Brighton was never a "steps to the sea" for anywhere but London, and
its beginnings as a small but independent fishing settlement are very
remote; according to some seventeenth century writers it once boasted
walls and upwards of two thousand inhabitants, but through the
depredations of the sea, it had dwindled to a mere hamlet, and cut off
by the Downs and away from all the usual channels of communication, the
self-sufficiency of the place must have received a rude shock when the
first visitors arrived, but natives of the coast are notoriously
adaptable and know a "sure thing." The following account written in
1766 shows how quickly the town was preparing for its great future.

"Brighthelmstone, in the County of Sussex, is distant from London 57
miles, is a small, ill-built town, situate on the sea coast, at present
greatly resorted to in the summer time by persons labouring under
various disorders for the benefit of bathing and drinking sea water,
and by the gay and polite on account of the company which frequent it
at that season. Until within a few years it was no better than a mere
fishing town, inhabited by fishermen and sailors, but through the
recommendation of Dr. Russel, and by the means of his writing in favour
of sea water, it is become one of the principal places in the kingdom
for the resort of the idle and dissipated, as well as the diseased and
infirm."

"It contains six principal streets, five (East Street, Black Lion
Street, Ship Street, Middle Street, West Street) lie parallel with each
other, and are terminated by the sea. The sixth, North Street, running
along the ends of the other five, from the assembly house almost to the
church. The church, which is a very ancient structure, is situate at a
small distance from the town, upon an eminence, from which there is an
exceedingly fine view of the sea, and in the churchyard is a monument