Site Search

A W Wardell Photographer and Postcard Publisher

Bill Wardell

AW Wardell was an accomplished photographer and publisher of postcards from 1907 to around 1960. He was based in Brighton and latterly Worthing. You can find out much more on this excellent website. https://www.sussexpostcards.info/publishers.php?PubID=296
Bill Wardell was one of the first to publish a range of aerial scenes on postcards, pioneering an effective technique of excellent shot framing and high quality imagery from the glass plate camera he carried in the 2nd seat a biplane.

CAF Squadron based at Shoreham from March 1919

His aerial photographs of Shoreham are from 1919. It is noted he was in an Avro 504 based at the airport. Note in the first aerial photo of Shoreham (No.33) there are numerous bell tents in the SE corner of the airport – for the Canadian Air Force No. 81 Squadron stationed there in 1919, and possibly the source of Bill Wardell’s aircraft taxi to get his photographs. You may also note the two hangars of the Royal Navy seaplane base at the southern end of Ferry Road.

Continue reading “A W Wardell Photographer and Postcard Publisher”

In Memory of a French Sailor

In the south east corner of Mill Lane Cemetery, overlooking The Meads and backing onto a spur of Greenacres, is the grave of a French sailor formerly of the SS Lutetia, who died in 1919. There are no other gravestones near to this isolated stone cross marker, giving it rather a sad and lonely appearance, perhaps reflecting the nature of this sailor’s death, a young man from another country who lost his life under tragic circumstances.

Continue reading “In Memory of a French Sailor”

SS Arthur Wright -collier

Description: Description: Macintosh HD:Users:rogerbateman:Desktop:Nick Thomson:1a .png

The SS Arthur Wright – a Shoreham Collier

The SS Arthur Wright was built by William Pickersgill & Sons at their Southwick, Sunderland yard in 1937 for the Brighton Corporation. It was a 1,097-ton vessel, the Corporation’s first collier, and used for conveying fuel to the electricity works at Portslade. Named after the first (1894) manager and engineer of the works (he also designed the first domestic supply meter) the Arthur Wright carried coal mainly from the Yorkshire and Welsh coalfields via the ports of Goole and Port Talbot.

Continue reading “SS Arthur Wright -collier”

The Bells of St. Mary’s

On Palm Sunday 2022, Mike Riddiford recorded the Bell Ringing before the Service and later recorded a fascinating interview with Ian Vaughan from the St. Mary’s Bell Ringers in the Churchyard. The recording starts with the sound from the inside Ringing Room, where you will hear Ian calling the bells and then later the Tower Captain Hamish leading the bell ringers.

The St. Mary de Haura Bellringers are keen to encourage new ringers to join them. Bell Ringing uses number notation, so it is not necessary to have any musical knowledge, although a sense of rhythm and a good memory can be helpful. Once the basics have been mastered, ringing becomes a group activity with the opportunity of visiting other towers and making new friends. 

http://www.stmarydehaura.org.uk/church-life/bellringers/

18 minutes duration, interview at 2 mins, with three sequences of the bells.
Continue reading “The Bells of St. Mary’s”