A big advantage of searching for people with unusual names is that they are easy to trace in databases. Here is one example, a family who fell upon hard times. Note that sometimes first names vary from record to record. I first came across the name of Censi in the catalogue entries at the National […]
Author Archives: Stephen van Dulken
I recently bought some oldish postcards of St Leonards on Sea at Teddy Tinker’s, 134 London Road. If you don’t know it, this shop is full of vintage clothes and collectables. These include numerous postcards of Hastings and (rather fewer) of St Leonards. My haul included this one of Warrior Square. I apologise for the […]
5 November 1829, Brighton Gazette: ST LEONARD’S NEW TOWN, NEAR HASTINGS OCT. 28. – The sports and pastimes at the opening of the Grand Hotel, in the entirely New Town of St Leonard’s, commenced this morning. Preparatory to the more substantial and elegant pastimes, a pack of hounds, the property of a private gentleman at […]
I have often walked past this attractive house, at the bottom end of Woodland Vale Road, and decided to have a look at its history. Here are some notes about it, which show how different sources can be combined to understand more about a house’s past. The name of Coonoor is that of a hill […]
This is the first of an occasional series, in chronological order, of some mentions of St Leonards in newspapers, as found on the priced British Newspaper Archive. 12 April 1828, Public Ledger and Public Advertiser: Sale on the 25 June 1828 of the freehold estate called Bohemia in the vicinity of Hastings, in five lots. […]
I recently gave a talk on 6 Maze Hill to the Society. In carrying out the research, I searched for “6 Maze Hill” in the newspaper archive on the priced Find My Past database. This gave me lots of hits, but it missed a very relevant hit because it would only be found by searching […]
The Hastings and St Leonards Observer contains a vast amount of information on visitors to St Leonards, usually cited as “Arrivals” or “Fashionable intelligence.” The newspaper, with many others, can be searched online for a specific address, either on the British Newspaper Archive or, using the same data, on the Find My Past database, both […]
I have been researching the houses on my road, Vale Road, Silverhill, and found on a family tree on the priced Ancestry website an interesting photo. It showed a woman holding a baby while seated in the sidecar of a motorcycle, with an older boy behind her. It was thought to be from 1922, and […]
Genealogy very often results amassing information such as dates and places of birth, marriage and death. It is rare that one is able to add flesh to the bones, so to speak. Sometimes, though, newspapers or books can add to this. In this case, a great deal. The 2 August 1853 issue of the Sussex […]
The Hastings Museum acquired in 1947 a peepshow of St Leonards on Sea, numbered 947.43. This is full of interest, as it shows an unusual view of the seafront, looking west from the archway. The Museum very kindly let me have photos of it. First we have the front, with a small hole of the […]