Lover's Walk

James Gray: Another view of demolition. In the background can be seen Lover’s Walk Cottages. jgc_18_108

2019: The original image was taken across the gardens of Nos 157 and 159 Preston Road towards Lover’s Walk Cottages, with 161 Preston Road visible on the right. There is now a block of flats at Nos 157-159 while No 161 was also demolished prior to another development. 

James Gray: The detached villa, No 167, adjoining Lover’s Walk, with its large garden and quaint summerhouse, photographed 16 January 1966. A large office block has replaced it. jgc_18_112

2019: 167 and 165 Preston Road were demolished and replaced by an office block in the 1970s. In the late 1990s permission was granted to convert it into the nine-storey Travelodge Hotel seen here and in jgc_19_120 (on the Preston Road (2) page). (Photographer: Jane Southern)

James Gray: Lover’s Walk was an old path leading to Chandler’s Farm and so on to Preston. Formerly it straggled down from Hamilton Road, between two narrow walls and through allotments, but with the coming of the railway a small arch was made under the embankment to preserve the right of way to the farm and beyond. About 1876 a new wide road was built from Hove crossing Dyke Road and continuing as Highcroft Villas and Dyke Road Drive. This latter was built hard up against Chandler’s Farm Cottages. A bridge across the railway then replaced the small brick archway and Lover’s Walk soon assumed its present form.

James Gray: The house seen to the right in this photograph was The Grove, 167 Preston Road, now replaced by a large office block. jgc_18_114

2019: The view down Lover’s Walk towards Preston Road. On the right is the Travelodge Hotel, at 165-167 Preston Road. On the left, beyond the telegraph pole, which has been moved across the road, Nos 6 and 7 Lover’s Walk were replaced in the 1980s with an office block, which extends into the former rear garden of 169 Preston Road. (Photographer: Jane Southern)

James Gray: [See caption for jgc_18_113 above.] jgc_18_115

2019: The original image was taken across the gardens of 157 and 159 Preston Road towards Lover’s Walk Cottages. The current image has not been taken from exactly the same spot because there is a high wall at the back of ParQ, the block of flats at 157-159. This almost matching image shows the cottages peeping over the new wall with the wall of Dyke Road Drive above them. (Photographer: Jane Southern)

James Gray: A view of the Cottages from within the cleared site of a demolished house in Preston Road, possibly No 167. In the background, wagons in the railway upper goods yard. jgc_18_116

2019: See jgc_18_115 above. (Photographer: Jane Southern)

James Gray: Two of the Victorian villas which were such a feature of this road between the viaduct and The Rockery. Both were built between 1876 and 1880 and had a life of some 80 years. Belmont, No 165, has a high wall and entrance pillars, once uniform along the whole of this stretch of the road. Removed in 1963. jgc_18_122

2019: The original caption seems misleading, as neither of the houses to which it is attached is number 165.