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North Road

Loaves and fishes sculpture by Eric Gill

Photo: Illustrative image for the 'North Road' page

A mediaeval field boundary

By Geoffrey Mead

North Road was originally a mediaeval field boundary. It was the main shopping High Street when the North Laine was the industrial centre of Brighton. Trams ran up and down here until the 1930s. After the Second World War, the whole area went into decline as manufacturing moved out to the Brighton estates.

There is a stark modern building, with a cross on the far right-hand facade. This is the Brighthelm church and community centre. On the wall of the Centre, there is an attractive sculpture by Eric Gill, illustrating the loaves-and-fishes parable.

This page was added on 23/08/2006.

Comments about this page

My ancestors were listed as living in "North Place" in 1871. Can anyone tell me where that was?

By Christine Simmonds (31/05/2007)

I'm afraid the loaves and fishes sculpture is wrongly attributed here to Gill. The following site gives more details and attributes the work to John Skelton: www.publicsculpturesofsussex.co.uk/object?id=182
John Skelton is a nephew of Gill's who studied with Joseph Cribb (Gill's first apprentice) and Cribb incidentally also has a number of works on buildings around the town - the fire station, Regent House next to the Chapel Royal and the old Brighton and Hove Herald office now 'ha ha' bar.

By Malcolm Lyons (15/11/2009)