J.B.Balley, ship builder and creator of Swiss Gardens built a grand house for himself in Longcroft field on the corner of Hebe and Southdown roads then later sold both to Edward Goodchild (previously landlord of Brunswick Arms) in the early 1860’s. Thomas Fuller MD 1828-1911 is listed as owner in 1895.
As the main photo shows it became Queens School for girls and appears as such in the directories between 1920 and 1937. The centre bay window column was added after 1898 – the rest of the houses up Southdown Road are out of shot to the right. You can just make out the top of the greenhouse shown on the 1912 map.
I started at the school in 1944, shortly after the Allied invasion of German-occupied France. The school buildings were centred in Pond Road, and covered the whole block, that is to say, the area of the present community centre, citizens’ advice bureau and car park. The school had its own chapel, with pews, choir stall and organ, on the opposite side of Pond Road, about where the grass mound in front of the health centre is now. The large house facing you as you look south down Pond Road is called Westover, and provided residential accommodation for single masters and a room for piano tuition.
St. Wilfrid’s Children’s Home, Ham Road, Shoreham by Sea
Preface
This was a care home administered by East Sussex County Council although paradoxically it was in West Sussex. When I was born in 1948 in Southlands Hospital, my parents were Assistant Superintendent and Matron. The home cared for children whose own natural parents were unable for various reasons to care for the children themselves. It was not an orphanage nor a “naughty boys and girls home”. Some of the children were orphaned of one or both parents; most were from homes in which the parents felt unable to cope for many reasons.
Discovered amongst the pages of the Winton Collection of photo albums and scrapbooks this little known booklet was published in 1891 to celebrate the six short years of a long forgotten society of Shoreham bachelors dedicated to the noble state of remaining single. Nowadays such a publication would probably be condemned as sexist and perhaps even silly. Nevertheless, it records an organisation created in 1885 by a group of Shoreham’s young men whose names are still familiar to those interested in the town’s history .
