Category:Hanningtons Lane

2019: Entranceway to Hanningtons Lane shortly after opening - some construction work still underway. Part of the outline of Puget's Cottage is just visible in the background. [image info]

2019: Shop units being prepared for new tenants, with The Flint House in the background, April 2019 [image info]

Hannington's Lane is a new (2019) pedestrian-only extension to Brighton's "olde worlde" The Lanes shopping area. It has been lovingly created within the original access alleyways around the back of the old (Nineteenth Century) Hanningtons department store as a natural continuation of The Lanes.

To the slight surprise of the locals, Hannington's Lane has actually been done really really well, and anyone lurking in the area in April 2019 could hear a succession of people with eyebrows raised saying to each other "It's really good!" in a slightly startled tone of voice. The new shops have been created from the geography of the access passageways, and the main new landmark feature, The Flint House looks totally authentic: functional, not too "twee", not too imposing ... basically, as if someone had built it a couple of centuries ago, using flint facing simply because that's what was cheap and available at the time.

Overall look and feel:

It's very difficult to think of anything negative to say about Hannington's Lane: Although it's still early days (April 2019), its design and implementation seems to be near-as-dammit perfect. It even manages to make the neighbouring (less authentic) Brighton Place more justifiable and less objectionable, as B-P gives commercial loading and unloading van access to the Hanningtons shops – which in turn make B-P feel more surrounded by interesting shops, and less like an anachronistic "bolt-on" at one end of The Lanes.