Category:Queens Road, Brighton

The top of Queens Road before the demolition of the Terminus Hotel. [image info]

2012: Cellars below Queens Road, showing just how far the road level was raised. Photo taken during the construction of the Ibis Hotel in 2012 [image info]

2012: Cellars below Queens Road [image info]

Queens Road runs directly away from the Brighton Station down to the Clock Tower, after which the roadway continues down to the sea, as West Street.

History

Queens Road was created in 1844 by Brighton Corporation with a funding contribution of two thousand pounds from the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway to improve the access to the station and make it easier for visitors to Brighton to get to the rest of the town.

The new road was wide, had a reasonably mild gradient and provided an easy way for traffic to get to the station - previously, the main access route to the station was supposed to be Trafalgar Street, with its narrow road and nasty top gradient, which led down to the comparatively flat Grand Parade, Brighton's original entranceway when most Brighton visitors arrived by road.

Although Queens Road wasn't as grand as Grand Parade, and didn't obviously lead to anywhere of note other than the sea, it provided a useful roadway from the station to North Street and the centre of town (albeit not quite as central as the other end of North Street, which had the Chain Pier, Volks Railway, Town Hall, and more).

The bottom end of Queens Road became more interesting with the addition of the Jubilee Clock Tower in 1888.

Construction

In order to produce Queens Road's smooth gradient, sections of the road and of existing roadway had to be raised up with brickwork, and substantial sections of the road are actually built on brick arches. As a result of this ground-raising exercise, some of the houses ended up with their original entrances one story underground, and had to have new doorways created to the street from what had previously been their first floors. In some of these buildings, visiting their basements results in a slightly confusing moment as you find yourself in an underground room with bay windows.

For a while, tunnels linked these old entrances below the new road level, and the small section of green space to the East of Queens Road could be accessed from below road level by the occupants of the houses opposite.

Toys and models

Coastal Stamp Auctions, 36 Queens Road, sells vintage model cars and trains, as well as stamps

Closed

The BBC Shop used to sell toy Daleks and other Doctor Who-related merchandise.
Vale Link, 26 Queens Road, Brighton had a collectors' shop until their lease expired in 2011
Geobright, 28 Queens Road, used to make glass animals and jewelery
Hailey Models ("H Models"), 46 Queens Road, Brighton, made wooden buildings and other model railway accessories
Rudolf & George Louis Handwerck's Pictorial Centre produced and sold postcards, and had a pretty shop at No.18B Queens Road