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The area before redevelopment

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Edward Street area before redevelopment
Reproduced with permission from the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder, 1990

Comments about this page

  • Your map shows Lavender St. and Mount St. without a break in them, but I lived in 28 Lavender St, and I can remember a twitten linking the streets together.

    By harry atkins (20/03/2007)
  • Does any body remember the Brewery that was in Lavender Street called Hedges and Hedges? Also there was a barbers shop near the bottom owned by a Canadian called Eddie? Provost who had a son at our school.

    Mick Peirson

    By Mick Peirson (23/03/2007)
  • Grateful thanks from a descendent of folk from this area. I have been having so much trouble locating the streets. I have ancestors who lived in Mount St, Paradise St, Hereford St, Essex St, Bedford Buildings and Crescent Cottages. My great-grandfather’s house (14 Bedford Buildings) was bombed during WWII.

    By Sue Law (18/02/2009)
  • Harry was correct about the twitten. I walk through there many times from Hereford Street to St Mary’s School in Mount Street. I think there were some garages on the corner of the twitten in Lavender Street. Sue, out of interest what were your ancestors’ names in that area?

    By Dennis Parrett (09/03/2009)
  • I worked at Probin and Hedges bottling plant in the ’60s – top of St James and Lavender Street. Beer was delivered in tankers; we filled the bottles and then it was taken to pubs. The twitten was called Laurel Row

    By Terry Eggy Boyle (28/11/2012)
  • In the early ’60s, I lived in St George’s Terrace; my route to St Mary’s School was along Warwick Street, up Lavender Street, then along a small twitten to Mount Street. In the early ’60s there used to be a piece of waste ground behind the brewery near the twitten, it was used by Harmon plant hire. I remember often climbing over the fence and playing on the earth moving equipment which was stored there. Also there was a big malt house building at the top of Mount/Lavender Street which must have belonged to the brewery.

    By Michael Brittain (30/11/2012)
  • Where was the mantle factory on this map?

    By den king (30/11/2012)
  • The map shows the ‘Star in the East’ pub at the NE corner of Eastern Road and Freshfield Road. Does anyone know when the pub was demolished? Is there a photo in existence? The ‘Cheeky Chappie’ Max Miller attended a charity event there in 1959 when he pushed over a pile of pennies. The licensee at that time was Mr Ward.

    By Jack Strutt (07/05/2013)
  • Edwin Place had a rusty old factory in it where my brothers, Pete and Steve and I used to play. The pub on the corner was the Eastern and the landlord’s name was George. On a Sunday there was a pianist called Dorothy and I used to stand with my father, Sammy, and listen. Dad was a saxophonist but through the day traded in leather and shoes via a company in Frederick St (near the station). When the houses in Eastern Rd had purchase orders put on them we moved to Craven Vale and the demolition started but I have some great memories from living in Eastern Rd.

    By Phil Lambert (09/05/2013)
  • I remember going to St Mary’s voluntary primary school in the 60’s. My teacher was called Mr Gardiner and the head was Mr Owen! There was a lovely caretaker too but I can’t remeber his name. Very happy days – we used to walk down to St Mary’s church I think on Thursday mornings for a school service and over to Queen’s Park swimmimg baths for our weekly swim!

    By Beverley Munton (07/08/2013)
  • Phil Lambert,

    Did you used to live in Craven Road next to the Edwards in 1926?

    By Steve Field (20/11/2013)
  • Steve

    You’re right about Craven Road but way out with the date. We lived there from 1968 and I remember you well. My brothers were Pete and Steve.

    By Phil Lambert (23/11/2013)
  • Hi there, loving this website. Stumbled across it while I was looking for a picture of my old home. My father owned ” The Reeve Inn” on the corner of Park St and Eastern Rd before it was demolished. I also attended Queen’s Park and St Mary’s. I remember Phil Lambert and some of the other contributers. My memories of school are not as romantic, certainly not the happiest days of my life. Ironic really as I am a teacher now. I have searched everywhere for a picture of The Reeve and would be really grateful if anyone has one or memories of my family who owned greyhounds.

    By Wendy Hunter (01/12/2014)
  • George was my Granddad who owned the Great Eastern. If anyone has any pics of the pub it would be much appreciated. Struggling to find any on the history of Brighton.

    By Damion Hawkins (06/05/2015)
  • Hi Wendy. Was your maiden name French?  If so I remember you well from St Mary’s and the Lambert brothers. I went on to train as a nurse and have lived in London mostly in adulthood but have returned to live in Bright now.

    By Beverley Munton (22/10/2015)
  • My husband, John grew up in Lavender Street, went to All Souls School and then Park Street. He lived at No 21 and his Nan at No 42. He says the mantle factory was on the corner of Lavender Street and Hereford Street. 

    By Lynda Stringer (15/05/2016)
  • Does any one have a picture of the old Reeve pub from Park Street/ Eastern Road in the 1950s?

    By Val Roche (10/01/2017)
  • I lived with my family in Warwick Street in the early 1960s behind All Souls school. I think it was an all boys school and I think the factory in our road was a biscuit factory but not sure (was this correct, does anyone know?) Then we moved to 14 Hereford street, and went to Saint Mary’s.

    By Debbie Longstreeth (06/10/2018)
  • I am writing on behalf of my mother,RUBY YOUNG who was born at 15 Eastern Rd, in 1923 and still alive. She lived there until 1936 when I think it was compulsory purchased. She was next door to Harris’s antique shop & opposite All Souls. She went to Park St Infants and then St. Mary’s Junior schools.
    As a child she lived on the beach, either Rock Gardens or Dalton by the pier, OR, in Queens Park.
    Does anybody remember the Donkeys on the beach next to the Pier? The owner was a Mr. Spicer, a relation of Ruby. There were also goat rides with boxes for the rides, provided by Mr. Sallis.
    Ruby’s main friends were Peggy Spicer,Bill Bailey, Laury (minnie) Howell, (father owned fish shop in Bedford St. Cocker Martin, Billy Thew and Doris Croucher.
    In Park St school she remembers the camp beds where they had an hours snooze in the pm.
    Ruby had double pneumonia at 4yrs old, the treatment was to iron brown paper to her chest and back everyday!!!!

    By graham maynard (30/04/2020)
  • Graham, thank you for your comment, for mentioning “goat rides, with boxes for the rides, provided by Mr. Sallis”.
    Earlier this year (18/1/20) I submitted an old postcard view – guessing it was taken during the 1930s or late ‘40s – clearly showing a goat stand near the front of the Palace Pier : it particularly interested me.
    You may wish to find the page, currently in the “Brighton Seafront in the 1950s” section of this website. Perhaps Mr. Sallis is the man shown with the child and three goats ?
    Ruby must have wonderful recollections of Brighton.

    By Sam Flowers (01/05/2020)
  • My grandparents with their four children (including my mother) moved into 7 Tillstone Street in 1927. My granddad was still living there the day he died, 50 years later. My unmarried aunt (Audrey Stenning) lived in the house another decade beyond that. Tillstone Street is not marked on this map (why not?) but the area is very familiar to me from my childhood when I stayed at ‘Number 7’. My mother told me she went to St Mary’s School. My aunt went to St Luke’s.

    By Cordelia (30/10/2021)
  • There was also an alley between the track behind the new houses in the redeveloped Essex Street and Lavender Street. It ran between two buildings in Lavender Street, but the buildings were joined above the ground floor, so that the alley was effectively a tunnel. It dog-legged halfway and was very narrow, so you couldn’t see from one end to the other. (There is to this day a similar, but straight, covered passage between Gloucester Street and Gloucester Road.) I spent my early years in Somerset Street and my family was local but, strangely, I never heard the word ‘twitten’ until we moved to Manor Farm in 1961.

    By Gill Wales (23/12/2022)
  • A very belated reply to Cordelia asking why Tilstone Street was not on the map. The map showed the area in the [undefined][ past and Tilstone street was only constructed when the Spa Street[formerly Nottingham Street] and Egremont Street slums were demolished. This is not an Ordnance Survey map! which is why the twitten refered to in many posts above is not shown. It was a map compiled to show where a number of named streets [now mostly demolished and rebuilt] were located.

    By Dr Geoffrey Mead (25/12/2022)
  • Hi there I’m just inquiring about if everyone has information about the corporation yard that was in Sloan Street photos or some information thanks Larry Marchant.

    By Larry Marchant (06/06/2023)

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