Trevor Povey's Fishersgate Tales
By Peter J Stoker
Trevor talks about Fishersgate
Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive
Trevor Povey local historian
Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive
The house I was born in
Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive
Here I am!
Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive
Down by the water
Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive
Fishersgate plaques
Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive
Trevor Povey, an engineer by trade, was born in Fishersgate and has seen a lot of changes over the years.
Trevor Povey's Fishersgate Tales
By Peter J Stoker
Trevor Povey, an engineer by trade, was born on the Portslade-Fishersgate border and has seen a lot of changes to the area over the years.
Fishersgate - a new Industrial town
Fishersgate has nearly all been renewed with 1960s housing. 1870s Fishersgate was mainly agricultural. With the coming of the Gas Works in 1870 homes for the new workforce were built on the fields close to the main Shoreham Road. By 1872 there were four streets.
A mixed population
As the locals were either boatmen or farm workers and lacking the skills of the gas company, large numbers of people from all over the country came to work here: Geordies, Scots, Yorkies and Welsh settled in Fishersgate making a very mixed population.
Fishersgate grows
Engineering works like the famous Metal Box Company were established, there was an old windmill which had been used for making cement. Flinns the Dyers and Cleaners built their factory in Fishersgate. Flinns chimney was the local landmark which could be seen from a great distance. Steadily the number of houses grew and a school, shops, a pub (making 3) and several chapels were added. Fishersgate had its own Coastguard station (conveniently next to the fish and chip shop).
Fishersgate Halt
The railway built in 1840 passed Fishersgate on its way to Shoreham. Fishersgate Halt was added in 1905 making the area much more accessible. The Fishersgate Inn stood by Fishersgate Halt. Its name was changed to the Gladstone Inn but it had a fire and the area where it stood is now covered by flats. Much of the industry has gone and there is but one shop. The rows of neat little houses were replaced in the 1960s by flats designed with workers in mind.
Norman origins
Until the late 1800s Fishersgate consisted of a tithe barn (now demolished), a couple of farm cottages just south of the railway (also now gone), a row of cottages at right angles to the main Brighton Road by the western corner of Fishersgate recreation ground and a pub called the Gardner's Arms which has been gone for many years. Fishersgate dates back to Norman times when it was a Hundred. Fishersgate hundred was split in to two half hundreds for administration purposes. Lord Howard, the Lord High Admiral of all England stayed (in what is now the doctors house), in Southwick Street.
Sold for £550!
He had a map made of all the likely landing places and best places to put fire beacons in preparation for the Spanish Armada. Because he had a vested interest Fishersgate and Eastbrook are shown on the map. In 1578 Lord Howard sold Eastbrook for £550 to Henry (dog) Smith a London Alderman. The "Dog Smith Charity is still helping organisations to this day. Before the gasworks in 1870, Fishersgate was mainly farmland. The Gardner brothers were the main tenants and they lived in Eastbrook (now Southwick) manor house. Eastbrook Manor was reached by a track from Portslade where Eastbrook Road now stands.
A 'company' town
The gas works was, in effect, a self-contained town with sports and social clubs, a bowling green, cycling clubs, their own fire brigade and fist aid staff. A large number of people from Fishersgate were employed by the gas works. The gas works helped to keep the rates low.
A Fishersgate 'cockney'!
I was born on the boundary of Fishersgate and Portslade - 38 Shelldale Crescent . The houses were built on the last bit of allotment in 1938. In 1933 there a great number of allotments. The area around where the Gardens link Fishersgate to Southwick was at one time mostly allotments. The path running at the bottom of our garden was the border between East and West Sussex and also the boundary between the Rape of Bramber and the Rape of Lewes. You can still follow this path from the old road near the canal just west of BritanniaWharf right up across the Old Shoreham Road and out on to the Downs. I have often been mistaken for an Eastender although I am true Portsgate and as a result was always known as a Fishersgate cockney!
Old makes way for new
On the road adjacent to the harbour it was all houses. In the 1960s they were knocked down and replaced by flats. Some of the "old 'uns" moved out into Summer Close a warden operated sheltered housing scheme built where the Congregational Chapel had been. Their children, now with young families of their own occupied the new flats. Now it's the turn of their children to occupy the flats and so on.
My first swimming lesson is nearly my last!
I asked Freddie Harlot who had boats if I could go on one. He said "only if you can swim". My granddad said "if he couldn't' before, he can now" and chucked me in the locks. I had to climb out sopping wet.
A grisly wartime tragedy
There were massive tanks along the quay beside the retorts at the gas works, one night during a black out, someone had left a manhole cover open - it was all boiling water underneath. My granddad was walking along with a mate when he disappeared. His mate fell in and was boiled to death in seconds. The old boy never forgot the incident
Old hamlets remembered
The little hamlet of Hazleholt and the hamlet of Brambledean are long gone and forgotten but their memory is kept alive by roads named after them. Laylands Road takes its name from the local big house near the coast road which was called Laylands. An interesting thing is that all the pubs round here served as meeting places for different tradesmen. Social drinking, as such, is a relatively new phenomenon. If you were a builder more often than not your next job would come from a meeting in a pub rather than the labour exchange.
Nature knows best
The canal bank at Fishersgate was quite steep and planted with tamarisk. Tamarisk has a very tenacious root system; it protects the land from the sea and holds the bank together. It's a plant with pink flowers. In the 1960s they got rid of the tamarisk and then the bank collapsed. The Tamarisk also provided great cover for making camps.
All our working lives
I'm an engineer by trade. When I came out of the army after serving in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers as an armoured vehicle mechanic, I was offered as a pre release course, paper-hanging or bricklaying. I told them to do me a favour and give it to someone else and I will find my own. I did and spent seven weeks with the local bus engineering works in Portslade. I worked for the Southdown Bus Company for twenty years until it closed. Bus companies were deregulated in 1986 and Southdown Motor Services works became Southdown Engineering working on Lorries and all manner of things.