Roof-top synagogue
Encyclopedia
Philip Salomons
Philip Salomons was born in London and was a City of London financier, as were his father and his brother, Sir David Salomons.Solomons travelled extensively in the United States as a young man, and became a naturalized citizen in 1826...
on the Regency-era
Regency architecture
The Regency style of architecture refers primarily to buildings built in Britain during the period in the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent, and also to later buildings following the same style...
Brunswick estate
Brunswick (Hove)
Brunswick Town is an area in Hove, in the city of Brighton and Hove, England. It is best known for the Regency architecture of the Brunswick estate.-History:...
in Hove
Hove
Hove is a town on the south coast of England, immediately to the west of its larger neighbour Brighton, with which it forms the unitary authority Brighton and Hove. It forms a single conurbation together with Brighton and some smaller towns and villages running along the coast...
, now a constituent part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. It is a small octagonal edifice on the top of a glass room forming part of the fourth floor (in British terminology, not counting basement or ground floors), in reference to the Dome of the Rock
Dome of the Rock
The Dome of the Rock is a shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. The structure has been refurbished many times since its initial completion in 691 CE at the order of Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik...
in Jerusalem.
History
Brunswick Terrace, built in four parts facing the English ChannelEnglish Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
coast on Hove seafront, was part of the Brunswick estate development laid out at the extreme east end of Hove following the rapid growth of neighbouring Brighton in the early 19th century, and particularly in response to Kemp Town
Kemp Town
Kemp Town is a 19th Century residential estate in the east of Brighton in East Sussex, England, UK. Kemp Town was conceived and financed by Thomas Read Kemp. It has given its name to the larger Kemptown region of Brighton....
. Although within the parish of Hove, it was closer to the boundary of Brighton and was considered part of the latter. The estate was laid out by Amon Henry Wilds
Amon Henry Wilds
Amon Henry Wilds was an English architect. He was part of a team of three architects and builders who—working together or independently at different times—were almost solely responsible for a surge in residential construction and development in early 19th-century Brighton, which until then had...
and Charles Busby
Charles Busby
Charles Augustin Busby was an English architect.He created many buildings in and around Brighton such as Brunswick Square and St Margarets Church. His style usually included Romanesque style pillars to his buildings....
between 1824 and 1828. The terrace, described as an "elegant Regency block", has Grade I listed status.
The Salomons family moved into 26 Brunswick Terrace in the early 1850s. The interior was badly damaged by fire on 4 September 1852, but was restored. At some point between then and his death in 1867, he commissioned an unknown architect to design and built a private synagogue and prayer-room on the roof of the house. In common with the eastern half of Brunswick Terrace, only this, the central house, has a fourth floor above the portico. It was the subject of an acrimonious debate between Salomons and the members of the Middle Street Synagogue, Brighton
Middle Street Synagogue, Brighton
The Middle Street Synagogue is a synagogue in the centre of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. It was the centre for Jewish worship in Brighton and Hove for more than a century, and has been called Brighton's second most important historic building...
, since private synagogues violated the Laws of the Congregation.
In Salomons' lifetime, the synagogue displayed his fine collection of antique Judaica. For a period after his death, it was turned into a Jewish history museum. The Tablets of the Ten Commandments from the synagogue are preserved in the collection of the Salomons Museum
Salomons Museum
The Salomons Museum is a museum north of Tunbridge Wells, in southeast England. It preserves the country house of Sir David Salomons, the first Jewish Lord Mayor of London, and of his nephew, Sir David Lionel Salomons, a scientist and engineer...
in Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in west Kent, England, about south-east of central London by road, by rail. The town is close to the border of the county of East Sussex...
.
The synagogue is now a Grade II listed building. The house is still in use as a private residence – the whole top floor forming one of the building's six flats (including basement). The cupola and base can be seen from the lawns on the promenade.
Architecture
The synagogue is a pedimented, NeoclassicalNeoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
cube with glass from waist height, surmounted by an octagonal dome set atop an octagonal drum. Today it contains bench seating for approximately six people, around the edges. The large dome was intended as a replica of the Dome of the Rock
Dome of the Rock
The Dome of the Rock is a shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. The structure has been refurbished many times since its initial completion in 691 CE at the order of Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik...
in Jerusalem. The roof-top synagogue is one of a considerable number of synagogues and synagogue domes built in the form of an octagon, a tradition that developed from the once widely-held opinion that the architects of the Dome of the Rock emulated the shape of the Temple in Jerusalem
Temple in Jerusalem
The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...
and, therefore, that the ancient Jewish Temple was octagonal in shape. An example of this opinion can be seen in Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
's The Marriage of the Virgin
The Marriage of the Virgin (Raphael)
The Marriage of the Virgin, also known as Lo Sposalizio, is an oil painting by Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael. Completed in 1504 for a Franciscan church in Città di Castello, the painting depicts a marriage ceremony between Mary and Joseph...
.
External links
- Brighton's First Jewish Congregations (to 1874) on Jewish Communities and Records - UK (hosted by jewishgen.org).