Fellow Brightonians and Hovis (if the Hove motto is Floreat Hova, then the genitive (of Hove) must be Hovis!)
I am making a scale model of Brighton Station. At the moment I am making a model of the building at 12 New England Road and would be interested to know more about it as it was c.1960.
I have a vague memory that it was a Fyffes banana store but I don’t know for certain. In any case, there was a name board fascia above the main doors to the right in this picture when this face overlooked the engine shed turntable.
Any help gratefully received!
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It’s for someone else to say what this building was used for, but my husband is sure that the Fyffes store was in New England Street (perhaps where the Clarendon Centre is now). Of course, it’s possible there were two…
This link may be of some help:-
http://www.brightonlocoworks.co.uk/pay-office-and-footbridge-photos.php
This was the building occupied by Probyns who were beer bottlers – usually Guinness. Fyffes were in New England St
The Fyffes’ banana warehouse was in New England Street opposite New England House, some of the Fyffes’ buildings were later used by furniture retailers Martha’s Barn. As a lad I used to watch the bananas being loaded on hooked conveyers and carried to the top of the building. The buildings in the photo were part of the steam locomotive prep and maintenance area for running locos during the age of steam. There used to be a loco turntable just inside the gates in the 1960s.
As far as I remember Fyffes did have a depot in New England street that was fed by a rail siding directly into the depot. I am sure as a kid I remember seeing from the street the railway freight trucks with the bananas being unloaded, and maybe there was a loading dock as well in New England street.
If I remember correctly, this was the BMW/Isetta works in the late ’50s-early ’60s.
In the 1960s I worked at New England House. Our office looked down on to the street and Fyffes. Suddenly there was all this shouting and banging, I thought there was brawl in the street but in fact it was the banana staff in battle with the very large spiders that was in the recent delivery! Many years later I worked with a guy called Graham, his father had worked at Fyffes. His name was Jack and was nicknamed Banana Jack.
Thanks for the feedback, it makes sense now that it was Probyns. The only fragment of the fascia board I have on a photo overlooking the old turntable has ’—YNS Ltd’ on it! Apparently A Probyn and Co merged with M B Foster and Co in 1958 to form Foster-Probyn beers, and the New England Road building was a branch of the London based brewery. There are a number of Foster-Probyn beer labels for sale on ebay!
I worked for Probyn and Hedges beer bottlers in Rock Place in 1967.
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