in the belief that the "seawater treatment" was good for them. She was a favourite of King George IV when he was Prince of Wales and was granted free access to his kitchen.
Phoebe Hessel was born in Stepney, London in 1713 (in the reign of Queen Anne) and pretended to be a man in order to serve as a soldier for her country in the 5th Foot Regiment so that she could be with her lover and accompany him to the West Indies. In 1745 she fought in the Battle of Fontenoy under the Duke of Cumberland. During this battle she was wounded in the arm by a bayonet, it was only then that her secret was discovered. She later married and had nine children only one of whom survived to adulthood. Her husband also died and to make money in later life she sold fish from a cart, although some sources say she sold gingerbread or ribbons and trinkets. Later King George IV gave her a pension and when she died in 1821 at the age of 108, the King, whose coronation she had attended as a guest of honour, ordered her tombstone.
Captain Nicholas Tettersell helped King Charles II escape to France in his brig "Surprise" when he was a wanted man after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. Later the grateful king gave Tettersell money which he used to buy what is now the Old Ship Hotel on the seafront.
Amon Wilds, who, with his partner Charles Augustus Busby designed much of Regency Brighton, is thought to have been the architect for Regency Square.
Sake Dene Mohamed opened baths on the site of what is now the Queen's Hotel on the seafront much used by society figures in the Regency times and styled himself as "Shampooing surgeon to King George IV". He lived to be 102.
The graveyard is also the last resting place of Sir Francis Laforey who captained HMS Spartiate in the Battle of Trafalgar alongside Admiral Horatio Nelson on HMS Victory. After the battle he was awarded a gold medal, the thanks of Parliament, and a sword of honour from the Patriotic Fund. He carried the standard in the first barge in Lord Nelson's funeral from Greenwich. Laforey died in 1835.
The churchyard was the main burial ground when Brighton was a fishing village and later a small town, as Brighton expanded other cemeteries were opened. Towards the end of 2000 Brighton and Hove was created a city by royal proclamation.