The newly released Brighton Monopoly board has revealed its DFL credentials by mixing up The Lanes and North Laine, to the horror of city pedants.
The two areas are often confused despite being etymologically separate, with Laine being Sussex dialect for field, not alley.
And whoever put together the new Monopoly board has fallen into the same trap, with the square labelled The Lanes illustrated by a picture of Gardner Street – which is firmly in North Laine.
The mistake was spotted by pub manager Iain Chambers and posted on Twitter with a suitably outraged comment:
Just spotted the Brighton Monopoly board game in Smiths. I demand that every one of them is pulped immediately. This cannot stand! pic.twitter.com/ABKvOTbJx9
— HelloMyNameIsIain (@sevenbeescafe) November 28, 2017
The new game is designed and manufactured by Winning Moves, which is based in London. A spokesman said the company would be looking into the mix up.
The Lanes is the area south of North Street, made up of a series of twittens, many of which have been there since medieval times and built up in the eighteenth century.
North Laine is north of North Street, and its name derives from one of the five laines, or fields, which made up the area surrounding the old town of Brighthelmstone. The other laines include Hilly Laine (now Hanover), Little Laine (now St James’s Street area), East Laine and West Laine. There was, and is, no South Laine.
The mix-up, commonly made by tourists and newcomers Down From London (DFL) is just as frequently bemoaned by Brightonians. It has so enraged one North Laine trader, Tim Price of Ju Ju, that he commissioned a sign to put in the shop window explaining what the area’s true name is.
Brighton (I used to live near) must be a marvellous place today if the residents have nothing more important to do than get excited about that.
It is, John.
As it goes Jack, we do. We have proper issues – 1 in 69 homeless, insane house rental prices, greedy landlords, pockets of some of the highest levels of poverty and way too many hipsters. And then we have this – another, albeit minor, example of London cashing in on Brighton and getting it wrong.
It is possible to get wound up by both. After all, it’s all linked.
Sounds like you have nothing better to do than criticise peoples values!
Light blue touchpaper and retire to a safe distance…
Maybe it’s a Monopoly board for New Brighton?
The thing that puzzles me about these sort of issues is how can people living in a town for years not know the difference. I grew up seemingly absorbing this knowledge from childhood and I lived in Patcham!
Ju-Ju have it “in the North Laine” accurately “in North Laine”
actually, North Laine is north of CHURCH STREET not north street … the bit between north st and church st was the gardens for the houses on north side of north street and the grave yards for the quakers ect … indeed, Bond Street Laine is exactly in the middle of the controversy …