In the early 1970’s Mr. Stone still lived above the butcher shop at 14 Elm Grove which his father purchased in 1912. It had originally belonged to Mrs. Stenning, who established the business in 1884. Mr. Stone recalls:

“I started here on December 23, 1938. Father and mother managed it before me – I worked for them. They came here on November 5, 1912.

I stayed here until I was 17 and then went away to London to have my experiences, and done three years slaughtering; I also went through the business of the butchery shop in two London shops. From there I went to Reading, then to Swindon, and, on the death of my father, I had to come back here.”

Walk up the hill to the junction of Hampden Road.

Mr. and Mrs. Stanger opened their own chemist shop in 1935 at 74 Elm Grove.

“We started with two shops, one in Elm Grove and one further up Elm Grove. Then we bought one at Woodingdean. I did all the buying at No. 74. The other shops sent orders to me each. Eventually we sold Woodingdean- it got too much. In our other shop we had one qualified man and an assistant. In the main store there was me and my wife, another qualified girl, an assistant cleaner; we had a boy with a hand cart for deliveries.”

“I did enjoy business. I was my own boss and had very good staff. Our ambition as chemists was to give service and oblige people. And we made a reasonable profit.

We got married and said we are not going to earn a lot of money and save it. What money we have will go on the children’s education.”

There is still a Pharmacy at no 74 run by Kamson’s and no 78, which was a greengrocer in 1924, is still a greengrocer now called Hilly Laine.

Elm Grove still contains a number of shops mostly on the right hand side as you go up the hill. In 1924 it contained 12 grocers/greengrocers; 2 bakers; 4 butchers; 3 confectioners; 1 fishmonger; 4 tobacconists, and 2 chemists.

At the chemist junction turn down Hampden Road and this will take you to the next street Islingwood Road. Turn right down the hill until you reach No 128.

At no.128 Islingword Road, Archers the Butchers once stood.
The current shop is still called Archers and you will note the signage is very similar to how it might have been in the past.

“Father got to know people in the trade. He was a member of the Association (Brighton and Hove Meat Traders Association). He started at 6:30 and closed at 7:00. Buying was his department. He’d be down there at the meat market at 5:30 or so. I would cut up meat, make sausages, perhaps nipping the odd orders out. We did a mixed trade – you would do because we were reasonably near the front – the boarding house trade. We had a regular trade, 80 percent of the people you served were people you served each week.”

Turn round and start to walk up the hill, and you will walk past no.123 – this used to be a pork butcher back in 1924 and was still a butcher in 1983.

Carry on walking up the hill until you reach no 78.

O’Flinn’s the chemist stood at 78 Islingword Road.

It is interesting to note that this still carries the same name as it did all the years ago when the Shops Book was first written.

“Mrs. O’Flinn qualified at the same time as Mrs. Stanger- both had professional status and were members of the Pharmaceutical Society. In both businesses, there was an element of security which was not evident in the beginnings of poorer general shop-keepers.”

Islingword Road back in the 1920’s contained many different shops including: 3 confectioners; 3 bakers ;10 Greengrocers/grocers; 2 fishmongers; 2 chemists; 2 butchers; 3 beer retailers ( Public Houses); a physician, hairdresser; a Post Office and a pickle manufacturer. As you walk up and down you will see evidence of past shop fronts in among the current shops.

At the chemist cross over the road and start down the hill and turn left down Finsbury Road. You will then arrive at the next key location of Southover Street. Turn right down the hill past the Charles Napier Pub. Keep an eye open for evidence of businesses from the past. Back in the 1920’s the street contained 4 wardrobe dealers together with a range of other shops to serve the daily needs. Continue down till you reach the junction with Ewart Street and you will have reached the first location.

The small shopkeeper was less well off than the professional, had a lower status in the neighbourhood and depended solely upon his family to staff his shop. These ventures were often very risky because they were based on small amounts of borrowed capital and little or no experience in trading. The relative ease of starting a shop of this kind encouraged many to try their hand at it, so that competition was often fierce. In Southover Street alone in 1875, there were 8 grocers, 5 bakers and 8 greengrocers. In 1890, there were 5 confectioners, two of which, Mrs. Payne’s and E. Keeping’s, were next door to one another at numbers 27 and 28! This degree of competition, and the poverty of many of the customers, meant that credit was a necessity. This added to the risk, especially as suppliers frequently demanded cash payments on delivery.

Continue down Southover Street turning left into Belgrave Street. Continue along until you reach the junction with Albion Hill. As you look across you will see Grove Hill, cross here and walk down until you reach Richmond Parade on your right. Turn down the hill and just into Richmond Parade. The flats on the right are on the site of what used to be the southern end of Richmond Buildings; this contained many homes and businesses in the early part of the 20^th century.

Mr. Marshall, the chimney sweep of Islingword Road, remembers shops in Richmond Buildings, which have now been demolished. Amongst them was Mr. Parr’s grocery, which bears many of the marks of the higher class grocer, even though Richmond Buildings was at the centre of one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Brighton. Mr. Marshall recalls:

“Decent people lived there. There were some good shops down there. Several people made fortunes in Richmond Buildings. My family, and Parr’s the grocers, had a couple of lovely shops at 13 and 14. Bill Parr used to live at Southwick – came in every morning with rolled umbrella, bowler and brief case. He had staff – Miss Hawkins, Baker a crippled chap, Tommy Ming, and one of the Taylors and an errand boy. He started on his own. He sold to local people – a good trade. Gave credit till Friday; he had plenty of money, didn’t bother about a bad debt or two.

Mrs. Wheatley’s family experience was similar. It was her mother who possessed the commercial drive in the family: she operated a number of greengrocery businesses at different times in Brighton, Hove and Portslade before moving to Richmond Buildings in November, 1914. Mrs. Wheatley’s mother was typical of the many women proprietors who managed family shops at this time. The directories reveal that women proprietors were common- especially in laundries, greengroceries, confectioneries and various other dealerships.

You have now completed the hilly part of the walk.  To continue with the second half, cross over the Old Steine.  You will see the North Laine Brew House on the corner of Gloucester Street; walk along Gloudcester Street and take the first left Gloucester Road. As you walk up Gloucester Road you will see the entrance to Kensington Gardens on your left. As you walk down here you can note that the street still contains many independent businesses. It is also the place where Anita Roddick first opened the Body Shop in 1976 at No 22.

“Before I lived with my father-in-law, my father was in the wholesale business and had shops in Kensington Gardens. When he died in 1912 I was so young that I had to give the wholesale up, I couldn’t manage it. He died when I was fourteen or fifteen. ‘Course, my mother sold the shops and all that, then I went on the street as a barrow boy. Mother sold the business in 1924. I met me wife and went to live with me father-in-law…I followed my father into the (Greengrocer) trade… I left school at 12. It was horse and cart in those days. My day consisted of 2:30 down the wholesale, come back at 8:00, went to goods yard at the station- had five tons of potatoes- two of us used two barrows- then from there to the passenger station to meet him, in from London with sixty packages. Sometimes we got finished 12:00 at night. I had to come in and do a day’s work in the shop, oh yes, as well. My pocket money was 2s./6d. a week. He made a marvellous profit.”

Turn right at the North Road entrance and then take the first right into Upper Gardner Street.

This was the location for many of the barrow boys and street traders in the past. It is still a busy vibrant market on a Saturday morning selling food, second hand goods and contemporary crafts. 

“We sold along London Road – you had to be careful there – but Gardner Street was our main street. You had to watch out because sometimes the police would be hiding in the shops – we were allowed just that five minutes to stop and serve and that’s all.”

Mrs Wheatley, a shopkeeper, didn’t appreciate the street traders:

“They would be all over the place – some would be down where the mackerel came in, some would carry soft fruit. Well, it was bad for the shopkeeper. If they came through Richmond Buildings with a barrow, they’re selling stuff 2d. or 3d. a pound cheaper than the shops are – naturally that’s going to hit the shop, isn’t it ?”

Turn right at the end of Upper Gardner Street and then turn left into Tidy Street. At the end turn right onto Trafalgar Street. At the end turn left onto London Road and continue along for a few blocks, turning right into Oxford Street.

Street sellers included barrow boys, costermongers and street traders, who were itinerants, without capital, a fixed shop or regular customers.The barrow boys were extremely mobile, both geographically and socially.

Mr. Harding recalls his beginnings:

“I first started in Oxford Street with my father after I left school. He was a navy man really, you see. He was called up. Before the war he worked in a fried fish shop: he used to muck about doing a bit of fishing. He used to clean fish.”

“We were living in Claremont Row, in Sussex Street, until we got a little better off. Dad came out the navy and started up on his own in the market, in Oxford Street. Originally, this market was made for ex-servicemen only, see. I don’t know if they paid anything for the stalls”

Oxford St still contains a number of small shops, interestingly no 29 is still dealing with watches as it was in the 1920’s.

As you reach the end of Oxford St you will have arrived at the Level. This was the site of many market stalls in the early part of the 20th Century.

The Level was the site for many market sellers at the start of the 20th century.

‘After a while they shifted us out of Oxford Street- I don’t know if there were any complaints or what. Anyway they found us a place on the Level, in Oxford Street,  you more or less took your own pitches. You didn’t argue about it, you just pitched there every day- same on the Level. We had an association – if you can call it that. Some used to go through the street selling fish in barrows – they weren’t barrow boys, they were classed as hawkers. Sunday morning they’d come round with herrings, shouting out. When the markets came, there weren’t many of them left. We were tied – we just stood there. We weren’t supposed to shout out our wares. We were better off than the hawkers, we used to be all day there, didn’t we? People came through there. We sold all kinds, see.’

Turn left and cross over Francis Street and on your left, you will see the entrance to the Open Market the final stop.

The Open market has been a feature of Brighton Life since the 1800’s. The market underwent major development in the early part of the 21st century and reopened as a covered market in 2014.

As the Open market moved from Oxford Street after the First World War, to the Level, then to Marshall’s Row, and on to its present position, it took with it some barrow boys who had pitches on these sites. Both Johnnie Stevens and Mr. Harding, a fishmonger, followed this route from barrow boy to the relative security of a position in the open market, virtually a shop-keeper.

One notable feature of the poorer working shopkeeper’s business was its social function. Shopping, though a chore, became a pleasurable and integrating activity in the neighbourhood. This social element was less evident in the professional shops.

Thus the shop functioned as a citizens advice bureau, gossip exchange, information centre and betting office. Some shopkeepers were also money lenders. Distrust of doctors, as well as inability to afford their fees, encouraged many to go to the chemist for advice and home remedies: it was a form of community health centre.

The small local shop served a social purpose in providing a focus for neighbourhood life. The few that remain still carry on this tradition, but today shopping has lost many of its social functions, and has become simply buying.

You have now reached the end of the walk. We hope this has highlighted how shopping has changed in Brighton.