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Taken in 1963 - where is it?

Where is this?

Knowing how much you all love old photographs of Brighton and Hove so you can see if you can guess where they were taken, here is one for your delectation.

It was taken in 1963 – but where?

Editor’s note:

Well you are all just too clever for me – and of course you are right. I will have to look around for some trickier shots.

 

Mystery photo
Image reproduced with kind permission of The Regency Society and The James Gray Collection

Comments about this page

  • On the sea front, Kemp Town probably, just a guess but “on the corner of Camelford Street”

    By Peter Groves (16/03/2015)
  • The lamp standard says seafront I think this is up on Marine Parade but not sure where

    By Dennis Fielder (16/03/2015)
  • I think this photo was taken on Marine Parade, Brighton, looking towards the site of the demolished Aquarium Garage on the corner of Camelford Street, as Peter has already commented. You can still see the old “Garage Petrol” sign on the left.

    I believe the site is now occupied by the Van Alen building.

    By Alan Hobden (16/03/2015)
  • Just before WW2, the large houses on the corner of Marine Parade and Camelford Street (25, Marine Parade and 1-7, Camelford Street) were removed to make space for access to the Aquarium Garage, plans for which had been submitted in 1929. The corner site remained pretty much derelict for many years, being used as the premises of a Coach Company. A modern multi-storey building has since been built on the site.

    Regards, Andy

    By Andy Grant (17/03/2015)
  • It is Marine Parade corner of Camelford Street, before the  Aquarium Garage was built on the old garage site shown.The Aquarium Garage was demolished some years ago, and is now occupied by a modern block of apartments

    By Peter Dray (17/03/2015)
  • The ‘Garage – Petrol’ and ‘BP’ signs would appear to refer to the old Aquarium Garage which used to occupy the yard and buildings at the rear of this site and was also at one time the Brighton base for ‘Orange Coaches’. If you wanted to buy petrol you had to follow a one-way system into the yard and get your petrol on the way out. There is a photo elsewhere on the site which shows it from the Aquarium direction. The cars shown are; Singer Gazelle drophead, Mercedes 180,  Bedford CA van, and Morris 1000. Camelford Street is the next road east of Aquarium Garage. The site is now a block of modernistic apartments, the lamp post is the only thing which remains the same today.

    By Tim Sargeant (17/03/2015)
  • Definately on Marine Parade. My father was manager of Harley House Hotel on Marine Parade and the garage was just up from there where he kept his prized MG Magnette ZB.

    By Rod Tempest (17/03/2015)
  • Although the signage refers to the Aquarium Garage the actual entrance to these premises was at the far end, (left hand or western end) of the white painted block of houses behind the lamp post. High up on the wall there was a large clock and at one time the premises were known locally as the Clock Garage.The ground floor of the far end house was the garage office and booking office for Orange Coaches. To the best of my knowledge and memory Aquarium Garage never occupied the derelict site shown. I remember finding myself in Brighton during the 1970s petrol shortage and was able to get a couple of gallons at Aquarium Garage late at night when all the other garages were closed.

    By Tim Sargeant (18/03/2015)
  • I worked at the Aquarium Garage when it was run by Hannington in the 1970s. We were open all night. A lot of taxi drivers would drop in for a tea break so did the police. It was good fun working the night shift. 

    By Arthur Westgate (19/03/2015)
  • I remember my mum filling up in that garage in the 90s. The building (flat front 3 storey with chimney breast showing) to the right looks to be behind a newer building today. I must walk up that way again to check.

    By Thomas Taylor (24/03/2015)
  • Rod Tempest: My parents - and actually my grandparents, aunts and uncles - used to go to the Harley House Hotel in Marine Parade every year. I was born in 1954 and was definitely there in 1963. I remember there was a one-arm bandit that used to take sixpences and I was always warned by my dad not to go on there. Loved that Hotel! I remember one of the waitresses who was quite old used to get all the orders wrong, her name might have been Mable or Ethel or something. When I was 17 I went there for old times sake; it was called something else by then but still the memories came flooding back.  Christine Delaney

    By Christine Delaney (21/09/2015)
  • Hello, could you show a picture of the BP garage that was on this site before the Van Allen flats were built, thank you. 

    By Philip Nott (16/08/2017)
  • Does anyone have information about a window cleaner falling from a top window at Harley House Hotel, Marine Parade around 1958? He landed in the basement yard below narrowly missing the railings. It was in the newspaper at the time but we can’t find it anywhere. It was my father-in-law, Jeff Stewart. He survived against the odds.

    By Margaret Stewart (30/08/2020)

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