James Gray: Established here, at No 51 Gardner Street, as long ago as 1883, [the cork shop] just managed to reach its century, but the owner then decided to close down. The old shop front was carefully dismantled and moved to the Brighton Museum and re-erected there. Photographed on 29 May 1983. jgc_25_071
2021: The Beall & Co. shop front pictured in Gray’s photograph is still on display in Brighton Museum, representing many other small, quirky independent businesses now gone. No 51 Gardner Street is intact although the brick façade and upstairs blank windows have been rendered over. It is still a shop and over the past 30 years or so Fabric Fair – an Aladdin’s cave of fabrics, buttons, haberdashery etc – has also established itself as something of a Brighton institution. (Photographer: David Jackson)
James Gray: This charitable school was established at 12 Gardner Street in 1820, and the inscription which is still legible in the 1930s reads ‘Swan Downer, Esq., who died 22 February 1816, aged 81 years, bequeathed £8,100 for clothing and educating poor girls of this parish. The trustees appointed under his will erected this school, A.D. 1820’. The school did not remain long in these premises and by the 1850s it had moved to the National School in Church Street. jgc_25_099
James Gray: Gardner Street at the junction with Church Street, date 1947. This street was laid out just a few years earlier than Kensington Gardens and most of its buildings were occupied as shops right from the start. jcg_25_141
2018: The two end buildings housing Dockerills & Kirk’s were demolished to permit a road widening scheme in Church Street. Otherwise, as in 1947, Gardner Street is entirely given over to retail. Note the pub sign in the top right corner: the William IV is still open and serving food and drink. (Photographer: David Jackson)
James Gray: Gardner Street dating from about 1820, nos 44, 45, 45A photographed on 21 March 1965, prior to demolition. On the cleared site is now being built a Tesco supermarket. As its appearance suggests, 45 and 45A was a large private house and was still in private occupation until 1891. jgc_25_143
2018: This parade of shops was demolished by Tesco to house a larger Tesco store that later became the Jubilee Shopping Hall and now the Komedia entertainment centre. It is the only section of Gardner Street that has been completely rebuilt. All the other buildings are early 19th century originals although frequently modified at ground floor level. (Photographer: David Jackson)
James Gray: A photographic copy of an 1880s engraving showing the building [on the corner of Gardner Street and North Road] when occupied by clothiers, Oliver Weston and Tugwell. jgc_25_175
James Gray: [One of] three photographs, jgc_25_172,3 and 4, of the tiny first Marks and Spencer shop in Brighton, at the corner of North Road and Gardner Street. It was opened after the end of the 1914/18 war, and was known as the Bazaar, selling household items and clothing at very cheap prices. The shop was closed in the mid-1930s soon after the present large store in Western Road was erected. The year of the photographs is not known but it is obviously in the 1920s. jgc_25_172
2018: Infinity Foods, a pioneering wholefoods shop, has occupied the building since 1972. The doorway in the 1920s photograph has been removed but the drainpipe appears to be still intact. (Photographer: Alice Jackson)
James Gray: [See jgc_25_172 above.] jgc_25_173
2018: This corner site is still given over to retail and houses Infinity Foods. (Photographer: Alice Jackson)
James Gray: [See jgc_25_172 and 173 above.] jgc_25_174
2018: Marks and Spencer has moved to larger premises and the shop is now occupied by Infinity Foods. (Photographer: Geoffrey Kavanagh)