The playground of philandering princes, unruly thesps and generation after generation of artists, writers and poets, Brighton and Hove is not a city short of Blue Plaques. They are everywhere.
Under Arts and Culture you will find Doreen Valiente, “Mother of Modern Witchcraft”, and poet and author Sir Lawrence Olivier, founder of the National Theatre.
Science and Industry includes Magnus Volk, whose ‘oldest working public electric railway in the world’ still runs along the coast in Kemptown.
Under Civil, Political and Military is the Russian Prince Pyotr (Peter) Kropotkin, listed simply as “Anarchist”, and in the Sports category is the little-known Mercedes Gleitze, pioneer of long-distance swimming.
And on a stretch of wall between a dressmaker’s shop and an optician in North Laine, Brighton’s bohemian core and independent shopping center (Laine comes from the Old English word describing a meadow or field), stands another plaque honoring ‘Body Shop founder, environmentalist and animal rights activist,” Dame Anita Roddick.
“The Body Shop, along with Patagonia and Ben & Jerry’s, were pioneers in the field of ESG [environmental, social, and corporate governance]” says Justin Francis, president of Responsible Travel and Projects for Nature.
“The Body Shop and its founders Anita and Gordon Roddick were the inspiration for Responsible Travel and were also seed investors.”
The late Roddick’s first store, with refillable bottles of cruelty-free beauty products, opened here in 1976, at 22 Kensington Gardens. Whenever my mother came here for hemp hand cream, the tropical scents made me dizzy. It smelled like the world in one exotic room.
A network of residential and attractive shopping streets, North Laine is anchored by Brighton Station and the Royal Pavilion.
On a wet Tuesday, Kensington Gardens, a pedestrian street lined with local businesses including Resident Music, Bert’s Homestore, Kennys Rock and Soul Café (known locally as the ‘balcony café’) and the esoteric, Tardis-like vintage emporium Snoopers Paradise, became busy.
Passionate and principled, Roddick and students like Ian Loeffler and Peter Deadman from the University of Sussex, who started a macrobiotic café on campus and then expanded into a store called Infinity Foods that sold ‘real bread’, among other things, helped breathe new life into the Residential area.
“North Laine is where you came if you wanted to start a business,” says Snoopers owner Zena Thompson. “Because it was cheap.”
So cheap that North Laine was almost killed by an overpass the same year Roddick left. But it didn’t happen.
Today, a cottage with pastel bay windows, large enough to house two elves, could cost £500,000. Has Brighton’s golden goose extinguished the spirit of Britain’s most bohemian corner?
“There’s still a great community here,” says tailor Gresham Blake, in the beautiful shop he runs with his wife Fal. Blake started cutting fabric locally 25 years ago in a room he shared with a biodegradable chest and a ceramic toilet seat maker.
If you watch The Masked Singer, you’ll have seen Blake’s suits on presenter Joel Dommett and there’s an exclusive limited edition Peaky Blinders range coming out this year.
“It’s still diverse, young and inclusive and the people are passionate about what they do,” he adds. “You can’t just create that kind of energy.”
Not far away is the Gak music emporium (guitar, amplifier, keyboard), the Vegetarian Shoe Shop and the Dockerills hardware store, which has been around for 90 years. The store is run by the fifth generation of “Dockerill”, Jo. Service is faultless.
An endless warren of rooms, Gak started life as a market stall in 1992 and is now one of the largest independent instrumental music stores in Britain.
The Vegetarian Shoe Shop opened in 1991 and has a worldwide mail order business, but visitors still come from Kenya, Japan and Russia.
The satchels and popular Boulder Boots (£179) come in a range of colours, and the newer range of trainers include corn, Piñatex, extracted from the fibrous leaves of the pineapple, and apple leather.
Pubs like The Basketmakers Arms and The Great Eastern won’t disappoint North Laine Runner is still in print 48 years later. Although Gail’s, Costa and Starbucks have been infiltrated, North Laine is a cocoa bean (and bubble tea) paradise.
Dave’s Comics and the decades-old vintage clothing store Starfish – which grew out of a stall at a local car boot fair – are doing well on Sydney Street, and one of Pelicano’s dazzling cakes will help clear the residual incense from your throat.
You could walk into a cafe in North Laine in full Regency garb or with a parrot on your shoulder and no one would pass judgment (although now, with bird flu around, it’s not a good time to test that hypothesis ).
“You have to be different to survive here,” says Snooper’s Zena Thompson.
The biggest threat to this community and to its livelihoods is the rates and rental prices – mentioned by every business owner I spoke to, including local institution Dockerills. Roddick would struggle to thrive here today.
Outside 22 Kensington Gardens, home of Ditto Fabrics (“a treasure trove of fantastic fabrics”), passers-by did not notice the plaque.
When I pointed it out, only one customer, a Ditto customer for thirty years, knew of the origins of the Body Shop in Brighton, although most were aware of the recent problems.
“I follow Mary Portas and read her post on Instagram. It’s very sad,” said Lucy from Southampton.
Inside, I walked up a narrow staircase to a small room where owner and founder Gill Thornley sat at a large measuring table, drawing. Thornley purchased the lease from Anita Roddick and her husband.
The room is full of bolts, but it’s not hard to imagine Roddick here, refilling her signature green-labeled bottles.
“It wasn’t easy to be a woman in business back then,” she says. “My landlord was the ‘oh, not another artsy woman’ type. Anita understood that and gave me the time to figure it out.”
Thornley has been here for forty years – long enough to remember the greengrocers and the specialty cork and foam shops. “We offer good service and really know what we are doing,” she says.
When the Body Shop empire collapsed yesterday, the rain felt completely justified. There was nothing left to do but an eye-catching cake.