Category: Blog

This blog contains articles and posts taken from the Shorehambysea.com Forum. Presented in date order of published.

Alphabetical index:

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West End – High Street

We know for a fact that a photo of buildings in Shoreham High Street was taken in 1891 – the 31st of March that year to be precise and this enlargement of one of them is a bit puzzling. The house, just beyond the King’s Head, is a low structure compared with the buildings around and is thought to be quite ancient – a very old chamfered queen post in the roof trusses was found during the 1970’s demolition.
What is intriguing is this enlargement that seems to show items outside it. At least three of the items look identical. Was it a shop or perhaps the occupiers moving in/out? The items look almost like inflatable dinghies but it seems those did not appear for a couple of decades or so after?

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Cellars and Vaults

Over the years we’ve explored cellars and vaults in places such as Church Street, Middle Street, High Street and discovered photos of some that no longer exist. Here’s another lost cellar (below left) from the galleries of  Brighton & Hove Stuff – as far as we can make out it shows the final stages of demolishing the old sail loft at the west end of the High Street and the cellars beneath it.

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Mystery Bungalows

Carolyn Orme has sent us photos of her Belfield predecessors and their bungalow in Bungalow Town asking for more information as to its location. ‘Maelvy’ is readily identifiable on the available photos and records. We’re now trying to date the main photo of her family outside the bungalow that also shows the neighbouring ‘Anchorage’ beside it. It is difficult to see for sure but it does look like the photo was taken before ‘Seaside’ was built (where they are standing/sitting) to obstruct their view of the sea.

‘Seaside’ appears to have been built in 1917 so before then; the Belfields are shown occupying ‘Villa Lido’ in 1911 and 1914 before the well known Melville family start appearing there. One of the Belfield family was attending Lancing College at the time and he was born in 1900. No Belfield’s are shown at ‘Maelvy’ in the directories but they may only have rented it for a short while. 

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Star Gap mystery

GPO writes in 2020:
I recently came across this first picture of Star Gap. It may be familiar to others, but it’s not one I have seen before.  The concrete part of Coronation Green seems to have been recently made up and has new concrete posts supporting chain-link fencing.

As we know that this part of the High Street was widened in the thirties, it must be after this time, although I understand that there had been a wharf in this position even before the buildings were demolished.  But this view is obviously later than that.

What I find interesting is that the cottage or house (houses?) is quite different from what we see today. The main difference is that the present house is built right up to the retaining wall, whereas in this photo there is a path in between.

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High Street 1904-1912

You don’t often see photos as good as this of this side of the High Street that include Rayleigh House (the tall building that became Barclays Bank) and the pre Co-op building, extreme right. Rayleigh House was the earlier home of shipbuilder/Swiss Gardens creator J.W.Britten Balley before he moved to Longcroft.

e-bay photo found by Neil De Ville