All the signs pointed to tough time for beggars

THE study of street signs can be a hobby in itself; here are a few, past and present, that I know of.

Fred Pettitt's accounts of Seaford 120 years ago include a note that in Sutton Road was a board saying: 'Warning to beggars. Anyone found begging in this town will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law. Signed Inigo Gell, Town Clerk'.

Long-term Seaford residents speak of a wall at the bottom of the High Street with a mark of the height reached by flood waters in the great storm of 1875. On the side wall of No 21 Church Street in the passage leading to Crypt Villas there used to be a sign directing callers to 'the horse doctor' or similar words. The museum was concerned by its precarious hold on the wall and tried to save it but sadly while we were making inquiries about ownership, it disappeared. Similarly, we were out of luck when we tried to rescue the well-known traffic sign at the town end of Sutton Avenue, warning motorists that there were seven schools in the next mile.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Sea salt in the air can be blamed for several carved stone memorials (such as that on the wall of the old schoolhouse in Steyne Road) being drastically eroded over the years, as

had lettering on gravestones in the parish churchyard, though some of those with their backs to the sea have survived almost intact. In the late 1940s, it was realised that the First World War memorial, standing on a tiny hedged plot near the sea in Dane Road, had suffered in the same way; when the memorial was renovated to include those lost in the Second World War it was re-sited where so many people assembled recently for Remembrance Day services.

Some 30 years ago people were worried about the small flint building off Church Street (once hidden by the cottages of Pinders Square). The Crypt, as it is called, an important part of Seaford's heritage, was looking derelict. After archaeologists' research, a small wooden notice was fixed on its north-facing wall alongside what was then a public car park. Alas, folk had little opportunity to read and learn that the building had once been 'the undercroft of a 13th century merchant's house' before the sign was shaken loose by vehicles backing into it and one day ... yes, like the horse doctor's, the notice was gone.

Pinders Square itself was badly damaged in an enemy air-raid and subsequently cleared out of existence. Its old sign can be seen on the wall behind the marching Air Training Corps column in Church Street. Enemy action cannot be blamed for the fire that gutted the nearby Old Town Hall in June 1989. Re-built within a year including restoration of some features described in old books, it carries a plaque with a brief description of its history, unveiled by retiring chairman of Lewes District Council, Group Captain John Palmer.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The story of the Crook family who lived at Telesmaure on the sea-front/corner of Dane Road includes a note that their handyman Mr Banks had a dog whose kennel bore the warning sign: 'Jock, timber splitter and bone polisher, teeth inserted here gratis',

Royal Academician Sir Frank Short (more about him in a future piece) lived for some years at Ingleside, Claremont Road, and a plaque by the front door records this fact. In view of the current anxiety over our trees, it is interesting to note that the planting of new ones in Broad Street to commemorate our Queen's coronation was marked by the unveiling of a plaque on the (then) Post Office wall. At present there is a gap in our history of these trees: did they replace some destroyed by bomb blast in the air-raid in October 1942?

PAT BERRY

Related topics: