The contemporary newspapers can be very revealing in discussing storm damage on the seafront. In this post I give two long and vivid accounts of damage and risk of life. The storm lasted for several hours on Sunday morning, 14 November 1875, on a (high) spring tide with strong winds from the southwest. It was […]
Author Archives: Stephen van Dulken
At the southern end of Kenilworth Road, and now numbered no. 98, is a former chapel, very obvious as one descends the road from the north. Formerly its activities were carried out upstairs at its neighbour, 18 Gensing Road, which is on the corner. The Primitive Methodists were a working class breakaway from the Methodist […]
10 April 1855, Sussex Advertiser: [Summary of news clipping below. Advert for sale of freehold of 8.5 acres on Warrior Square, plus 6.5 leasehold land in the direction of the railway station. The reason for the sale was James Troup’s insolvency. He had suddenly been asked to make a large payment and he could only […]
Many locals are unaware of the fact that on the promenade in front of the Royal Victoria Hotel, Marina, St Leonards on Sea, there was a row of shops for many years. Previously there was a library and a bathhouse, both built in Greek style. At some point the baths took over, and the land […]
On the 2 July 1880, Hastings Council planning application DH/C/6/1/2509 was approved for what the Discovery catalogue describes as a ‘new road from Pevensey Road West to the borough boundary, on the Eversfield Estate, Rosamond Road’. It was later renamed Albany Road. This is an L-shaped road, with the long arm gently rising north from […]
Padgham and Hutchinson were an important building partnership in St Leonards and Bexhill in the 1890s and early 1900s. A great deal of information is in the useful Discovery database that includes archives for East Sussex at The Keep, plus of course mentions in the newspapers. In Discovery, putting in say a street or an […]
The Coach and Horses public house on Mews Road closed in 1950 and is now a private house, 3 Mews Road. The house below it is no. 1 and there is no sign of a no. 2 (the map below suggests it was incorporated into either no. 1 or the adjacent East Ascent house, while […]
25 April 1854, Sussex Advertiser: 2 May 1854, Sussex Advertiser: 30 May 1854, Sussex Advertiser: [Auction by Mr Vosey [Voysey ?] at the South Saxon Hotel, 1 June 1854. Now the site of Bonjour’s in rebuilt premises. Under the will of Edward Bassett, of St Leonards, builder, who had his Canterbury will proven 4 April […]
This is an account of the early history of what is now Gensing Gardens. It was called at various times the Western Pleasure Ground, Gensing Pleasure Ground, Gensing Wood Public Pleasure Ground, and perhaps other variations. This park, a combination of open land and shrubberies with some trees, slopes quite steeply from Charles Road on […]
Gilbert Road is a short road to the west of London Road, with Tower Road West to its north and Brittany Road to its south. The houses are only on the west side, with at present six houses, numbered from the south. Its origins were explained in the Hastings Observer, 3 May 1884: The Roads […]