Chapter 5: Fashionable heyday

There is, however, a little information from local newspapers. Thus the Brighton Gazette records the arrival of a ‘Mr Symes’ at Exmouth House in 1841, while the same paper gives details of a burglary at the house later that year: two plated candlesticks and other unspecified items, the property of Charles Deudney, were stolen from the cellar. This was averred by Ann Apps, who ‘being sworn, stated that she was a widow, and had the custody of Exmouth House, which was used as a furnished lodging-house’. The man accused of the misdemeanor, Edward Bridger, claimed that he had found the candlesticks in a bag (which turned out to belong to Mrs Apps) among some low bushes on the West Hill; he had taken them back to his room in the hope that a reward might be forthcoming for the retrieval of lost goods, where they were found by his father. However, he was judged guilty both of this and of a further offense, namely of stealing eight pounds of lead from ‘the top of the Arcade’ at St Mary in the Castle’ - presumably the terrace of shops at Pelham Crescent. He was duly sentenced to nine months’ hard labour at Lewes House of Correction, the last week of each month in solitary confinement, with three additional months for the theft of the lead.