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BHASVIC Sixth Form College

Brighton Grammar School 1911

By Harry Atkins

This photograph shows Brighton Grammar School (now BHASVIC Sixth Form College) when it was situated in Buckingham Road. The school had its origins in the Brighton Proprietary Grammar and Commercial School, founded in July 1859 at Lancaster House, 47 Grand Parade.

The building is decorated for the Coronation of King George V which was on the 22nd June 1911. When the school moved to a site off Dyke Road, the building then became the Sussex Maternity Hospital and after that a County Council social education centre.

Brighton Grammar School, 1911

Photograph from the private collection of Harry Atkins

This page was added on 19.06.2010.

Comments about this page

I was born in what was then Sussex Maternity Hospital in Buckingham Road in 1949. It was only after I started at Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School on its final Dyke Road /Old Shoreham Road site in 1960 that I found out I'd been born at its previous site. Came full circle, you might say.

By Len Liechti (23.06.2010)

Like Len, I also came full circle, having been born in the Buckingham Road Maternity Hospital in February 1941 (during an air raid I am told) and started at the school in Dyke Road in September 1952. Furthermore, I ended my working life in Trafalgar Place, just a few hundred yards from Buckingham Road in January 2001. Did a lot of travelling around the world during the intervening years though! I notice you still haven't joined the Past & Present Association, Len, despite your obvious lasting affection for the school!

By Bruce Rawlings (02.07.2010)

Well, Bruce, they say you should never go back. What's that lyric in Don Henley's "Boys Of Summer" - "Saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac", etc? My experiences at the school left me with very mixed memories as those years were pretty turbulent for me in many respects, although as you say I do retain a nostalgic affection for the old alma mater. I've thought frequently about joining the P&PA, and will continue to do so.

By Len Liechti (14.07.2010)

My brother Brian Smith, who lived in Over Street attended this school from 1945. His name was changed to Sutton later. Anyone remember him?

By Jean Lofts (01.02.2011)

Interesting coincidences. I too was born in this building (1945) when it was the Maternity Hospital and also attended B.H.S.G.S. (from 1956-1963). The photo's special interest is surely its 100 years from the present - presumably the bunting is for K.G.V's coronation (it's hard to make out the wording). Yes, it was after attending the school, for me as well, that I learned about my earlier connection with its origins. I've always been a schoolteacher in adult life but never experienced a school which had such worthwhile standards as I remember were found at the Grammar School. I suppose that memories produce mellow reflections, but I think that the years there were time well spent.

By Stuart Leggett (07.04.2011)