Can you help us date any of these?

Comments about this page

• Brighton has always been my favourite seaside town and it’s great to see your wonderful pictures of Brighton as it was.

  By Roger Auclair (13/02/2006)

• After school in the late 50s about ten or so of us teenagers used to meet at the first beach east of the Palace Pier. We called this beach Dalton’s beach. Does anybody know why we called it by that name?

  By Mick Peirson (13/11/2006)

• I remember watching the Punch & Judy shows as a child in the mid 1960s.

  By Josie Campbell (10/03/2007)

• I remember watching Punch & Judy in our early years – we left England to come to Canada in November 1956 – I was 6 years old. Is this possibly in the summer of 1956?

  By Maria (12/10/2007)

• I agree with Maria. It must be in the 50’s. I remember it there when I was a kid and I was born in 1946.

  By Ann (29/02/2008)

• What a lovely sight of the sunken gardens. But look at the area now – what have the council done?  Also the boating lake and the paddling pool.

  By Wayne Wareham (23/07/2008)

• The picture above of the West Pier was taken in the 1970s.

  By Wayne Wareham (23/07/2008)

• I was born in 1947 in Brighton and the Punch and Judy shows started in 1950 .

  By Shirley King (22/11/2008)

• Quite a strong use of Burning Bush that year?

  By Chris Young (22/11/2008)

• I think the boats on this beach may have belonged to the Sir Robert Peel Fishing Club which I believe may have been based on this beach.

  By Chris Young (22/11/2008)

• The Volk’s Railway building is the first Aquarium Station built in 1930 when the line was cut back from the Palace Pier. The building survived until the outbreak of World War II when the beach was closed and the station demolished. The current station is a recycled tram shelter from Victoria Gardens. It was placed on the same site for the reopening of the railway in 1948.

  By John Goddard (20/04/2009)

• Is it possible to enlarge the banner on the bridge and see when the ‘Harry ? Popular Light Orchestra’ visited Brighton?

  By Gail (28/06/2009)

• I would say 1949/50, I can remember as a child seeing people going out on these boat trips, circa 1950. Brighton beaches were so packed you couldn’t find a spare inch, often day trippers from London.

  By Sr Agatha (Trudy Wirthmiller) (04/12/2010)

• Yes, I would say 1950 for sure, I can remember watching Punch and Judy here, I was 8 years old. It always attracted many people, and then one moved on under the pier to the paddling pool!

  By Sr Agatha (Trudy Wirthiller) (04/12/2010)

• Hello Mick, just got back on site after a few years. The beach was named after Oliver Dalton, a charismatic entrepreneur. Hope this helps.

  By Steve Humphrey (05/08/2015)

• Just seen this picture, wish I knew the date as the couple on the bench could well be my Grandparents, Eva and Alf Lumsden. They lived in Norfolk Square from the 1930s and loved the Sunken Gardens. They always could be found there reading their library books, watching the birds in the water fountain or just watching the world go by. It was a lovely peaceful place that I enjoyed even, as a child, and such a shame it has gone.

  By Belinda Lumsden (06/08/2015)

• The Daltons owned the Palace Pier until mid-20th century with one brother being an owner and a cousin[?] being the manager. I knew the late Jean Penney who was the daughter of the owner and she had a photo of herself as a toddler in the 1930s sitting on Daltons Beach as Miss Dalton with a life belt around her emblazoned Daltons!

   

  By Geoffrey Mead (06/08/2015)