Photos and articles about Brighton and Hove in the time of coronavirus. See our collection and add your own!

Then and now photos

19th century view
This photograph shows the fishermen who once worked on Brighton beach.  Before the arches were built, there was only a rough track between Little East Street and West Street. Traffic had to turn inland in order to proceed along the coast.

20th century view
This view shows the area which was then occupied by the fish market.

21st century view
These arches under Kings Road on Brighton seafront have a long history.  There is now a very lively music scene down there now!

19th century view
Image reproduced with permission from Brighton History Centre
20th century view
From the private collection of Bert Clayton
21st century view
Photograph by Tricia Leonard

Comments about this page

  • I remember the area called ‘The Hard’ where, in the late 60s, I would buy herrings for one shilling each from the fishermen straight from the sea and then walk along Hove seafront to Mum’s at Albermarle Terrace where we would grill them for lunch. Scrumptious!

    By Sandie Waller (23/05/2007)
  • Before WW2 I went with my sisters to a fairground that was held underneath the road here, it was very noisy, dark and crowded, I remember the bumper cars. My sister got lost in the crowd we all ended up going home, while some body stayed behind to look for her, she spoilt the day for us.

    By Nina (13/01/2008)
  • I remember in the late 50s walking along here in the summer evenings when the beatniks were all enjoying the skiffle bands. I was about 8 or 9 years old and it was very exciting to me.

    By Lyn Allwright (02/04/2008)
  • I lived in Hammersmith in the 1950s we often went to Brighton on the train. It was so exciting, I remember the blue paddling pool on the sea-front. Brighton is a very different place now but it still has a buzz of excitement.

    By Mary Stretton (17/05/2008)
  • This brings back memories of days on Brighton beach helping Rod Stewart get back to London and inviting him to come visit Eel Pie Island. I spent a lot of time in Brighton and on the old barge at Shoreham.

    By Dolores (17/06/2008)
  • What a wonderful site!  I was born and raised in Brighton, lived in Frederick Street just down from the railway station. What a wonderful place to grow up in, with the ocean and the Downs, the race course, Preston Park and Wild Park – a place to watch the men play cricket. My family moved to Liverpool when I was twelve and how we missed Brighton. I went back 12years ago and for me going through the Lanes and eating fish and chips under the arches brought back so many wonderful memories. I now live in Kelowna B.C. Canada. I have told my children of my childhood in Brighton and they have made a point of visiting there when on trips to England and I was lucky enough to show two of my grandchildren my special place. Cheers.

    By Marlene Hodgson (nee Cadman) (03/09/2008)
  • The centre picture of the three; showing Leaches and Holgates arches; was taken soon after the lower prom was open after WW2. My father and grandfather started the cafe during the 1920s and continued until Brighton Corporation started their systematic programme of vandalising this once lovely town, which continues to this day! Note the piers, lanes, West Street, fish market hard etc. wherever old Brightonians are they must weep to see the state of this once lovely town!

    By Ted Holgate (28/10/2008)
  • I remember the Brighton of the 1950s and 60s as a kid playing down on the seafront area roughly where this photograph was taken. I stayed in Montpelier Road so it wasn’t far away maybe a mile. Does anybody remember the Guinness Clock, it was an amazing mechanical musical device that sat in front of the arches and did a show every 15 minutes I think. They also had a large model railway exhibition inside one of the arches and a little engine called Sammy the Shunter, it looked like Thomas the Tank engine. I remember the Easter Weekend when the Mods and Rockers came down in numbers and had a skirmish under the Palace Pier. I also remember my old school, St Paul’s in West Street in the 1960s just before they built the Churchill Shopping centre on top of it. We would hang about after school and watch the workmen driving steel piles into the ground with a big steam hammer. No wonder I’m hard of hearing now. Moved up to Scotland in 1966 but still try and visit the old place whenever I can.

    By Leon Farmer (23/11/2008)
  • If anyone wants to see some old pictures of Brighton, they should go to the Riva Bingo hall in Moulescoomb Way.

    By John Eaton (03/03/2009)
  • I was born in Brighton in 1968, and I remember my mum telling me (though I can’t recall the event) that she used to take me to the arches when I was a child and buy fish straight off the boat; apparently one of the fishermen had a very friendly and excitable Jack Russell that used to lick my face! Brighton is the most wonderful town in the world; I miss it so much and think about it often…

    By Kevin Latch (08/05/2009)
  • Brighton has always been special. What happened to the model railway under the arches? I miss all those wonderful cafes that were around in the ’60s.

    By Pete Groves (21/06/2009)
  • To Pamela, The Leaches were Mark and his father John, John passed away in 1995 but Mark still lives in Brighton. I am his sister Anne, I live in South Africa. I was so homesick when I found this site, it is really fabulous.

    By Anne Gee (nee Leach) (06/03/2010)
  • Hi Anne, just looked at the site and saw your message - thanks for info. The boys, as Mr Holgate called them, asked me to try the jellied eels but I could not look at them laying in jelly; I was always given a plate of cockles though. They were really lovely people to work for and to be with, I was only 15 and as you read I broke the dishwasher, so they never let me live that down. We went to Brighton to see family on 20th March, we go down a lot but this time we walked the prom, had a cuppa and went for a walk on the pier. I live not too far away but still feel I need to go back. I just walk the little streets I once called home. You do live a long way, I will keep in touch on this page if you want. What area did you come from? And you are right, this site is fab!

    By Pamela (24/03/2010)
  • Hey Pamela, great to get a reply. I lived in the Preston Park area and went to school at Lourdes Convent. Have been on to that page in the hope that I might find some old friends; we are hoping to make a trip back next year. You can mail me at anne.gee@starboundent.com it would be good to keep up with local news, old and new.

    By Anne Gee (nee Leach) (27/03/2010)
  • Hello Ted Holgate. Was wondering if you know of the Holgates who had some antique shops in The Lanes?

    By Sharon Saunders (10/07/2010)
  • Hi, Pete Groves. Do you have a sister Violet Groves and did you live in Elmore Road and before that Islingward Road? I went to Elm Grove Primary 1962-1965 and Violet was one of my friends, I think she then went to Queens Park Secondary after that. If so I would be fascinated to hear from her or anyone that looks into this site with any old stories of Brighton and those streets around that time. I lived in Jersey Street – I now live in Wales, but like hearing about the good old days.

    By Christiine Ellett (26/07/2010)
  • Hi Ann, are you still on the same email address as you were on in march 2010? I hope you are well, Iwill write soon.

    By Pamela (29/12/2010)
  • I remember the Arches. I used to work in the Fishermens’ Social Club which was in one of them and next to it in another arch when they came in from sea they would mend their nets. The old fishing families were the Leaches, Gilliams, Markwicks and the and others. We used to hear lots of tales about the sea and fish.

    By Kathleen Catt (nee Cornford) (06/04/2011)
  • When I visited my late father in the 80s we spent a fair bit of time in the Fishermens’ Social Club. Ted Gilliam always made a point of being there as well. Whatever happened to the lifeboat models?

    By Rick Smallman (08/04/2011)
  • As was mentioned above… In the late 50s a few of us used to stand above the arches near the Palace Pier and watch skiffle groups playing down below. They all had a tea chest bass and a guitar or two but the speciality was the washboard though I can not remember what they used to drag along it. Exciting times in a era when there were no electronic gadgets to amuse us and there was REALLY nothing on the telly!

    By Chris Kisko (05/12/2013)
  • Any minute now and someone is going to start singing Lonnie Donnigan and his Skiffle Group songs. Yes I am an old Brighton and Hove boy, my last memories of Brighton before we left for the sunny life in Australia in 64 was of the light hearted games the Mods and the Rockers played on the sea front. I have only had the pleasure of going back to the UK once and that was in 2011 as part of an International Air Cadet Exchange program (IACE) but was posted to Lincoln (Bomber) country and didn’t get the opportunity to go down south, but never mind I will prevail and take my Ausie wife with me. Anyone remember the wrestlers Mick McManus and Jacky Palo, saw them perform at a venue in Brighton, here come those memories again.

    By James Roncoli (18/02/2014)
  • Does anyone have any links to information of an Alf Gunn who was a fishmonger in 1939? Please get in touch.

     

    By Lauren staton (16/05/2014)
  • Dear Anne Gee,

    I really hope this message finds you well and that you might be able to shed some light on this strange mystery I’m going to tell you about?

    I am actually an illustrator and artist that grew up in Brighton and currently live here now. I studied in Bristol and worked in London. After some time abroad I was offered a design job back in Brighton which is actually my favourite place in the world.

    Apart from artwork and illustration I find myself doing research about the world and how things were in the past. It is amazing to see these things and I am definitely obsessed with the beauty of days gone by. So aside from that introduction I need your help to work out a really weird anomaly that I have come across.

    I always remembered ‘Islingword Road’ in Brighton as ‘Islingward Road’ and I still do to this day. This has been bothering me for some time but I ignored it as a memory issue or something, but I’m just 39 years old and I remember what I remember as the truth.

    I started trying to find evidence of this this anomaly over the last couple of days because someone else noticed this as strange and unusual.
    This is where you enter the picture, as I was looking for records that support my memory of the past I found about 12 examples in new papers, blogs and chats etc…. where everyone referred to Islingword Road as Islingward Road and one of your conversations about brighton was one of them. I find this weird and abnormal, but I have attached all the research I found as J-pegs in this email. Please note that I’m only reaching out to you because there’s no one else I can talk to about this subject. My friend thinks that he just said the wrong word.

    The mystery goes even deeper than this. please keep up with me here if you can. There’s a whole subject called ‘The Mandella Effect’ in which at some point in the last 10 years we have traversed into two possible different timelines. The Mayans predicted this scenario hundreds of years ago which is why there was all that panic about 2012.
    It wasn’t that the world will end but that time and timelines will and I believe have changed. This why some people remember ‘Islingward Road’ and others think it’s ‘Islingword Road’.
    There are many examples of this kind of anomaly you find on line for your self, I haven’t just made this up. But when I was doing my research and found an old conversation amongst you and your friends/ chat group I had to ask these questions because it’s Islingward Road not Islingword Road and I think you feel the same about this.

    Please do me the honour of looking at my Brighton based images as evidence and let me know what you think about this because something isn’t right here and it’s not been right for quite some time. I hope to hear from you soon,

    All the best from Voi.

    (The flies were to big so I will follow up with another email….)

    By Vee (28/08/2023)
  • Dear Vee,

    I thought I would reply to your enquiry although it wasn’t actually addressed to me – it’s just that I happen to know the answer and hoped it would be helpful for you. It’s definitely Islingword Road. Just to be absolutely sure I looked at a very old and tattered street map of the Brighton and Hove area that I still have and it’s there in black and white. There is (or was) also an Islingword Place and Islingword Street. I think perhaps if you were to ask someone to spell out the word Islingword they would be more inclined to spell it as Islingward as ‘ward’ at the end would seem a bit more normal than ‘word’ . Hope this is helpful for you and that you won’t mind me having ‘jumped in’ with a reply.

    Kind regards,

    Carolyn Jones

    By Carolyn Jones (28/08/2023)
  • Yes, it’s definitely Islingword. The name comes from the ancient field system the streets were built on: the Islingword Furlong.
    The Islingword Furlong is marked on maps of Brighton’s field systems in 1815 and 1792. (Both maps are at The Keep.)
    Perhaps the confusion over the spelling is due to an assumption that it’s pronounced as it’s written. In spite of being spelt with an ‘r’, the local pronunciation is ‘Islingwood’.

    By Gill Wales (29/08/2023)
  • Hi there, Carolyn Jones,
    it’s really interesting to hear from you and from anyone for that matter on this page. Since I was replying to another member with photographic evidence to support my wild sounding claim. Since that was not possible at the time I promise I will reply to you as soon as I can. I cannot wait to talk more with you about this subject, as soon as I’ve finished my current project. In the mean time, I do find it amusing how ‘sure’ you both are about something so disconnected from you…… Anyway I have old documents, newspapers and other printed documentation from a long time ago. It will be interesting to compare notes soon….

    By Vee (31/08/2023)

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