Lumen Studio is situated on the corner of Islingword Road and Islingword Street in the heart of Brighton's historic Hanover area. Islingword Street was developed between 1870 and 1874 and took its name from the Islingword Furlong, the system of fields upon which it is situated. The Lumen building was built in 1880 and originally encompassed the existing 103 and its first floor flat and what is now 103b, which was demolished in 2002 when a new 3 bed property was built next door.
 
The Lumen building has always been a hive of productivity. Back in the 1890's and into the next century, Lumen was a bakery - with the shop on the Islingword Road end and the ovens on the back in Islingword Street. Original proprietor Amos Ashdown (pictured right) is listed as owner of the property in the 1890's, and local reports tell us that Lumen was still a bakery into the 1950's. To date no photos have surfaced but we did meet a delegation from the Ashdown family in 2008 all of whom were eager to see the premises as they are today. They very kindly provided us with some family photos and marvelled at the fact that we had gone from bakehouse to recording studio in the intervening 50 years. If you look on the gallery page (here) you can see a picture of 103 Islingword Road before it became Lumen, with the existing 103b building next door in its post bakery guise as a builders store.