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Queens Road Quadrant

A prosaic part of Brighton, just five houses with ground floor shops, which joined Gloucester Road and Queens Road. Much older than they may have looked, they were built before Queens Road was laid out; they appear in Leppards Directory of Brighton for 1845.

Recognise any of these shops? Remember a public house? Please leave a comment below.

At first this small block was called North Quadrant, but the name was changed in 1914, possibly to avoid confusion with North Street Quadrant by the Clock Tower. No. 1, in the 1982 photograph, was for many years a Public House, first called the Cork Cutters Arms, and latterly the Lord Clyde.

The public conveniences came much later, in 1926, on the site of a small shrubbery, laid out when Queens Road was widened in the 1870’s.

 

Queens Road Quadrant 1982
Image reproduced with kind permission of The Regency Society and The James Gray Collection
Photographed in 2014
©Tony Mould

Comments about this page

  • Gosh! What an improvement. A hundred fifty years from now we will still marvel at this red-bricked addition to Brighton’s magnificent modern architecture, and bless the Council for it’s aesthetic insight, and consideration of local opinion. Keep it up!

    By Stefan Bremner-Morris (01/03/2015)
  • Great post, Stefan!

    By Janet Beal (01/03/2015)
  • I remember the Lord Clyde very well.  My grandfather George Beech was the landlord in 1939 and I spent many happy hours as a child running my toy cars along the bar counter.  Later, playing darts there and serving the customers who were obliged to use the public toilet across the road as the pub had no facilities for them! George was a trainer for Brighton and Hove Albion in 1927 having previously played for the team and he went on to become the trainer to Brighton Tigers Ice Hockey Team.  He died in 1964.

    By Ron Beech (02/03/2015)
  • Is that the same George Beech who played ice hockey for Wembley Lions in the 1960s?

    By Graham Moore (03/03/2015)
  • No Graham that George wasn’t the same one.

    By Ron Beech (07/03/2015)
  • I remember it well. Used to walk past it (or rather skateboard past) every day on my way to work from Buckingham Road to Amex.  I think the middle shop was a general stores. Open all hours sort of place – always popping down there for a pint of milk, or biscuits.  

    By Marc Turner (08/03/2015)
  • Hi Ron, I’m currently researching the Footballers’ Battalion and George Beech is one of the people that has come up in my research. I was wondering if you had more information?

    By Paul Beard (14/10/2015)
  • Paul. Yes, my grandfather, George Beech (1892-1964), was in the 17th Service (Football) Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment. There was an article and photograph of the team in the Daily Mail 10/11/2011 compiled by Laura Williamson. However, the info stated there regarding his years at Sheffield Wednesday 1897-1904 relates to his father George Clement Beech.

    By Maureen (20/10/2015)
  • Hello Maureen, That’s fascinating! Would you be interested in telling me a bit more? A part of my work is conducting oral history interviews with past family members. Would this be something you are interested in? If so I can get my details to you and we can arrange something. Thank you for helping me out as well!

    Editor’s note: Hi Paul – if you want to share your email you have to put it in the body of your message otherwise it will not show. Sorry but we do not get involved in sending/sharing emails as we get too many requests for this – we are all volunteers and so time is limited. Hope you understand.

    By Paul Beard (22/12/2015)
  • Hi, my dad had a second hand shop there, it was called the swap shop, and he was known as Scouse, as he was from Liverpool. It was the second shop from the left, the white one. He died in 1980, and the picture is as we left it, with the shelf under the shop window still there. He used to sit in the doorway watching people go by. Great memories, as I used to help him on Saturdays. 

     

    By Tina Crawley (01/01/2016)
  • Paul, You can contact via e -mail as follows(appledown33@outlook.com) My husband would be very happy to chat to you re grandfather George !  

    By Maureen (05/01/2016)
  • In 1967 I used to rent the upstairs front room of the swop shop. Harry Barr had the store next door. Fun days.

    By Sandra (13/09/2016)
  • Growing up in Brighton in the 60s and 70s, it makes we weep to see so many interesting nooks and crannies of old Brighton systematically destroyed and replaced by hideous monoliths like the one (or worse!) in this picture. It all started for me when Churchill Square appeared in the 60s and it has rapidly gone down from there. I expect they’ll destroy the old Hippodrome next (wait for it to deteriorate or, a popular option for Brighton over the years, a bit of spontaneous combustion) and replace it with yet another characterless block of flats. Dear Old endlessly fascinating Brighton! So much of it is gone. 

    By Nick Burdett (08/05/2018)
  • We used to live in this row of houses. We were next door to the the fish and chip shop. Our dad had a shop called Kemp Models when we used to live here.

    By Maria Fitzpatrick (05/08/2018)

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