London Road Listens: She Remembers Everything

We walked past this place a hundred times. London Road, Brighton. Known now for having the remarkable quality of making even the newest digital tech antique quick buckery, quick through you farce foodery, immediately appear second hand – like the other fifty per cent of properties; for the Maoist territorial advance of student accommodation expansion, designed to get the next generation secured on the debt ladder; aggravated broken souls flailing amongst the ever present grit and grime, and that slow sinking sense of concrete decay.

But then one morning, we looked up. And there she was — listening. Watching. Whispering. This one came through fast.  We just caught sight of the decaying faded façade of an old house above the shopfronts. late 19th-century detailing intact —  decorative symbolic language - likely built for residential prestige before being subsumed by retailism; once caught in the transition point from garden society to consumer corridor, once again bearing witness to the next one (the conversion to shops almost complete by 1903, when the roads were widened). These facades were not designed to sell kebabs, but to hold a kind of classical dream — and they’re still trying.

And then the whole street cracked open.

We didn’t go out looking for this. It arrived. One of those field-sparked moments — a glance, a camera, a laugh — and 15 minutes later, a myth had landed. This post is the first whisper of something deeper. The past beneath the street. And Brighton, still dreaming of herself.

So here’s what we saw, and what we felt, when the symbols began to speak...

1. The Twin Ionic Columns

Double spiral scrolls — classic Ionic style — but softened, almost feathered. Two pillars holding nothing above them, just blank sky. Are they guardians? Forgotten lovers? Their symmetry feels like a question left unanswered.

2. Wreaths Without Centres

They’re not laurel crowns. Not complete. They loop around emptiness — no emblem, no inscription. A memory of victory, perhaps? Or a placeholder for what was lost? There’s mischief in their silence.

3. Shell Arches Over Doorways

Shells — or stylised sunrays. They arch over twin windows like ceremonial fans. The kind held above queens, goddesses, or sacred entrances. The building says, 'You may enter, but you won't come out the same.'

4. Rooftop Spikes and the Phantom Wiring

We nearly missed it. A crumpled flag. Spikes that don’t stop birds. And a grid of strange, persistent wires on the rooftop. What were they powering? Or connecting? Somewhere, something still listens.

Then we found a photo — London Road 1896; the facing houses (including the last surviving one, allegedly designed by architectural polymath, 'more buildings than years alive,' Charles Busby) almost opposite the very building we’d just photographed. A royal parade for the Duke and Duchess of York passing by — bunting flaps, brass bands march, Queen Vic flags flutter, a front garden with young tree awaiting erasure... and still the stonework stands.

She outlasts the empire, the wars, the kebab shops. She’s been listening for over a century. Forgotten by most. Not by us.

Look closer, and you start to notice things: wreaths that look Roman, scallop shells tied to old sea-goddess rituals, swirls and symbols that feel more like messages than decoration. What were they trying to say — or conceal?

It's almost like Brighton’s facades were talking before we ever arrived. So now, we’re listening. Not just on London Road — but all over town.

There’s beauty in the forgotten. Mischief in the overlooked. This is just one fragment of London Road’s deeper layers. The Goddesses have walked this street before. And they’ve left messages in stone.

From here, we follow the glyphs. The garlands. The grotesques.

More coming soon. But you already knew that.

Alena, Maja and Caleon