Shopfronts of yesteryear on view

It takes a long memory to put this in modern context. For anyone in doubt - and for those wondering where this throw-back from the past originated - a new Bexhill Museum exhibition has the answer.

In fact Bexhill's Shopfronts, which had its civic launch last Friday night and which runs until May 8, puts a great many local landmarks into context.

A team of museum volunteers under Alan Beecher and Don Phillips has been working since November to research what has proven to be the largest exhibition of historic photographs ever staged in the Egerton Road premises.

Bexhill is revealed in its Victorian and Edwardian heyday and through the inter-war years to the recent past.

Pilbeam's was the butcher's shop at what is now the traffic-congested junction of Little Common Road with London Road and King Offa Way. The present premises, purpose-built in 1908 in replacement for the earlier Stream Cottage, are pictured in 1908.

As countless other shots show, this was a pre-health and safety era when carcasses could be proudly displayed on hooks in front of a shop.

It was an era when E. P. Kinsella's Royal Bijou Theatre overlooked the gardens in front of the Town Hall and The Farm Stores occupied part of the Buckhurst Place site now enjoyed by Sainsburys.

The Green Tea Rooms at Marina Arcade are shown in all their elegance in 1910 and High Street when Old Town still had a thriving parade of small shops.

Then-and-now presentations service to demonstrate how much some areas have changed while others remain instantly recognisable.

Longley's single Devonshire Road shop is contrasted with the department store to which it had expanded by final closure.

Forte's Ice Cream parlour at Marina is shown in its wicker-chaired 'Fifties finery, Ninfield Road in the 'Twenties when Dobson's was the "big" store.

For anyone with memories of Bexhill as it was, scenes like Barker's in Devonshire Road, where the writer spent many a boyhood moment gazing longingly at unobtainable toys, will be steeped in nostalgia.

For newcomers to the town Bexhill's Shopfronts is an opportunity to glimpse it as it once was.

J.D.