Conceived by speculative developer Joshua Hanson as Brighton underwent its rapid transformation into a fashionable resort, the three-sided "set piece"[1] of 69 houses and associated structures was built between 1818 and 1832.

[14] However, Belle Vue Field did not yet exist in 1793 and contemporaneous sources show that the encampment occupied a much wider area of land, extending as far as the boundary with the neighbouring parish of Hove.

The heroine Elizabeth Bennet's sister is invited to Brighton and elopes with, and later marries, army officer George Wickham.

[18] By this time, Brighton's profile was such that speculators were commissioning architects and builders to design and lay out sea-facing residential developments to attract wealthy long-term visitors or permanent residents.

He divided Belle Vue Field into 69 plots, leased them individually and put strict covenants in place, demanding that each house be built in a specific style in order to ensure architectural harmony.

In return, the leaseholders (mostly private builders) would have the right to buy, and would end up with houses much larger than average for the town, with excellent sea views and exclusive access to the large central garden.

[23] Although there is no documentary evidence confirming the architects, most sources attribute Regency Square's buildings to the father-and-son partnership of Amon and Amon Henry Wilds,[14][24][9][25] who moved to Brighton from nearby Lewes in 1815 and became two of Brighton's most important architects; they were extremely prolific, and were responsible for defining and developing the town's distinctive Regency style.

[31] St Margaret's Church, an Anglican chapel of ease designed in the Greek Revival/Neoclassical style in 1824 by Busby, was the local place of worship.

[33] Unusually, Hanson had set a 71-year time limit on the covenants rather than granting them in perpetuity, and on 25 December 1889 they were due to expire.

Brighton Corporation took ownership of the gardens, and householders signed new deeds confirming they wished for the covenants relating to their houses to be extended indefinitely.

Built by architecture firm Fitzroy Robinson & Partners in 1961–62, it replaced three of the original Regency Square houses (nos.

[55] Number 2, a former home of social reformer William King (whose two-year stay is commemorated by a blue plaque), is built of brick which has been painted over; the others are stuccoed.

The ground floors are rusticated and have arched doorways set into Classical-style porches with both Ionic and Doric columns—the latter in the form of antae.

[43] The first-floor windows sit between a curved cast-iron balcony and a verandah-style canopy supported on decorative brackets.

Although there are differences in height and detail between individual houses, they were designed at the same time and maintain "the longstanding tradition of the terraced townhouse" which had been developed "by Henry Holland [...] in his own speculative enterprises at Hans Town and Sloane Street, London".

Small cast-iron balconies run across the terrace at first-floor level (although number 5's has been lost), and some houses have canopy-style verandahs as well.

[44] Several houses have fanlights with coloured glass, and other non-standard details include decorative stucco panelling at number 5; paterae (circular motifs), triglyph-decorated friezes and other Classical-style ornamentation in some of the porch entablatures; original window-guards of iron; a blocked doorway flanked by pilasters at number 20; and many original sash windows.

[14][6][45] Numbers 30–33 have a two-window range, rather than the single window on each of the other houses, and have four pilasters running the full height of the façade and terminating at the parapet in circular antefixae.

[6] Numbers 51–56 were designed as a symmetrical composition: the two houses at the centre stand forward slightly and have a more prominent pediment.

[6] These seven houses are also a symmetrical composition: the three in the middle are set forward and have a tall parapet topped by a very shallow pediment.

[56] Contemporary with the shopfront was the round-headed entrance on the King's Road elevation, with an archway supported on fluted columns, a dentil-patterned cornice and ornamentation including scrollwork and a panel inscribed St Albans.

[42] The building has five storeys, three windows facing King's Road and the sea, and a five-window range to Regency Square.

[49] Numbers 38–46 Regency Square run alongside the northeast side, and are contemporary with the houses at the northwest corner.

The window above this has a round arch, a moulded archivolt, a keystone with acanthus decoration and thin pilasters topped with capitals in the form of leaves.

[59] The Regency Tavern's main façade faces north into the passageway leading to Russell Square, and has a six-window range.

The frontage is assumed to be mostly original, although it was built, in 1829, as a row of three individual houses, which merged into a single establishment in two phases in the late 19th and mid 20th centuries.

She was born Harriet Mellon in 1777, became an actress, married banker Thomas Coutts in 1815, and inherited his fortune when he died in 1822—thereby becoming England's richest woman.

[35] After being courted by many men, she met and married William Beauclerk, the 9th Duke of St Albans, and they became regular visitors to Brighton.

)[69][70] Two other famous characters paid an unintentional visit to Regency Square at the end of the 19th century: Oscar Wilde and his lover Lord Alfred Douglas crashed their horse and carriage into the railings of the gardens.

Local newspapers reported the story with interest, but Wilde dismissed it as "an accident of no importance"[71]—possibly a punning allusion to one of his best-known plays.