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St James's Street

This photograph shows St James’s Street and the entrance to Steine Street, photographed in 1960.

Burghopes on the corner had moved here from North Street a few years earlier.

Do you remember Burghopes? Did you use the tobacconists opposite? Maybe you called into the Ice Cream Lounge cafe?

If you can share your memories with us, please leave a comment below.

Click on the photograph to open a large image in a new window.

St James's Street 1960
Image reproduced with kind permission of The Regency Society and The James Gray Collection

Comments about this page

  • Just around the left hand corner at the bottom of St James’s St turning to the sea was Clark’s College, in the building with the plaque mentioning Algenon Gideon Mantel. The son of the people who owned the ice cream parlour attended the school but I have forgotten his name. Their milk shakes were the best in Brighton and at that time cost 10d – just under 10p 

    By Ken Ross (04/06/2014)
  • Or perhaps you remember drinking a pint of Toby ale in the pub just round the corner!

    By Peter Groves (04/06/2014)
  • Ken, 10d was just under 5p, mind you 1971 was a long time ago!

    By Peter Groves (04/06/2014)
  • I remember the tobacconists opposite Burghopes. It was called The House of Bewley. I went there for a job when I was about 16. I didn’t get the job thankfully, the place seemed so stuffy with all the smells of the different tobaccos on sale. Bewleys also had a shop just across the Steine in Castle Square. When I went through a phase of pipe smoking I did go to Bewleys for my pipe tobacco which was called House of Holland, if I remember right. 

    By Mick Peirson (05/06/2014)
  • Hi Ken. Not sure 10d is equal to our 10p now? In my memory it was 12 old pennies to a shilling which then became our 5 pence piece. That means your milk shake is now only less than 5p. I well remember 1971 when we went decimal. But not so clear what the old money was anymore.

    By Sandra Bohtlingk-Baldwin (05/06/2014)
  • Remember this well, Jimmy’s  was just around the corner. Pavilion YC used to have their social gatherings at this place, I remember Sir Alex Hume  gave  a visit during the Conservative conference one year. Also the small pub across the road the name escapes me at the moment. Good old times!  

    By Joe Mann (06/06/2014)
  • Thanks for correction re money. In fact when I was buying milk shakes it was in 1948!

    By ken Ross (06/06/2014)
  • The Ice Cream Lounge was run by my mother’s parents, Giorgio and Anna Bertoncini. They sold not only ice cream, but confectionery, snacks and meals. They opened all day, every day apart from Christmas Day. I spent a lot of time there as a young child in the ’50s and remember that the bus drivers and conductors used to come for a cup of tea in their break, often pouring the tea into the saucer to cool it down so they could drink it quickly.

    By Anita Craggs (08/02/2017)
  • I worked in Bertoncini’s in the mid ’60’s washing up after school and weekends. When it was quiet I used to watch the people walking by from the upstairs window wishing I was out there!

    By Trish (05/06/2019)
  • St James’s Street now is not a patch on what is was in the 1950s. There were two beautiful grocery stores: Meads and Liptons and, on the corner of St James’s Street and Dorset Gardens stood Sainsburys – unrecognizable from the business we know today. There were marble top counters and the food was open like a corner shop. If you wanted 2 rashers of bacon, they peeled off 2 rashers. Butter they bashed into a block with wooden mallets. No self-service in those days!

    By Michael Sayers (18/06/2020)
  • My uncle worked in Sainsbury’s in Station Road Portslade about the same time. I remember the slicing machine for the bacon etc and the butter mallets. No self service and quite a small shop with counter down one side I think.

    By Nick Burdett (24/06/2020)
  • My father was Raymond George Hamblett , I believe from anecdotes that he worked there after being demobbed at the end of the 2nd WW. He had a colleague there who became a lifelong friend whose name was Stan Raven. Stan later took up a position at Luckings outfitters in Shoreham. My father went on to work in the family business of my grandfather called Hamblett & Nye who were based in Oxford Street Brighton.
    That business has been mentioned in notes by me elsewhere on this site.

    By Ray Hamblett (11/01/2021)

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