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Bert Bassett's meat shop

Bert Bassett’s well known butchers shop was at 48/49 Grenville Place where it joined Upper Russell Street.

This photograph was taken in 1960/61. The shop was demolished in the mid-1960s for the Churchill Square development.

The second photograph was taken in 1930 and appears to be the same shop. The butcher on the right is Charlie Smith the other butcher could be Bert Bassett.

Do you remember Bert Bassett? Did you or your Mum buy your meat in his shop? Why was he ‘Brighton’s Brightest Butcher’? If you can share any memories with us, please leave a comment below.

Bert Bassett's meat shop
Image reproduced with kind permission of The Regency Society and The James Gray Collection
Possibly the same shop, photographed in 1930
From the private collection of Carol Savage.

Comments about this page

  • We lived just down the road in Blucher Place on the carpark and Mum would send me or my older brother John to the butchers. Mum also was a charlady at the shop and also at Molly Lacroix’s convenience store at the top of Russell Street. Mr and Mrs Bassett were a lovely couple and very well respected. I still have the book she gave me at Christmas 1952. Happy memories indeed !

    By Peter Maurice (14/06/2012)
  • You are right Peter, Mr and Mrs Bassett were lovely people and I don’t ever remember Bert without a smile on his face and a big cheery voice. My grandmother (from Willamy’s Guest House in Dyke Road) always bought her meat from him. My sister and I walked past the shop down Upper Russell Street to our school, St Paul’s in Little Russell Street. On the way home we would stop at the sweet shop which I think is the one next door to the butchers. I will never understand why these gorgeous little shops had to be destroyed for the impersonal monstrosity that was the original Churchill Square. To think they called it progress!

    By Patricia Silsby (16/06/2012)
  • I well remember this shop and Mr & Mrs Bassett, they were a lovley couple but they would brook no nonsense which was the order of the day then. Mr Bassett would always have a kind word for anyone even if you weren’t one of his customers, I know this for certain as I lived in Grenville Place for the early part of my life. John Wignall.

    By JOHN WIGNALL (20/06/2012)
  • Did Bert Basset ever hang meat on the outside where the window now is? Did he also have a counter on the side walk with chicken etc on it? I have a photo of my grandfather, Charles Earnest Smith, master butcher, as a young man, standing next to the counter with another butcher- it looks very much like this building. Later Charlie Smith opened his own butchers shop in Oxford Street.

    By Carol Savage (14/09/2012)
  • Charlie is my gt grandfather. I would love to see a picture of his shop in Oxford St.

    By Kate Linscott (20/11/2014)
  • Hi, Kate granddad Smith is the man on the right of the lower photo.You can see a photo of his shop if you look at the James Gray collection of photos. Put in Oxford St and look for image no 49. It is the last shop of the row. Are you Barrie’s daughter? If so I am also interested in the family ancestry.

    By Christine Cozens (17/02/2015)
  • Hi Christine, thanks I will look it up. Yes I am to your question. I can go back to 1617 in our family history. Please contact me.

    By Kate Linscott (17/08/2015)
  • After picking me up from St. Paul’s school , my mum shopped in Berts , I remember it clearly .

    By Susan barnes (28/07/2020)

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