South of Preston Park

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.

Preston Road runs the length of the former Preston parish, from Preston Circus to London Road (Patcham) near Clermont Road.

a) SOUTH OF THE PARK: The unusual terrace at the south-western end, 33-81 Preston Road , was built with a decorative brick in the 1870s as Rosneath Terrace, part of the so-called ‘Dairy Estate’ developed from 1871 on the site of the early-nineteenth-century dairy of the Prince of Wales; the dairy included a large private house. The estate roads were named from the family of the Marquess of Lorne who married Princess Louise in 1871, and include Argyle and Campbell Road s {15,76}.
There is further terracing on both sides before Preston Park is reached. The College of Technology annexe by the viaduct was opened by the School Board in 1880 as the PrestonRoadSchool. It continued in use as a school until 1937, and later became the Preston Technical Institute. {83,115}
The large Endeavour garage at Springfield Road was built on the site of a Roman villa, discovered in 1876 and excavated in 1877 and 1962 when the garage was built. Several burial urns, skulls, bones, fragments of pottery, coins, figurines and an iron lamp were found, and it has been suggested that it was a temple and cemetery rather than a house. The villa is commemorated on the pylon at the southern entrance to the park. {8,151}
Branching westwards from Preston Road is Dyke Road Drive, constructed in 1878 by the local landowners in conjunction with the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Company and the corporation to form a carriage drive from Hove to Preston Park via the Drive and the Upper Drive. Parkmore Terrace is a row of seventeen contemporary, bay-fronted houses approached through a gateway from Dyke Road Drive. Preston Road Wesleyan Chapel, a red-brick Gothic building by C.O.Ellison with a small spire, stood on the site of the London Gate office block from 1883. It closed in 1943 and became a furniture depository, but was demolished in 1974. {62,114}

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.

Comments about this page

  • I lived in Parkmore Terrace (no 16) from birth until about 1973, but my grandparents had bought the house in the mid 30s. My grandfather was dodgy and he needed to escape a scandal in Southampton quickly so he phoned a Brighton estate agent and bought the house, sight unseen and over the phone for £1000. During the war, the Germans tried to bomb the viaduct but missed and 16 Parkmore got some damage to the roof. The house was quite odd in that it was built into a narrow corner of the road. Steep steps led up to the front door, a tiny kitchen with a bath in it. I remember being put in there to play whilst my mother cooked. Outside the kitchen was a tiny yard with a coal shed at the end. Upstairs were three bedrooms but two interconnected. There was a back door upstairs which led out to a first floor narrow strip of garden and a high wall which backed onto the railway. I could lie awake in the evening on summer nights and see the goods engines passing just over the wall, the driver leaning out of the cab with a cigarette dangling. We had a rag and bone man with a cart and a Homburg hat who called on Mondays. His cry sounded like ‘Nellyohlumpeeay’ which presumably meant ‘Any old lumber today?’. If you had anything the most he would give was a shilling (5p equivalent). Also the Corona lorry would reverse up the hill every Friday (no mean feat) and you could buy a bottle of pop from the driver who had crates of it on the flat back. Our neighbours were the Mitchells (Mrs Mitchell occasionally looked after me whilst my mother went shopping and if I asked when she was coming back she would reply ‘She isn’t. She’s gone off with a sailor’ which wasn’t entirely helpful). Mrs Spidey lived on the other side, she had a lodger called ‘Old Tom’ who was a bit simple but had the ushers job at the Duke of Yorks for years. Further down were the Greenslades, the Ascoughs, the Pauls and Miss Anthony who was once a Gaiety girl in Paris. Once my father took me down to the corner of Preston Park, where that plinth still stands at the bottom of Stanford Avenue, a few minutes later we, and about six other people were ‘treated’ to a car stopping and either Sabrina or Diana Dors got out and posed over the bonnet. Aged about 10 it all seemed strange but my father seem to enjoy it immensely. At the bottom of Dyke Rd Drive there was a pearl stringing business and a decrepit antique shop. On the corner where Nexus Design is now was a newsagents which became Attic Antiques. There were plenty of shops nearby including: the Kingstonridge Fruit Farm owned by a couple of gay gents, a sweetshop, Cox and Co the Builders where Alsfords is. On the other side of the viaduct was a hairdressers run by Reggie Marchant and another newsagents with Eldorado icecream. Opposite them was a cafe called ‘First In Last Out’. On the corner of Ditchling Rise was Giggins the Bakers (their ornate gold leaf sign is still behind Cannadine’s fascia). The rest of Cannadines used to be the International Stores, then there was a butchers and a chemist whose names I forget, the Evergreen Library, a few more shops and then Benford’s the butchers near Preston Circus. Sorry that this is a bit banal and longwinded but it may spark other people’s memories.

    By Tony Norman (04/06/2012)
  • I lived at 17 Parkmore Terrace from 1960/late 70s. You gave me a lot of airfix kits. I had a older sister called Debbie.

    By Steve Boxall (23/03/2014)

Add a comment about this page

Your email address will not be published.