Patcham Place

Patcham Place
Patcham Place from the northeast
Location	London Road, Patcham, Brighton and Hove BN1 8YD, United Kingdom
Coordinates	50°51′54″N 0°09′12″W / 50.8649°N 0.1532°W / 50.8649; -0.1532Coordinates: 50°51′54″N 0°09′12″W / 50.8649°N 0.1532°W / 50.8649; -0.1532
Built	1558
Built for	William West, 1st Baron De La Warr
Rebuilt	1764
Restored by	John Payne
Architectural style(s)	Classical
Listed Building – Grade II*
Official name: Patcham Place
Designated	13 October 1952
Reference no.	482049
Location of Patcham Place within Brighton and Hove

Patcham Place is a mansion in the ancient village of Patcham, now part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Built in 1558 as part of the Patcham Place estate, it was owned for many years by Anthony Stapley, one of the signatories of King Charles I's death warrant. It was extended and almost completely rebuilt in 1764, with traces of the older buildings remaining behind the Classical façade with its expanses of black glazed mathematical tiles—a feature typical of Brighton buildings of the era. Contemporary uses have included a youth hostel, but the house is currently occupied by live-in security.English Heritage has listed it at Grade II* for its architectural and historical importance.

The parish of Patcham, covering 4,325 acres (1,750 ha) of chalk downland north of Brighton, has Saxon origins, and the remains of farmsteads and intermittent settlements can still be discerned. The territory includes several north–south valleys with intermittent streams (winterbournes). The River Wellesbourne, "Brighton's lost river", rises near the centre of the village and flows through the present city centre to the English Channel. It was culverted and built over in the late 18th century as Brighton began to develop as a fashionable resort.

At the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey—who owned large areas of land in present-day Sussex—held the manor of Patcham. The predecessor of the present All Saints Church existed, and there was a small village around it. These lay east of the old road to London. In the Middle Ages, another estate developed within the parish. A house, Patcham Place, was built in an isolated position west of the road in 1558 for its first owner, William West, 1st Baron De La Warr; but the estate soon passed to Richard Shelley, son of Sir John Shelley of Michelgrove and a member of the family which later became the first Shelley Baronetcy. Richard Shelley is believed to have lived in Patcham from 1546; he was an important figure in Brighton's early history, because in 1579 he and three other local noblemen were appointed by the Privy Council to form a commission to record and regulate the "ancient customs" of the villagers and to mediate between the fishermen and the farmers, who often had conflicting needs. The commissioners produced a book, The Book of All The Auncient [Ancient] Customs heretofore used amonge the fishermen of the Toune of Brighthelmston, whose orders were enshrined in law.