Discovering Town House historical treasure in the archives

Getting Told Off at The Keep
by Jill Vigus, Regency Town House researcher (and artist)  

You may know that during the 1830s The Regency Town House was one of a number of houses let out to wealthy families who came to Brighton for the season.

Recently I have been trying to discover something about who actually owned the house. I started with Charles Lynn. He and his partner Thomas Cooper were responsible for building a number of houses in Brunswick Square, including number 13.
Lynn was born in East Grinstead in 1793 and died in 1828 when he was just 35 years old. I was interested to find out more about him and particularly who benefitted from his will.  

The Keep in Brighton holds several documents relating to him, although it is sometimes difficult from the website catalogue to know exactly what they contain. 

Fellow volunteer, Chris Nicolls and I booked a session at the Keep and ordered a number of documents. I asked Chris along as he has considerable expertise in reading and deciphering historical texts. 

Chris went to the counter to collect one of the ordered items and brought it back to our desk. It was a very slim folder. However, when we opened it up we were surprised and delighted to see that it was an original auction catalogue from 1830 listing details of number 13 Brunswick Square.

The dusty yellowing catalogue announced an auction to be held at the Royal York Hotel, Brighton on Wednesday 25th August 1830 by order of the Devisees in Trust under the will of the late Mr. Charles Lynn. There are even sums in pencil made by the auctioneer, perhaps calculating his commission. 

We were so excited we got told off by one of the Keep staff for making too much noise!! 

We were able to scan the document and later made wonderful copies as you can see if you visit the Keep too.