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Can you identify this busy shopping street?

Can you identify this busy shopping street of the early 1900s?

The shops have plate glass windows and exterior gas lighting to illuminate them at night.

But where was it?  Let us know what you think and then we will publish a photograph of the same spot taken recently.

As promised here is a shot of – yes it was Western Road – taken in 2009.  Amazingly, no cars on this one either!

Busy Brighton shops c1900
Image reproduced with kind permission from Brighton and Hove in Pictures by Brighton and Hove City Council
Western Road photographed in 2009
Photo by Tony Mould

Comments about this page

  • It’s Western Road.

    By Carol Homewood (06/06/2009)
  • I believe this is Western Road. As Seymour and Seymour at No. 44 and Mary Yorke at No. 45. According to 1917 Pikes.

    By Jeremy (06/06/2009)
  • Wow, that’s a hard one! I would take a shot in the dark and say Western Road, but I’m bound to be wrong!

    By Kevin Latch (07/06/2009)
  • This is an early photograph of Western Road, Brighton.

    By Paul (07/06/2009)
  • Extreme left, two thirds of the way down, looks like a ‘sandwich man’. Didn’t I hear that they were now illegal? Anyway, as far as I can make out, it must be Western Road but not sure just where. No doubt all will be revealed shortly.

    By John Wall (07/06/2009)
  • My mother worked in Mary Yorke’s when she first left school. She was born in 1911 therefore it would have been around the 1930s. It was a ladies lingerie shop. Am now racking my brains to remember more about it and where it was, I think it was Western Road, south side, Clock Tower end.

    By Anne Skuse (07/06/2009)
  • Notice something else? No cars

    By Sandra (08/06/2009)
  • This is obviously Western Road. I was there about 40 years ago.

    By Mabel Gargan (12/06/2009)
  • Is it not a shame that people do not take the trouble to don their smartest attire to go shopping anymore, as would seem to be suggested from comparing the two pictures?

    By Jeremiah (13/06/2009)
  • For those of you who had pondered upon the shops shown in the mystery road and the dating of the picture, the photo shows the south side of Western Road, taken around 1901/2.
    #46 S.D.Thomas & Co. was set up around 1866 and lasted until WW1.
    #45 Madame Mary Yorke was a Milliner and had only recently set up.
    #44 Seymour & Seymour were fine art dealers, also recently set up. They too, lasted until WW1.
    #43 Edmund Wheeler set up as a photographic artist around 1871 and lasted until around 1910. He may possibly have taken the photo
    #37 The building with a large advert. Edward Jarvis was a recently set up Mantle Warehouse & Clothiers.

    By Andy Grant (15/06/2009)
  • Does anyone have information on #37, Edward Jarvis’ mantle warehouse and clothiers?  Edward was my husband’s great great uncle. I believe he was also a local councillor.

    By Pauline Jarvis (09/06/2017)
  • In 1914 #37 was Beardall’s Mantle warehouse.

    By Geoffrey Mead (11/06/2017)

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