[Brighton] Old Brighton Postcard

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

PLEASE HELP.
I've asked so often of this. Where are the Arches underneath the road? Have they been built yet? Looking at the old picture, is that road sloping down and is the bench on the beach? I've a property close to this picture and there is a front door at sea level that now just goes into an arch.

Not sure if it helps, but the excelente Fortune of War pub has an address in Kings Road Arches. A few years back, if memory serves, the road directly above the pub started showing signs of subsidence and had to be repaired. Think they might have had to shut the pub as a precaution while the work was carried out

 

[Barrow Boy]

Skating on Falmer pond . I do not know the date but judging by the clothes, not too long ago. Must have been a cold winter…..

View attachment 158781


Modern view. Not an exact same angle. Hard to tell with the trees in leaf and I I think the old one was on the ice.

View attachment 158780

I think this may be the winter of 1965, if it is then I skated on there with my older brother about the time this photo was taken.

 

[Official Old Man]

My understanding is that the arches are the retail outlets between the Palace Pier and East Street Groyne, and from East Street Groyne heading west until they "run out". They've been there since Victorian times I believe. The addresses of the afforementioned ones are "Number X, Kings Road Arches". I used to work there many moons ago, selling ice creams, fish and chips etc.

kings road arches brighton - Google Search

JS. Where did you work? Yes those are the 'arches'.

 

[Official Old Man]

Not sure if it helps, but the excelente Fortune of War pub has an address in Kings Road Arches. A few years back, if memory serves, the road directly above the pub started showing signs of subsidence and had to be repaired. Think they might have had to shut the pub as a precaution while the work was carried out

This was funny. Builders removed a door and the ceiling fell down, which in turn was holding up the road. Took all summer for the insurance companies to work out who was to blame.
Moving this on a bit. I have access from my shop into the arch below. All the premises along Kings Road from the Old Ship up to West St are the same. There is a wall between me and the shop on the beach. But within my arch there is a door that was an old entrance to the block of flats above me. This door has steps coming down to what is beach level. So, if the building in Kings Road has a front door out to the beach, when were the arches built. And were they built blocking off the ground floor?

 

[Jack Straw]

JS. Where did you work? Yes those are the 'arches'.

I worked part-time in the arches between the Palace Pier and the East Street Groyne, on and off from April 1971 (just after the "new" money came out), until about 1975. The business was owned by a chap named Joe Archer, and run by Mike O'Brien. He was some task-master. When I started my full-time job, everything was easy compared to what he made me do! It really held me in good stead.

 

[Is it PotG?]

Black Rock c.1912 ?

On the cliff-top are The Abergavenny Arms and The Cliff Creamery. Landslides made their position precarious, and they were demolished in 1935....when the cliff wall was built.

 

[PeterOut]

This was funny. Builders removed a door and the ceiling fell down, which in turn was holding up the road. Took all summer for the insurance companies to work out who was to blame.
Moving this on a bit. I have access from my shop into the arch below. All the premises along Kings Road from the Old Ship up to West St are the same. There is a wall between me and the shop on the beach. But within my arch there is a door that was an old entrance to the block of flats above me. This door has steps coming down to what is beach level. So, if the building in Kings Road has a front door out to the beach, when were the arches built. And were they built blocking off the ground floor?

According to https://www.ciht.org.uk/media/8162/kings_road_arches_brighton_-_ross_hemsley.pdf the Kings Road arches were built c1890

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

JS. Where did you work? Yes those are the 'arches'.

I worked there too, in 78 and 79 (summers), as a deck chair attendant for the unlovely Mr Mace. One of our cohort, a philosophy student at Susex Uni, decided one fine day to take an alarm clock with him on the bus to Beachy Head, and leap off with it. I think he may have misunderstood something about Schrödinger's cat.

 

[dejavuatbtn]

JS. Where did you work? Yes those are the 'arches'.

It’s just amazing that nearly the whole of that stretch for road from the Peace Statue to the Palace Pier sits on a great big void. It does make you wonder just how safe the road and the properties under it really are. I remember going into the basement of one of the rock shops on the seafront before it was knocked down to build the hotel that became the Jurys Inn. There was a hole in wall and you could see right under the road.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

I recall in the late 1960s doing a guided tour of Brighton sewers - we went in somewhere around West Street Arches and after walking what seemed like ages, resurfaced in the middle of Old Steine gardens. Think there was lots of storm-drainage so the tubes were big enough to drive a car through them.

No idea if this what runs under the road ...

Did pong a bit too mind ...

 

[Is it PotG?]

Ditchling Rd, just north of Fiveways?

On June 19, 1914 a van backed into a cast-iron telegraph pole. The pole fell and brought down 11 more. 7 fell across the road, the others caught in overhead tram wires.

 

[Is it PotG?]

Queens Road / Clock Tower ?

 

[Is it PotG?]

Madeira Drive Lift?

The Shelter Hall and Lift, improvements made to Madeira Drive in the 1890s, were inaugurated on 24 May 1890. The blur is a passing train on Volk's.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Madeira Drive Lift?

The Shelter Hall and Lift, improvements made to Madeira Drive in the 1890s, were inaugurated on 24 May 1890. The blur is a passing train on Volk's.

View attachment 159198

View attachment 159199

View attachment 159200

Wonder if that lift mechanism is still in place tucked somewhere behind a wall in Concorde 2?

 

[Is it PotG?]

 

[dejavuatbtn]

Bloody character! Doesn’t it look so much better now - not.

 

[Official Old Man]

According to https://www.ciht.org.uk/media/8162/kings_road_arches_brighton_-_ross_hemsley.pdf the Kings Road arches were built c1890

Sorry to hijack this thread for my own personal reason, the arches history. The pdf is for the i360 project when the arches around that area were up graded. They don't go all the way back under the road. But again some history. If the Grand Hotel was built in 1864 but the arches around the i360 built in 1890 I'm wondering if there was a slope down from the hotel or Regency Square and it was built up as a road?

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

Sorry to hijack this thread for my own personal reason, the arches history. The pdf is for the i360 project when the arches around that area were up graded. They don't go all the way back under the road. But again some history. If the Grand Hotel was built in 1864 but the arches around the i360 built in 1890 I'm wondering if there was a slope down from the hotel or Regency Square and it was built up as a road?

I dont know if this picture helps, but it's of the Old Battery in Kings Road, dated 1858 which would make it one of the earliest photos taken of Brighton

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

Another of the West Beach in 1895

 

[dejavuatbtn]

From the recent pics it looks like the hotels were built so close to the seafront that they had to reclaim land in order to build the road and upper promenade, hence the predominance of arches required to create a flat surface. The Victorians and Edwardians certainly were able to employ people to maintain and improve the town. I guess at a penny an hour, whatever, they were happy to exploit the poor.