A Pantheon for Horses: The Prince Regent's Dome and Stables at Brighton

Domed rotundas have fascinated and challenged architects and engineers for the last two millennia. Examples can be found throughout the world, most commonly in religious and commemorative buildings, but also in the palaces and bath complexes of ancient Rome and in more recent government and legislative buildings. In modern times technological advances have allowed new and increasingly ambitious kinds of rotunda to be built — markets and exchanges, greenhouses and conservatories, concert and exhibition halls, sports arenas. The roots of this latter development lie in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and one of the pioneering buildings still survives in the unexpected setting of the Royal Pavilion gardens at Brighton.

The Brighton Pavilion has always been mainly associated with two people: George, Prince of Wales (the Prince Regent), who commissioned it, and John Nash, the architect who gave it its present exotic appearance. But it is easy to forget that the most distinctive features of the Nash exterior — the Indian-style domes and minarets — took their stylistic character from a building that was completed before he became involved with the Pavilion. This was the royal stables, designed by William Porden for the Prince, built in 1804–08, and now an arts complex.