Palmeira Square

One of the loveliest areas in Hove, Palmeira Square remains a sought after address with most of the houses converted into gorgeous apartments with high ceilings and ornate period features. In keeping with the area, every building is painted in the same distinctive shade and the majority of them have been beautifully maintained with regular rendering and fresh paint. The park in the middle of the square is just as well kept with sweeping trees, shrubs and flowers dotted around the middle and outside. There’s also half a dozen benches though most people seem to prefer lying or sitting on the grass.
Whilst it’s a 10 – 15 minute walk from Brighton, Palmeira Square is an ideal place to come for a picnic or quiet drink with friends if you’re after some peace and quiet. There’s bins to put your rubbish and I’ve never seen more than a dozen people at once. Unlike Chris H, I’ve also walked past Brunswick Square lots of times late at night and never encountered or witnessed any trouble. In fact, the most nightlife I’ve seen is sea-​gulls and pigeons tapping the grass looking for slugs!

Of all of the Brighton town parks, Palmeira Square, quite rightly, has one of the best and worst reputations in the area. While it is very pretty and well maintained, the nighttime atmosphere here is wholly unpleasant: avoid at all cost past about 9 in the evening!
During the day, Palmeira Square can be described as one of Brighton’s prettier landmarks (considering both piers are in a shocking state of disrepair). The beautiful sweeping curves of Victorian townhouses lead up to one of the city’s bus hubs, while an elegant and well maintained park runs in between, with various different types of trees, as well as a couple of plaqued benches, flower beds, that sort of thing. On a summer’s day, it is a very pretty site, and a pleasant area to stroll through.
Like so many of Brighton’s town squares, once the sun sets, this all becomes a completely different story. Palmeira Square in particular is a poor place to be past about 9 at night, at which point hordes of teenagers and young twenty-​somethings seem to descend, and there’s nowhere to stand or sit for drinking teens, often with other semi-​illegal activities thrown in… I really would recommend avoiding this part of town after 9, my experiences walking through here have never been anything but unpleasant. Still, on a sunny day, this is a completely different story!

Palmeira Square is one of the most beautiful squares in town, with a small green area surrounded by majestic regency-​style town houses (I have a feeling they are actually Victorian though). The park is generous as parks go in these kind of squares, and very pretty with flower beds, benches and trees. It’s a great spot to hang around on during the summer months, and offers spectacular views of the sea (think stormy seas, autumn sunsets…). I’d love to have a flat in one of those buildings one day…

Palmeira Square is a Brighton landmark– it is one of the stunning seafront squares of incredible Georgian (?) buildings. The buildings themselves are worth wandering around to look at– so grand and elegant. In the center of the buildings is a lovely sheltered park, surrounded by small trees so that you can still see the architecture. There are benches and flower beds. On a sunny warm day it is the perfect place to read a book, and pretty close to some Hove cafés and sandwich places for picnic.

Palmeira Square is the main square in Hove, and forms what many feel is the centre of the town, where the shopping and restaurant streets of Western Road and Church Road meet.
Laid out in 1855 on the site of the disastrous Anthaeum glass-​house (see review of Adelaide Crescent), Palmeira Square was originally part of an estate bought in 1830 by Baron Goldsmid, founder of University College, London. (He was also a Portuguese noble, with the title Baron de Palmeira — hence the name of the square).
Adjacent to the square was a Bronze Age burial mound, which was excavated and removed in 1856 to allow the construction of Palmeira Avenue; a polished stone axe found in the excavations is now in Brighton Museum & Art Gallery.
The square has some impressive Victorian buildings, but is best known for the gardens in the centre, which include a floral clock. The western end is dominated by the church of St John the Baptist, completed in 1854. Its neo-​gothic architecture looks strangely out of place against the cream stucco around it, but its spire (added in 1870) is a notable landmark.
The square contains a number of shops and restaurants, as well as being a local bus interchange, and is an attractive urban space.