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The Ridgway , Woodingdean

Photographs: then and now
Photo:Ridgway - late 1920s

Ridgway - late 1920s

From the private collection of Jennifer Drury

Photo:Ridgeway - 2002

Ridgeway - 2002

Photography by Jennifer Drury

Audio transcripts

This page was added on 22/03/2006.

Comments:

I forgot to add that my father re-opened the Woodingdean Garage in 1946/7 having bought it from Mr Price who also owned the hardware store in Warren Road and started the first bus service from Brighton to Woodingdean. There was a bus service from Rottingdean to Woodingdean and that was driven by a lovely man called Joe. Another bus driver - Joe Purdy lived across the road from No.97 and used to have to walk home from the Whitehawk bus garage late at night having left the bus there. I have a number of stories about my time in Woodingdean if you would be interested.
By Robert Coe (08/10/2005)
Did you know that there were five pig farms in The Ridgway in the 1940s and that Dolly Chapman lived there? Not sure if it was the Dolly Chapman who started the Woodingdean Tea Rooms but it's possible. And you could walk through the rear of her gardens to Falmer Road. The world's first skateboard was invented by the kids of The Ridgway using one old roller skate and a piece of wood placed on top. The kids used to sit on it and skate the full length of The Ridgway pavement. Should you hit a slab not quite level with the rest, the skate would stop and you would be propelled down the pavement on the seat of your pants. Most lads on the street had the backside out of their trousers. At the north end there is a 1930s house that won a Daily Mail design.
By Robert Coe (09/10/2005)
Mr Coe: I remember those days very well. The skates we had at the time, if you were lucky to have two!, was Motion!! An old Beano Album on top of one skate was a buzz, the metal foot and heel steps would push into the hard back cover of your old, if not current, Annual - and then your off!! After a while, due to the loss of knuckles and heels of shoes, we decided to remove the leather toe and heel straps, remove the big butterfly nut that gave you foot adjustment, nail each end of the skate (nails too long bend over), add to old off cuts of scaffold board - sorted! From Bexhill Road down Cowley Drive and of course the Ridgway Run. The UK's First Skateboard.
By Roger Dean (28/12/2005)
Additional thoughts: Thank you Roger Dean for adding fact to my skateboard story. Perhaps you might remember the huge six-wheel go-cart that used to charge down Crescent Drive South at breakneck speed with up to eight kids on board? Woodingdean during WW2 was an exciting place for the children of the area. I am still in touch with some of them. Over the hills from the village was Ballsdean used by the Army for training purposes. This proved to be a great temptation for the local boys because live ammunition, mortar bombs and the like could be found and, sometimes 'borrowed'. One young lad and his pal brought home an explosive device of some kind. Putting it in a vice in their garden shed, they hit it with a hammer and it went off blowing the roof off the shed and taking the first finger and thumb off one of the lads. His mate received scrapnel in his stomach. I am pleased to say that both survived and are alive and well at the time of writing. This was just one of such incidents. I wonder how we would be judged in today's climate? On VE Day the lads of The Ridgway decided to hold a bonfire celebration with the street party. A huge bonfire was built around one of the street lights and put to the torch. The metal pole of the light consequently melted. Next morning when it had cooled down it was seen to have drooped so that the top of the pole reached halfway to the ground. Needless to say all hell broke loose next day but the culprits were never found. There are so many memories of the area to be told and for history's sake I ask others to contruibute. On the 50th Anniversary of VE Day a great many of the children who attended the celebrations in the Downs Hotel were brought together by my pal Ginger Weller for a re-union.
By Robert Coe (01/02/2006)
Dolly Chapman was was my mother. She worked at Joy's Cafe in Falmer Road. It was owned by someone called Chapman but he was no relation. My father grew up at Race Hill Farm and my grandparents lived at 130 The Ridgway which thy bought in the 1920s with the intention of running a chicken farm. I still bear the scars from falling off a home-made go-cart which careered down The Ridgway.
By Maureen Mcentee (nee Chapman) (31/05/2006)
Maureen Chapman: Are you the daughter of Dolly and Wally? If so I knew you well as a child. I also knew your Mum and Dad although I believe he was in the RAF during World War II and did not see much of him. Did he serve in Germany as a Flight Sergeant? I think I remember you - you had a very long garden at your house at the bottom of The Ridgway. At the bottom of the garden were apple trees which used to take the interest of the local lads for 'scrumping'. Your Mum caught us lads at 'scrumping' her apples one time and chased us off through the fields and woods which linked up through to Falmer Road at that time. Did Mr Lonegan live in the big, wooden house with a rambling garden, next door to you? I believe he was Canadian and wore a device to allow him to speak as he actually had a hole in his throat. There were two 'scrumper' lads in particular your Mum always made a bee-line for. No names but one lived in an asbestos house in The Ridgway. At the 50th anniversary of D-Day my oldest friend and best man at my wedding 'Ginger' Weller who lived at the top of The Ridgway brought together all the 'children' of the D-Day Party in the Downs Hotel. I am not sure whether you were there but a number from The Ridgway and Warren Farm School were there including the Browns, the Gosdens and the Purdys. Since that time I have moved back to Brighton from Ireland where I lived for 35 years and taken up my friendship with 'Ginger'. I have also been in correspondence with and also met Margaret Brown. They were happy days for which I have fond memories but like many ageing men I can rabbit on and on. But I feel that my memories are part of the simple history of the age and, as such, should be preserved.
By Robert Coe (11/07/2006)
Once upon the time I was living in 90 The Ridgway, Woodingdean. It was exactly 28 years ago. I went to Brighton Technical College and had a good time in Woodingdean with my family. Now, after so many years, I, my wife and our children are going to visit Brighton and obviously Woodingean. We are going to visit England for 5 days and I will be in Woodingdean on 22 July 2006. I can't tell you about my feelings and all the old memories in Brighton.
By Mohammed H. (17/07/2006)
Hello Mohammad. I hope you enjoyed your visit to Woodingdean. After No 97 we went up to the top of The Ridgway to No. 10 and I left there in 1957 went to live in Eley Drive, Rottingdean, then to Falmer Road, Rottingdean. And to Dublin, Ireland, where I lived fo 34 years. Now back and living in Kemptown. Your house, No. 90, must have been on the opposite side of the road and up a bit from No. 97. Possibly it took the place of the Gosden's home. I also went to Brighton Technical College for a number of years and studied a variety of subjects.
By Robert Coe (27/07/2006)
Yesterday, July 27, 2006, I received a telephone call from William Head who now live in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Bill once lived in Eley Drive, Rottingdean, when he was about four years of age, next door to my wife who was four at the time. She claims he was her first boyfriend. Bill emailed a photograph to us to show the two of them together. Bill's family moved to The Ridgway, Woodingdean, quite near to where I lived with my grandparents in No 220, later re-numbered to No. 97. Around 1940/41, after I had been evacuated from London due to the blitz, we became pals through the mob of kids who lived in the area. I believe Bill's house was next door to a Mr Lidford who built my grandparents' bungalow in 1937. From our recent telephone consversation it transpired that we both worked for The Evening Argus around the same time but he worked in the Accounts department in North Street, while I was serving a printing apprenticeship in the printing works in Robert Street. They are now flats and apartments. He also said that my father who ran the Woodingdean Garage at the time acquired a tyre for his motor-cycle; no mean achievement in 1952/3. Bill found us again through this web-site. As did Maureen Chapman.
By Robert Coe (27/07/2006)
Maureen Chapman: my grandfather Ronald George Chapman talked about relatives at Race Hill Farm where he would ride a horse. It would be great to find out more about relatives who lived at the farm.
By Shane Grover (29/07/2006)
Re Shane Grover 29-7-2006: I suggest you contact Peter Mercer, author of 'The Hunns Mere Pit', a history of Woodingdean. The Race Hill Farm and the Chapman family are written up in it on pages 98/99. I do not have Peter's address but his publisher is The Book Guild Ltd., 25 High Street, Lewes, Sussex. Peter's father built my grandparents' (the Halls') bungalow in The Ridgway, Woodingdean. I will also be contacting a lady who attends my wife's church as I believe she has the address of Maureen Chapman, now in Liverpool.
By Robert Coe (22/08/2006)

My father was George William Chapman and I know all about the Race Hill farm. I also know all relatives who lived there. Aunt Peggy is still alive and well, as is Uncle Roy and Uncle Gordon. Sadly the rest have passed away. It is nice to know that Cousin Maureen is about in Liverpool, and also Second Cousin Shane.

By Joyce Chapman (15/04/2007)

Hello Joyce Chapman, I'm Shane's mum, Pat. I and cousins Maureen and Sylvia would love to hear from you we're all into Family History.

By Patricia Grover (01/05/2007)

Hi Pat, it's nice to hear from my cousin. I haven't heard or seen you, Maureen or Sylvia for years. I have been trying to find out information about the farm, but I keep coming to dead ends. It is very strange if you ask me. I don't know what you three have come up with. Please stay in touch via breing@aol.com. I am now living in Wales, the best thing I ever did.

By Joyce Chapman (08/05/2007)

We lived at #61 from about 1960 or 61 to 1968 and then moved to Balsdean Road, from there we moved to Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, and from there to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. We had lots of fun rolling down the Ridgeway, going to Rudyard Kipling and flying kites free "got a tiger in your tank!" from the Gas station on the green around the corner.

By Deborah (16/07/2008)

I lived in a prefab in 13 Rudyard Road with my sister Edith and brother Ronnie. I attended Woodingdean Primary School from 1952 to 1959. I remember posting letters at the post box in the Ridgeway and walking to the Church hall to collect orange juice and dried milk with my mother. My father Ronald Latham played cricket for Downs C.C. We used to play on scrubland nicknamed 'the dump' which is now a park in Kipling Avenue. The names I can remember in the street were Cheeseman, Neame, Wilson, Hall, Bibby, Ward, Daniel, Boniface, Grooms, James, Weller, Kelly, Eke and Langridge. Does anyone remeber this?

By Malcolm Latham (09/08/2008)

Hello Malcolm, I don't know whether you remember me, only I'm your first cousin! Harold (my father) was your father's brother or one of them. What a small world. Sheer chance to stumble upon this site. Trust you are well.

By John Latham (01/12/2008)

Hi John, do I remember you? Yes I do and Marian and Alan and Auntie Bet. I remember you as a boy showing me your new football boots just before you played for Brighton Reserves against Aldershot. My Dad Ron, myself and Uncle Harold enjoyed many a moment at the Albion and in Kensington Gardens with your Dad's barrow of bric-a-brac.
My wife Phyll and I are tracing the family and we are back to 1812. Nice hearing from you. Keep in touch.

By Malcolm Latham (02/12/2008)

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