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Hollingdean

Toomeys, Roedale Road

By Joy Whittam

This article originally appeared in the November 2006 issue of Hollingdean News - an independent community newsletter produced and distributed by Hollingdean residents.

Last month, I asked if anyone had memories of working at Toomeys in Roedale Road which has been completely demolished in the last few weeks. The site had had a long use by various laundry companies from the late 1890s onwards and a laundry building on the site built in 1939 was extended in about 1960 onto the land occupied by two smaller concerns, to form the building fronting onto Roedale Rd and Hollingdean Terrace.

A reader from Dudley Rd kindly contacted me to tell me about the life of the building in the late 1950s when it was the warehouse for Wallis Holder and Lee wholesale grocers, where she worked as an office junior.

The company moved from East St in about 1959 where they had offices and storage - not an easy place to access loading bays with delivery lorries, which might be why they moved to Hollingdean. In the East St warehouse they even smoked their own bacon hung from rafters, but did not continue this at the 'new' store.

They were a large concern, delivering canned and dry goods as well as household groceries to shops in town and to all the outlying village shops, of which in those days there were many. Our reader recalls seeing the upstairs of the store full of selection boxes ready for Christmas!

At Roedale Rd the loading bay was to the front of the building but the office was sited in the house nearest to what is now the Cabin chip shop on Hollingdean Rd. There was a pathway connecting to the back of the house, which had no garden, between the office and the warehouse which the office girls could use, and saved having to walk all the way round the corner.

Another reader contacted to say that she had recollections of going to the building as a 'cash and carry' in the 70s and that it was still operating then as a grocery business. Wallis Holder and Lee later moved to Newhaven and the building was taken over by Toomeys who also used the long building in nearby Dudley Rd (now a church) to store refrigeration units.

Toomeys site from Roedale Rd after demolition November 2006

Photo: J.Whittam

This page was added on 04/01/2007.

Comments:

I remember working alongside Toomeys in 1968 when they had a retail showroom on the corner of Regency Mews. I never had reason to go in there, but I used to go past it every morning and evening, up Regency mews to Moores Garage. They had one in Silwood Street that was Rovers and Land Rovers. Mine was Triumph, Daimler, Jaguar, Rolls Royce, Bently and new car preparation bay. Ahh, those were the days! There were showrooms at Mitre House,Western Road and one at the Old Stiene. They go back to 1920 and Reg Winterborn was still there until about 1995, he was working there for about 70 years. He taught me. He was the best. I'd like to talk to anyone that knows me or him.

By Ron Edmonds (16/01/2007)

I have lived in Burstead Close for 11 years now. As I walk though Burstead Woods, I see roses and other plants growing wild. Can anyone tell me if there used to be gardens there at one point?

By Chris Jones (12/03/2007)

Dear Chris Jones
By the 1920's the land of Lower Roedale farm at the end of Stanmer Villas had been divided up (see other pages soon to come in this section or Hollingdean News March 2007 issue). The old dairy buildings in Stanmer Villas and surrounding ground (now Burstead Close) were being used by the Brighton Corporation Parks and Gardens department as nurseries and a depot. Lower Roedale public allotments were well established in the lee of the small valley and many more stretched uphill, on the land later to become the development of Brentwood Road. There is an interesting aerial photo dated 1946 (see "Seedy Business" Moulsecoomb Forest Garden publication) which shows that the land later built on to make Burstead Close is bordered by allotments and still marked out in small fields which would have been smallholding size. There were also originally sizeable flower and veg gardens surrounding Golf House, which still sits next to the Burstead flats, and around the farmhouse demolished in the mid 60's which stood at the site of the lower bus stop on Brentwood Road. Burstead woods as a plantation are evident on maps for many decades previously and very clear on the 1946 photo so I don't think there were gardens directly on that site. My guess is that there would have been plenty of potential sources for roses and other garden flowers to migrate from, either deliberately planted or via compost heaps etc. I am currently finding out more about the history of Roedale Nurseries, what was grown there and where - this may also have provided plant escapees! I could also put your question forward in Hollingdean News which gets a good response from our long time residents.

By Joy Whittam (19/03/2007)