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Lewes News Front Page Photo

On 17 Sep 2010 at 2:44pm Is It I Or You wrote:

Can anyone help, Just received the latest Lewes news , from what vantage point was that photo taken on the front cover ?

On 17 Sep 2010 at 3:09pm Ratty wrote:

It's a great picture. Well before my time but must've been taken where the Court Road houses are now. I can recognise some of the houses still there on Pinwell Lane on the left and Harveys in the distance, Malling Down beyond it. The brick structure on the right with a couple of guys standing on it has completely vanished now, as has the building just behind the train. Was the brick wall holding back a bank of some sort?

On 17 Sep 2010 at 6:53pm Spartacus wrote:

It was taken from the old iron footbridge that use to run from Lansdown Place to the gate house of Leighside House. The entrance to the bridge was between the end of Friars walk and where Leportes is now.
The old bridge can be seen at the entrance to the railway land, while Leighside House was a large colonial style pad which stood in the wooded bit of the railway land. You can see pictures of it if you take a trip across the little bridge between the 2 duck ponds down there (which use to be part of the manicured gardens).
As for the gate house, that was pure gothic fantasy, some where between Rocky Horror and The lady Killers, would love to have seen it, does anyone remember it?
hxxp://www.bluebell-railway-museum.co.uk/archive/photos/jjs/b09/9-1-7.htm

On 17 Sep 2010 at 7:58pm TDA wrote:

Ahh.... So looking at that picture, is that the strange tunnel/archway thing incongruously still standing in the gardens behind Friars Walk then? Often wondered about that.

On 18 Sep 2010 at 10:46am Matt Kent wrote:

@Spartacus. I've just been browsing through the images from JJ Smith on the Bluebell Railway Museum Archive Link above. They are just amazing. Thanks for the link. Its just a shame there was so much railway infrastructure decommissioned during the 60's and 70's or we just wouldn't have the capacity problems that Brian Hart (Wealden Line Campaign) has been trying to champion for many years to Local Authorities, Businesses and Government.

On 18 Sep 2010 at 11:30pm brixtonbelle wrote:

that strange railway structure is actually in the garden of a house curently for sale on friars walk. you can photos of it online at rightmove (do a search for 3 bed house)

On 18 Sep 2010 at 11:56pm StevieD wrote:

Just to be picky... the archway on the left went over Pinwell Road and was demolished in the late 80s; the archway still standing is just out of shot.

On 20 Sep 2010 at 11:50am AKane wrote:

I love that photo, its so intriguing to imagine what Lewes used to be like not that long ago really. I can't picture the train that went through town I believe and over the field behind Tesco. It must of been quite a site.
Any ideas where I could look for photos on this line?

On 20 Sep 2010 at 12:33pm Spartacus wrote:

@AKane you could try hxxp://www.bluebell-railway-museum.co.uk/archive/photos/jjs/s/index.htm which has a load of southern railway photos or Edward Reeves on the high street have a extensive archive hxxp://www.edwardreeves.com/archive.html but you will need to make a visit as its not available on line.
@Matt Kent - I know what you mean but in this case I'm not that sorry, I live a tad too close to the scene of that photo and the romance of sodding great steam trains rolling past every 10 mins would get rather tiresome, rather soon.