Clarks of Hove Ltd.
Clarks bakers shop.
From the private collection of Michael Clark
Clarks factory Newtown Road.
From the private collection of Michael Clark
Clarks the Bakers, was located at the junction of Newtown Road and Fonthill Road, Hove. The second photograph shows the bakery in Newtown Road. I believe that I took these two photos in the early 1970’s when Clarks had several bakers shops in the Brighton and Hove area.
1d bag of stale cake
The shop that I remember well was the one in Portland Road at the top of St Heliers Avenue Hove. On my way to school at West Hove Junior School in the early 1950s, I would buy a 1 penny bag of stale cake.
Do you remember Clarks the Bakers?
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My mum worked in the office of Clark’s in the 50’s and can still remember the names of her colleagues.
My late father in law Vic Maggs worked there – I think today you would call it maintenance. When first courting my now hubbie of 48 years – I would go to Sunday tea with a delicious array of cakes on the table. I recall buying from their shop in Western Road , their shepherd’s pie – very yummy.
My Grandparents lived in Fonthill Road and I remember many times going over to the corner shop as a young lad in the 60’s and 70’s to buy many a fine pastry, pies and bread and chatting to the two ladies that worked there.
Still remember the lorries parked in Newtown Road unloading flour via the conveyer ramps that would extend from the building to the lorries.
Fond memories of Clark’s! My mother would take my sister, brother and I to visit her mother in North Moulsecoomb, in the sixties. My Nan was a lovely,jovial woman who always bought Clark’s fattest cream cakes for us. I think they had a shop in North Road.
My mum worked at Clarks for years in cake despatch, starting at 4am and finishing at 8am, she used to pass my Dad as she cycled home and he cycled to work. I worked as a Saturday boy on deliveries, with a lovely bloke called Charlie who had difficulty walking from an injury from the war. Our delivery route started at carden avenue and ended at the Felbridge hotel just outside East Grinstead. Getting the head chef to sign for delivery, was scary as he seemed to always be in a foul mood. It was a great Saturday job though, £1.50 well earned.
Thank you for this page, Michael.
I’ve seen wonderful Clarks/Clark’s adverts going back to at least the early 1900s, when there was emphasis on the bread being machine-made, and of it being the “purest and best” in Brighton. The bakery “obtained the unprecedented distinction of being awarded the prize medal of the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain”.
I’ve early but clear recollections of Clarks in Rottingdean High Street. The branch was between Floods the Chemist and the Queen Victoria pub. I’m speaking of the early to mid ‘70s. There was a big selection of cakes and a popular cafe : the closure of the branch must have disappointed a few. What were the reasons for the disappearance of Clark’s ? Thereafter Manson’s further up the High Street remained possibly the only bakery in the village.
My earliest memory of Clark’s was when I was about 9 years old. My dad Leon Keene had just bought the company for a £1 with John Bentley. Basically it was bankrupt. I only visited once as we lived in London but what I do remember was the large number of vans in the depot and being taken into the refrigerator which I was told at the time was the largest in the country. It was so big it had fork lift trucks working in it. I also remember taking our corgi around the offices which wouldn’t be allowed today. Sadly it didn’t last long, the company was so rundown and needed massive investment. It closed a few years later.
Thanks for providing this interesting information, Paul, and for your good memory.
My mum worked in Clarks, I think from the mid to late 60s to around 1982.
She was in Boundary Road originally, then Richardson Rd, then somewhere in Brighton but I can’t recall the name of the road. It was a very busy shop.
Mum loved working there.
Her name was Vi Smith, if anyone remembers her?
I had a furniture business in the 70s. On saturday I would set of to Southampton delivering on the way chairs we had made. The trick was to get back to the bakers before they shut at 2.00 for the weekend, on the way back I would buy potatoes or fruit and veg from road vendors (life was fun) If I got back to Clarks in time, I could take what I wanted for a donation to the workers. For five shillings, (25p) I had bread, buns, profiteroles, cakes etc that would have been taken by the piggeries, and lasted my family for near a week.
Hi, my dad, sadly no longer with us, was the bakery foreman and master baker (George Leach). He worked there from about 1956 until it closed. As a teenager in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s I often worked the night shift Friday/Saturday after a week in school as they were often short of labour. If not required on the ovens, I’d be making up the rounds for the delivery drivers who usually arrived shortly after 5am. I still remember offloading flour delivery wagons, in those days it was bagged in 56lb and 112lb bags (25kg and 50kg). This was before the days of lifting and handling regulations. The hovis flour 50kg bags were definitely a challenge to move around.
I worked in the finishing room of the factory on Saturday mornings for 10 shillings a shift. The work was quite hard and trays of cakes were heavy but I enjoyed it. This was in the late 50’s.
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