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The building at 20–22 Marlborough Place in the seaside resort of Brighton, part of the city of Brighton and Hove, is a 1930s office building originally erected for the Citizens' Permanent Building Society. The "elegant" Neo-Georgian premises are now occupied by a branch of the Allied Irish Bank, which opened in the 1980s. Designed by John Leopold Denman, "master of this sort of mid-century Neo-Georgian", the three-storey offices contrast strikingly with their contemporary neighbour, the elaborate King and Queen pub. The building features a series of carved reliefs by Joseph Cribb depicting workers in the building trade—including one showing Denman himself. It is a Grade II Listed building. ==History== Brighton developed into a fashionable resort in the 18th and 19th centuries, with Old Steine as one of its focal points. This was at the southern end of a large area of poorly drained, low-lying open space which later became known as Valley Gardens. The first residential development outside the four-street boundary of the ancient village was in 1771–72, when North Row was built on the west side of the open land.〔 It was renamed Marlborough Place in 1819. One old building was incorporated into the street: a farmhouse which was refronted in the Georgian style and became the King and Queen pub.〔 The pub and most of the buildings north of it, as far as the junction with Church Street, were redeveloped in the 1930s.〔 One of the plots of land was selected by the Citizen's Permanent Building Society as a site for their headquarters and branch. In 1933, the company commissioned John Leopold Denman to design the building. A local architect, he went into practice in 1909 and designed several buildings in the local area from the 1920s onwards. Considered "a master of the mid-century Neo-Georgian style", he could also handle other styles capably;〔 but he chose Neo-Georgian for his work at Marlborough Place: it offered a "strict contrast" to the gaudy and eclectic King and Queen, rebuilt the previous year by another firm of Brighton architects, Clayton & Black.〔 The building was ready later that year, and it was occupied by the building society until the postwar period. By the 1980s, it had been taken over by Allied Irish Bank.〔〔 It remains in use as their Brighton branch as of . The offices were designated a Grade II Listed building on 26 August 1999. The building is within the Valley Gardens Conservation Area, one of 34 conservation areas in Brighton and Hove. Brighton & Hove Council described it as a "fine individual building" within a mixed series of structures of various ages which do not form a unified composition, and noted that it fits in well with the older (18th- and 19th-century) buildings in the area because of its "sympathetic scale, massing and proportions". The council considers that should the building ever become vacant, there would be a "strong presumption against () demolition" because of its importance in the context of the conservation area.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「20–22 Marlborough Place, Brighton」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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