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 […]
Author Archives: Stephen van Dulken
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 […]
In the 1891 census at Deptford, Kent, Elvey Thomas was a 14-year-old clerk, born New Cross, his father a railway official. The Hastings and St Leonards Advertiser, 21 April 1898, announced that he had been appointed manager of the St Leonards Pier. He was only 21 ! As on this occasion, he was consistently described […]
13 May 1853, Hastings and St Leonards News: BATHING. Mr DEUDNEY spoke [at a Council meeting] of the nuisance to the bathers near Warrior square, in consequence of the sea being thickened by the earth carried down on to the shore from the adjacent building ground. He finally moved that a notice board should be […]
I have just come back from a very pleasant garden party at Ford Bank, together with many others from the Society. Many thanks to our generous hosts ! Enough to say it is an interesting example of, in effect, a forerunner of the English arts and crafts style. Below is a photo of the south, […]
A letter was published in the Hastings and St Leonards Observer in its 23 December 1911 issue. It included this passage: Many more visitors come to the town now than did during what we call the palmy days, but they come at a different part of the year, and mainly do not occupy the same […]
The Bird-in-Hand beerhouse was at 1, often numbered 1 and 2, South Street from before 1855 until 1921. Its exact location is however something of a mystery. It is well established that the Plasterers’ Arms, later the Prince Alfred, was at the corner of South and Cross streets, as 12 South Street. In other words, […]
Hastings and St Leonards News, 23 April 1852: DEPARTURES. Lady Wallscourt, 42, Marina, on Monday. Lady Williams, Upland Views, on Monday, after six weeks sojourn. Lady Hay, 25, Marina, on Tuesday. Hon. Mrs Edgcumbe and family, 16, Grand Parade, on Monday. Mr Hollond, M.P., and Mrs Hollond, Allegria, for London, on Monday. A SERIOUS CHARGE […]