District police stations

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1855-1919: district police station at The Level

Photo by Tony Mould

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Police Station, The Level c. 1905: A view of Brighton Police Station on The Level with pedestrians in the foreground and a tram moving past.

Image reproduced with kind permission from Brighton and Hove in Pictures by Brighton and Hove City Council

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1st district police station was at 64 St James's Street, c1857

Photo by Tony Mould

Please note that this text is an extract from a reference work written in 1990.  As a result, some of the content may not reflect recent research, changes and events.

d) DISTRICT POLICE STATIONS: The first district police station was established in about 1857 at 64 St James’s Street , a building with a balustered roof and urn decorations that still stands near the corner of Grafton Street; in 1885 it was replaced by no.2 Freshfield Road. Other district stations were established at the south-western end of the Level (c.1865-1919), 26 West Hill Road (1876-1919), and at Preston Circus fire station from 1903. No.18 Middle Road, Preston, was a police station by 1871, while Patcham police station was established by 1888 on a site now occupied by the Homeleigh flats in London Road . Rottingdean police station stood on the western side of the High Street by 1888, between Marine Drive and West Street, and moved to a house in West Street in 1916. There was a second station in Rottingdean parish in the 1880s and ’90s at 25 Rifle Butt Road, Black Rock.
In 1928 however, most district police stations were discontinued, to be replaced by special telephone call-boxes; the Rottingdean station continued until 1931, though. A new Rottingdean station opened in 1959 at 53 Marine Drive.
In 1947 a police training school was established in some large villas at 21-27 Wellington Road. Two years later the school was converted into a police station, and the town was then divided into A and B divisional areas based at the Town Hall and Wellington Road. The Wellington Road station closed when the new John Street station opened in 1965, and the buildings were replaced by blocks of flats.
{83,163,164}

e) CHIEF CONSTABLES of the BRIGHTON POLICE FORCE 1838-1967 {164}:

1838 Henry Solomon
1844 Thomas Chase
1853 George White
1876 Owen Crowhurst
1877 Isaiah Barden
1881 James Terry
1894 Thomas Cartere
1901 William Gentle
1920 Charles Griffin
1933 William Hutchinson
1956 CharlesRidge
1957 Albert Rowsell
1963 William Carey

Any numerical cross-references in the text above refer to resources in the Sources and Bibliography section of the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder.