Round Hill Reminiscences
from The Round Hill Reporter October 2013
62 years residency
Before Margaret moved to D’Aubigny Road in 1952, she and her husband Bill (who was in the Navy) rented a basement flat in Hastings Road for £2.00 a week. After renting their D’Aubigny Road house for 9 years, Margaret and Bill bought it for £2,000 in 1961 (when buying your own home was quite unusual). The local milkman lived at 17 D’Aubigny Road and the plumber lived at no 5. The last house in Richmond Road- No 128 - was a corner shop which sold just about everything. It was open every day of the week and as a boy Bill, who then lived on Ditchling Road, worked there. The dustmen and coal men came through the house to collect the rubbish and deliver the coal; Margaret can remember putting down newspaper to protect the floors. Before central heating became common, coal was used to heat the house and water, as well as in the range for cooking.
There was a coal depot beside the railway line (now Centenary Industrial Estate) and Lewes Road Station was on the site of Richmond House, where trains went to Kemptown across the Lewes Road Viaduct and through a tunnel. Number 14 D’Aubigny Rd was the station house. No 6 was the Cox’s home, on the right side of the house was an archway into their back garden (now converted to a flat).
Cox’s pill factory and part of the railway viaduct seen from the end of Melbourne Street. Sainsbury’s takes up most of this view today. The building on the far right still stands on the Gyratory.
Margaret’s garden overlooked the Cox’s garden which was very large and stretched down to Cox’s Pill Factory the family business, the site Sainsbury’s now stands on. In the Cox’s garden were tennis courts and a collection of stuffed birds which was kept in a greenhouse! Her garden looked towards the Viaduct and Margaret can remember the viaduct being demolished in 1976. It needed dynamite to flatten an impressive piece of Victorian brickwork. People seemed much friendlier then, says Margaret, many more children played in the street, hopscotch and skipping for the girls and football and cricket for the boys. Margaret and Bill would use a footpath via the station down to Hollingdean Road. It was a short cut to the Vogue cinema (where tickets were 6p in the upstairs seats) and she enjoyed watching crime, mystery and cowboy films. They also visited a local pub (now demolished) next to the cinema, but can’t now recall its name. Does anyone know of it?
Margaret did most of her weekly shopping on the Lewes Road. Then it was a very busy shopping centre with a butcher, baker, fishmonger, greengrocer, and a delicatessen who sold smoked bacon and hocks. There was also a pawnbroker. The Open Market had regular meat auctions where sides of beef and legs of lamb were auctioned in front of large crowds. On most Friday afternoons, local mothers and children regularly went skipping on the Level. It was great to talk to Margaret and hear her memories. Is there someone living near you we could interview?
Annie Rimington
This page was last updated by Ted on 17-Apr-2026