My family and I are newcomers to the Brighton area and have just taken over the lease of The Bear Inn in Bear/Lewes Road. We are very interested in the history of the property and would very much welcome stories and photos of the pub. Can you can help?

Does anyone remember Nevilles the greengrocers on the corner of Bear Road and Newmarket Road ? They had a very noisy collie called Rex. As a boy I used to live in 69 Newmarket Road and our backyard was situated about 3 metres below their back garden. Dog used to frighten us kids to death.

I lived at times during the war with my grandparents at 37 Redvers Rd. Next door lived Mrs Dellaway with her parrot in the front window. On the other side (no.35) lived the Gardeners - an ex- publican. I can remember being woken up by his cries for help when on a journey to the outside loo he had slipped and broke his leg. On the corner of the street was Mr Snow's corner shop. At other times we lived at home at Stanmer Park Road where I had a friend Johnny Hinds, where is he now? Does he remember being machine gunned in the street by a German fighter plane?

My aunt and uncle lived for many years at 321 Bear Road, I live in the North East but visited them in the early seventies.Their house overlooked a cemetary iI remember.

I grew up at 11 Bellevue Cottages the last house on the dead end (and still unpaved) street at the top of Bear Road above the cemetery. My grandfather (George H. Hillman) and Uncle Jim had Windmill Farm, which stretched from the top of Bear Road to Bevendean. Before this my grandfather managed Bevendean Farm in the valley. I have a photo of Uncle Jim (George A. Hillman) driving a horse-drawn plough on the hill side circa late 1940s. He moved to Bolney when they banned the keeping of pigs on the Racehill in 1960 and the farm buildings were demolished and the council let the land to horse people. I moved back to the house I spent my early years in with Mum & family when Uncle left. Dad (Fred Maplesden) is still there. I went to Coombe Road School as did my Mum, Sylvia Hillman, who was raised in the house her father bought in 1908. The houses, we were told by Uncle Ern, were built at the same time as Brighton General (1866) for workers there, but I later researched and could not date them before the 1880s. They were originally 3BR semi-detached with outside loo & no bathroom. There were 3 older and smaller cottages at the end of the street facing Bear Road that were demolishd in the 1930s that Mum remembered as well as a shepherd's hut built into the cemetery wall at the top of Bear Road. Growing up there was fun, but somewhat isolated with few other children on our street. Everybody knew each other on the street (11 houses) but we never had street parties.

I used to work at the Bevendean Hospital.

I've always been intrigued by the fact that Bear Road is called Bear Road. Where are the bears? Reading about the place here, the fact that it was a boundary road running between cemetries and that it was called Bearhill, I'm wondering if the name was originally to do with the word Bier - Bier Roads are traditional paths or routes taken to carry dead bodies for burial. Also known as Corpse Roads. Loads of them have been discovered (or rediscovered) going back thousands of years. If you google bier roads or corpse roads, you can read about them. Is this our own corpse road?

Hi Audrey Paul - the couple that lived at 321 Bear Road were Mr & Mrs Tamlyn, he was their Uncle's brother.

Hi Julie, do you mean number 32 Mafeking Road? My mum lived at 34 with her mum, dad, and sister Joyce, Cliff, Yvonne, and Maureen (my Mum).

I was always led to believe that that Bear pub was so named because bear-baiting used to take place on this site and I had presumed that this was why it is called Bear Road. I used to deliver morning papers up Bear Road in the early 70s - no fun in the winter.

My family and I lived at 31 Bear Road from 1988 - 2001. It's on the opposite side of the road to the General shop now run by Chris and Colin and its front garden is bounded on the north by a 7 foot brick wall. Wondered if anyone knows what sort of shop it used to be before it was converted to a house - we know it had been a shop because the lower part of the east facing wall in the front room was covered with ceramic tiles which are probably still there now - we covered them with wallpaper? It was good living there although we didn't get to know many people in the area except immediate neighbours (unless we saw them in the Newmarket pub, formerly run by Pauline and Peter Smith).

Hi Chris. I lived in the first house on the right going up Bear Road in 1971. We had the basement flat and garden. There were apple trees and the kids in the houses behind used to scare the life out of me climbing the wall to scrump. On the corner was a little general store. On the opposite side of the road was a butchers. I believe this is where you mean.

On the 1911 Census, my Grandfather lived at number 10 Belle Vue cottages with my grandmother and their 3 daughters. Were they called Redvers Villas, as I have seen a photograph of my Mother outside a house with that name on it. She would have been about 5 or 6 at the time.

I have been researching my family tree and identified that my great great great grandfather Walter Westgate was the inn-keeper of the Bear Inn from at least 1841-1860. He died in 1866. His granddaughter, Naomi Vickers, lived in Freehold Place across from the inn.

Hi Julia, I lived at 32 Mafeking Road with my parents Henry and Sally Fordham. We moved there in 1958 and I remember Nellie and Stan Ginn.