The promenade and Warrior Square St Leonards-on-Sea

photo: Phil Sellens https://www.flickr.com/photos/phil_sellens/

Mace Sinden… Yellow was popular that year

John Wilde… Mace, I think the colourist was colour blind.

Kev Towner… John, Kodachrome

Pauline Richards… What year roughly?

Peter O’Donnell… I wish it looked like that

Stuart Moir… Not a sign of p**s h***s

Clive Garrard… 1960 Pauline, that is my guess

Pauline Richards… If its 1960 then the green covered item next to phone box is my granddad s sit on weighing scales!

Christine Swain… Pauline, how lovely I was going to say late 50s early 60s By the clothes xxx

Averil Mangan… Great memories of wonderful holidays with family and friends.

Cilla Ball… Going by the cars I’d say late 50’s early 60’s. It looks lovely

Trina Ransom… Does anyone remember the fish you could ride on to bottle alley, I think it was a dolphin?

David Wallis… Trina, Jim the Jolly Fish

Trina Ransom… David, I remember my nan letting me go on it

Becky Ozdamar… Before street sign clutter!

Jayne Elizabeth… Those were the days

Julie Findlay-jones… Jayne, yes it was so much nicer

Robert Brand… Look how good the roads are then!

Reece Burton… If only it was like the picture now

Ken Robinson… Looks lot cleaner

Ellis Waghorne… Looked nice then. Now it’s a dump

Mike Higson… Remember it so well

Matt Freeborn… When it was nice

Sara Stevens… Oh wow a very very old photo of hastings seafront

Carole Watson… Shame its not like that now.

Dean Stretton… It looks better then than it does now.

Peter Ellingworth… Taken early to late fifties latest I would think- note the then newish black coloured Ford on the Warrior Square lawn side, amongst the older cars, were these not first introduced in 1952-3 ? …I’ve seen this photo somewhere before, has this one been tinted/colourised ? One giveaway would be to able to more clearly identify the buses in the background : pre-June 1st. 1959 and it would most likely be the trolleybuses. Of the three shown, the middle one has the small rounded corners of the rear platform window which they had. The traction standards that carried the overhead wiring are still in place (mainly opposite the lamp -posts and in the distance by Marine Court) – but these were not all removed until well into 1960, ( three still remain: two in the Silverhill Beaufort Rd. depot and one at the top of the High St.), although I think the sea front was made first priority of removal for asthetic reasons, so it could still be sometime post June 1959 but not, I would think, into 1960.

Wendy Lovell… Great memories, I was living in Warrior Square in the early 60’s.

Peter Ellingworth… Another clue is that all the bus roofs are light coloured – until around 1956 the trolleybuses were still in Hastings Tramways livery with dark green roofs, whereas the M&D motorbuses were light cream, so I would say post 1956 but pre1960. The statue of Queen Victoria, almost out of sight on the Warrior Square side of the road, still sports a hole made by cannon fire from a low flying Nazi plane on one of their infamous hit-and-run raids in WW2. Is this a colourised version of one of Judge`s postcards?

Jim Breeds… This postcard is a colourised version. The artist colouring it would have had no idea what the real colours were, so the colour of the buses is irrelevant to dating. Look how many dresses, shirts, cars, even a boat, are all the same shade of mustard yellow! The same shade of pink also appears on cars, telephone box, coats, a roof, etc

Peter Fairless… They got the sky, sea, grass and pavement right, though, Jim.  Lucky guess?

Jim Breeds… I think it was originally a colour photo but they chose to tart it up before printing it. I’ve seen that on some cards in my collection.

2 thoughts on “The promenade and Warrior Square St Leonards-on-Sea”

  1. Taken early to late fifties latest I would think- note the then newish black coloured Ford on the Warrior Square lawn side, amongst the older cars, were these not first introduced in 1952-3 ? …I’ve seen this photo somewhere before, has this one been tinted/colourised ?
    One giveaway would be to able to more clearly identify the buses in the background : pre-June 1st. 1959 and it would most likely be the trolleybuses.
    Of the three shown, the middle one has the small rounded corners of the rear platform window which they had. The traction standards that carried the overhead wiring are still in place (mainly opposite the lamp -posts and in the distance by Marine Court) – but these were not all removed until well into 1960, ( three still remain: two in the Silverhill Beaufort Rd. depot and one at the top of the High St.), although I think the sea front was made first priority of removal for asthetic reasons, so it could still be sometime post June 1959 but not, I would think, into 1960.

    Reply
  2. Another clue is that all the bus roofs are light coloured – until around 1956 the trolleybuses were still in Hastings Tramways livery with dark green roofs, whereas the M&D motorbuses were light cream.
    so I would say post 1956 but pre1960.
    The statue of Queen Victoria, almost out of sight on the Warrior Square side of the road, still sports a hole made by cannon fire from a low flying Nazi plane on one of their infamous hit-and-run raids in WW2.
    Is this a colourised version of one of Judge`s postcards?

    Reply

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