James Gray: [No comment] jgc_13_002
2018: This view of St John’s Church, built in the 1850s to meet the needs of the rapidly growing population of the Brunswick area development, has changed very little in the 100 years since the original picture was taken. The railings and hedge on the right-hand side of the road have been removed but the green space and flower beds are still there.
James Gray: [No comment] jgc_13_004
2018: This peaceful scene, looking north up The Drive from the top of Grand Avenue at the junction with Church Road, is hard to imagine today.
James Gray: In this photograph is shown one of the few buildings which has undergone a major reconstruction. No 2, The Drive, a handsome mansion, with its entrance in Church Road flanked by two lamp standards, was converted in 1936, to provide ground floor premises for Martins Bank, with other shops built over its back garden. jgc_13_006
James Gray: Looking west along the full length of Church Road, from about the corner of Holland Road. The year of the photograph is not known. However Hove Town Hall (1882) is there and the approaching horse-bus with its knife-board seats suggests a period of the mid or late 1880s. Additional Information: Railings to Palmeira Square Enclosure at left-hand side. jgc_13_008
James Gray: This is more a photograph of the Drive/Grand Avenue than of Church Road, but what a peaceful scene, with no traffic. The almost new-looking War Memorial (1921) so obviously the photograph dates from the very early 1920s. jgc_13_009
James Gray: These two photographs again emphasise the semi-residential nature of this road in its early days. Looking east from the Drive in 1889. The old knife-board horse bus ran from Cliftonville to Kemptown, the Hove terminus being in Church Road, between Medina Villas and Osborne Street. jgc_13_010
James Gray: Above is the view in the opposite direction, about 20 years later in 1910. Note the altered design of the horse buses and the profusion of gas lamps. jgc_13_011
James Gray: A 1976 ‘blow up’ copy of the previous photograph, revealing a great deal more detail. jgc_13_012
2018: This is indeed an enlargement of a portion of the image above, showing the building on the corner of Second Avenue and Church Road looking east. The façades of the four upper storeys remain unchanged, with all the original detailing preserved. The ground floor premises are currently occupied by King & Chasemore, estate agents. (Photographer: David Sears)
James Gray: Photographs from just before the 1914-18 war. This view shows the still mainly residential street. jgc_13_015
James Gray: The Glass annex to Miles shop became motor showrooms. Additional Information: Currently, in 2009, a car radio supplier. jgc_13_021
James Gray: St Johns Church and the eastern portion of Church Road, which was then almost entirely occupied as private houses. jgc_13_028
James Gray: Birds eye view of Church Road. jgc_13_003
2018: This end of Church Road has barely changed in just over a century since the original image was taken from the roof of the west-facing building known as Palmeira Grande, shown in image jgc_13_001 on the Palmeira Square page. From ground level, the tower and spire of St John’s Church can be seen between the trees.
James Gray: Church Road Hove has probably altered less in the last 30 years than any other main road in Brighton and Hove. Structurally, it is almost the same in 1951, as it was in 1921. The people and the buses seem to have changed more than the buildings. jgc_13_005
James Gray: Brighton and Hove bus in Church Road. jgc_13_031
2018: This fine motor charabanc is waiting in the shade for, apparently, a vast horde of passengers, on the right-hand side of the road – in the only spot where this is still possible, for single-decker buses only, in front of Palmeira Mansions at the eastern end of Church Road. In the background are the outlines of St John’s Church to the right and the two-storey buildings on the south of Palmeira Square to the left.
James Gray: This part of Church Road was built in the 1870s and 1880s. It was originally intended to have shops only on the south side, and the buildings on the North side of the road were built as private houses, as shown in this photograph. jgc_13_013
2018: As in the many other photographs of Church Road, the broad outlines of the buildings have not changed and the long upper floor façades on both sides of the road remain intact.
James Gray: ST JOHNS CHURCH – About 1870. As far as I know this is the only photograph to show the church without its tower. When I enquired in 1971 not even the Church authorities knew that this church had been built without a tower, and they assumed that it had been there from the start. Built in 1852/3 and consecrated on 24 June 1854 it remained as seen until 1872. In that year the tower was erected and the clock installed on 29 June that year. jgc_11_059
2018: The tower and spire of St John the Baptist Church have been completed and a vestry added to the south transept, on the left. (Photographer: Helen Glass)