For those that like the Shoreham lighthouse, then we have a treat for you today. For years we’ve seen the dull grimy path with the old door and often wondered what it was like inside.
Lighthouse at Kingston
The View – King’s Drive
A much damaged photo but perhaps the only one of that subject that still survives. ‘The View’ stood near today’s junction of Woodard’s View with King’s Drive.
Fountain Inn
Mention of the Fountain Inn recently prompted a further look. The two 1780’s maps show it (highlighted with a blue dot) followed by the 1872 map after it was, we are told, absorbed into the first Bridge Hotel building.
I’d always thought what was left of the Fountain was the building numbered 2 but it looks from the maps as if it must have been the tall gable-ended building 1 which certainly looks more 18th century or earlier in style than the others.
It had quite a history. Apart from being an inn it had an assembly room that was used to perform plays by touring actors; the local Freemasons met there and poor young James Rook from Old Shoreham was committed for trial there and later hung for his part in the 1790’s robbery of the mail.
The Horsham Flyer
Horsham Flyer, Steyning Stinker, whatever your name was for it this’ll bring back memories. For me it was missing the earlier electric train and risk being late for school by catching the later steam train and one glorious summer’s day sunday school outing sandwiched between two exciting journeys in creaking carriages to and from Bramber Castle.
Jack’s Bargain Store
The shop, formed part of Victoria Terrace, on Victoria Road It was next to Jock Hamiltons Garage, and faced the Ritz Cinema, which is now demolished, and replaced by the RopeTackle development . Jacks Bargain stores extended it’s trading space by setting several tables, out side onto the pavement. The tables, were covered with numerous boxes, of all manner of used domestic utensils, rusty meat mincers, lay alongside an old cribbage board, or some well worn eating knives and forks.
Continue reading “Jack’s Bargain Store”Finger road signs
Saw this finger sign in an eBay photo of Ferry Road. This is the only other one I have seen in addition to the Western Road sign.
Military funeral
This from Roy Wood of photos from William Wood’s funeral in 1934. Wiliam lived at 5, Middle Road (later renumbered 36), Shoreham. He had joined the Royal West Kent regiment in 1892 and was finally discharged in 1917. The Army honours their own – the funeral processon was provided by the Sussex Regt. He is buried in St Julian’s graveyard.
Upper Shoreham Road 100 years later
Heading west along the Upper Shoreham Road, just past the radar speed trap coming up to the junction with Downsway on the right and Oxen Avenue on the left with the dip in the road ahead …………………. one hundred years ago.
Little High Street & Ropetackle
Looking through the history of Ropetackle – what an eccentric place! As well as the ropemaking and shipbuilding past there were, in Victorian times, ancient buildings still standing, quaint sounding cottages, warehouses, a gas works and, spookily, a mortuary alongside an incinerator! In Little High Street there were houses with strange, shop-like windows and this mysterious looking architectural protrusion.
Is it what was left of a partly demolished house; was it built like that to fit into a small space or did it have a special purpose? The 1872 map also refelects its irregularity as part of the longer building to which it was attached. It all adds to a certain air of mystery and antiquity to the area.
Dolphin or Beacon
‘Dolphin’ was the name for tent-shaped structures fixed in the river bed and used by sailing ships in the past to get in and out of the harbour when there was little or no wind. Ropes would be taken by rowing boat from the ship, attached to the dolphin then hauled by the ship’s crew, the process, known as ‘warping,’ being repeated to the next dolphin and so on.
One of the dolphins still existed at Kingston by early 1900’s and appears in one or two paintings as well as in this photo and on the 1898 map. Neil De Ville found this 1959 record of the remains of what was thought to be an early 17th century wooden lighthouse at Kingston Beach. Perhaps it was the dolphin but if the slipway they were working on was the one on the map then the dolphin looks too far away from the slipway to have been the piles they discovered.