The Round Hill Society

History

Articles and footnotes relating to the history of Round Hill. See Books on Round Hill and surroundings for illustrated guides to our area.

The Triangle History Group
The Triangle History Group meets on the 1st Tuesday in each month at The Bugle Pub 24 St. Martins Street, Brighton, BN2 3HJ (back bar area) to talk informally about the history of the area and events that happened here.

Next meeting Tuesday 5 March at 7.30pm

The Triangle Community adjoins Round Hill and comprises the Scottish Saints park area of Brighton, between the north of the Level (Union Road), Upper Lewes Road & Lewes Road.

Some members of The Triangle History Group research the archives in the main library or bring along copies of old photographs of streets in their area when they were first built. Others have lived in the area all their life and like to discuss events that happened in the recent past in this community. Any resident is welcome to join. Round Hill residents are also welcome to come to these meetings.

Our last meeting on 5th Feb 2013

The meeting began at 7.30 and ended at 8.45pm. Mary-Lou distributed copies of the recent Consultation with Brighton History Centre (BHC) Users in January 2012. It outlines the Council’s plans to close the BHC, currently located in Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, and re-locate to The Keep a new local history resource centre near Falmer. Unfortunately The Keep will not be open before the closure of BHC and temporary measures are being put in place for the unspecified months involved. An enquiry desk at the Jubilee Library called The Hub will be set up to deal with visitor enquiries but no original material will be kept there. This was unanimously thought of as an unsatisfactory situation for most local historians. Copies of this consultation will be available to collect at the next meeting.

The Senior Archivist from ESCC and Project manager of The Keep, Wendy Walker, has offered to speak to our group about The Keep on a date to suit us. We had asked for a site visit to The Keep but told the building site not safe till summer. However, anyone who would like a talk from the Librarians about how to use the new Jubilee Library Hub in the meantime, please let me know days and times of week convenient for a group visit.

Freda brought the group a copy of the census of 1911 showing details of her Grandfather William Neeve aged 26 found during independent research at BHC.

Christine brought a photocopy of the 1879 map showing detail of Park Crescent Road area before Brewer Street and Newport street built, just depicted as The Maze. Interestingly there is no Bugle Pub or Sea Cadets in situ and that area just designated as Drying Grounds.

The group looked in detail at an article in a copy of Argus from Monday January 21st 2013 kindly brought in by the Taylors entitled “Did they Bomb Your Road?” It had a detailed map of bombed houses across Brighton and Hove and photographs from the worst raid of Saturday 14 September 1940. Photocopies of this will be available at next meeting.

For next meeting could everyone take a photo of their own street as it is now on camera, mobile phone or IPAD to share at future meetings with a view to starting our own contemporary Triangle album.

The James Gray Archive
James Gray, 1904-1998, was a local collector with a passion for the streets of Brighton and Hove, and, as time went on, further afield.


Go to The Regency Society's - James Gray website to see many more historical photographs in this collection.

The Regency Society is also looking for groups or individuals who both value the local history of Brighton & Hove and are willing to consider sponsoring volumes of James Gray's collection of photographs which are still awaiting digitization. For details of how you may be able to help, please go to http://www.regencysociety-jamesgray.com.

Working all his life in insurance, his initial collection of stamps gave way to local topographical photographs with the chance acquisition in the 1950s of a few images of Western Road. From then on he built up a massive collection: many of the entries are copies, exchanged with other collectors, others are views that he purchased or, more recently, that he commissioned.

Although there is today a strong general interest in old photographs, both for their factual content and also for their artistic value, when James Gray started his collection there was little:we must be grateful that he had the foresight and the single minded dedication to assemble this unique record of our City.

Upon his death, the Regency Society purchased the collection, and is now beginning to digitise it and make it available on-line.

There are 39 Volumes in all. Volume 20 focuses on Ditchling Road and the surrounding area, and includes a few photographs in & around Round Hill. Here are some, which you can access directly by clicking on the links below:

Tower Mill, Ditchling Road

Round Hill’s windmill, worked by steam power after it was built in 1838, and used in the construction of the red brick houses in Belton Road after its demolition in 1913 .

Wakefield Road in 1949 with clear pavements and scarcely a car in sight

Crescent Road and lower Princes Crescent in 1933 with Wakefield Villa (by this time known as Woodfield Lodge) in the background.

Sylvan lodge in 1976 one year before the old house was demolished and made way for Council flats.

31 and 32 Wakefield Road the only houses on the west side of the street, photographed in 1963

Wakefield Road in 1963

Tram descending Ditchling Road at the junction of Upper Lewes Road in the late 1930s

Looking down Ditchling Road in 1949

St Saviour’s Church (1), Ditchling Road in 1982

St Saviour’s Church (2), Ditchling Road in 1982

The Open Market on The Level in 1922

removal of the railings around The Level in 1923

Steam train crossing Beaconsfield Rd viaduct in 1930s

Letter in the Attic
Community publishers, QueenSpark, would love to see your old travel journals, war letters, diaries or love letters...particularly if they are connected with Brighton & Hove.

Background to the project
My Brighton and Hove and QueenSpark have started an exciting new project to create an archive of personal unpublished papers collected from the residents of Brighton and Hove. The project is called Letter in the Attic and it aims to show the historical value of everyday writings, such as letters and diaries.

A book and exhibition in the making
At the end of Letter in the Attic, QueenSpark will publish a book about the material we collect. The book might contain extracts from many different letters or diaries, or it might be about one particular diarist or letter-writer. We'll also create an online exhibition of the documents on the My Brighton and Hove website.

Other items on history
Rose Hill Park - Chris Tullett writes on the history of the Sylvan Hall Estate.

A hill with memories: details of the book "Rose Hill to Roundhill: a Brighton Community " which was written by the Round Hill History Group.

Books on local history can be borrowed &/or viewed at Brighton Library check their online catalogue first and The History Centre.

City Books in Western Road (in the Brunswick area of Brighton and Hove) probably carries a better range of local history materials than any other bookshop in our city. These are displayed in the shop's basement.

Rose Hill to Roundhill: a Brighton Community £9.99 ISBN 1-90 1454-08-8, published by Brighton Books, a Brighton-based publisher specialising in local history, and produced by local residents.

The Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Timothy Carder ISBN 086 147 3159 [East Sussex County Libraries] is an excellent reference book (with a number of entries on Round Hill).

Living in Brighton during the 1980s - this history site includes profiles of some well known Round Hill residents.

My Brighton and Hove - community web site dealing with the living history of Brighton and Hove.

History of Brighton and The Royal Pavilion with practice exercises for learners of English as a Second Language.

History of Brighton's Open Market with details and pictures of current stalls.

Plan of streets in the North Laine area with details and pictures of small traders.

A straight line walk across Brighton - this site is not a walking guide, but records a slice of Brighton, a random cross-section, at a particular moment (or moments) in time, combining all kinds of information, whether about local history and stories, architecture and planning, street names and quirky notices, or companies and organisations.

Brief history of Round Hill Crescent by taxi driver, Tony Deane.

History of St Peter's Brighton with several references to the development of Roundhill.

History of The Level

For the history of our green railway corridors, where they went and railway works in Brighton

The Kemp Town Branch Line by Peter A. Harding ISBN 0 9523458 4 6 [available from City Books, Western Road Brighton & Hove]

Life at Brighton Loco. Works 1928-1936 Locomotion Papers No. 54 by A. C. Perryman [The Oakwood Press, Tandridge Lane, Lingfield, Surrey]

Pullman Craftsmen - Life at Preston Park Works 1947-1963 ISBN 0 904733 50 5 [QueenSpark Book 27]



This page was last updated by Ted on 11-Feb-2013