MOUNT ROAD - 1954 and 2008

View towards the harbour from Mount Road

By Laurie Stonehouse

The first photograph is of Mount Road taken in 1954. In the foreground is a notice advertising land for sale while a little further down the road is a Nissen Hut. This is a relic from the large number which were dotted all over The Mount in World War II and which made up the army camp. Is there anyone still resident in Newhaven today who actually lived in that particular Nissen hut I wonder, for many of them were occupied by civilians after the War.

Then further down Mount Road are the flat roofed houses which, as can be seen in the second picture, are still there today.

Looking towards the background you can see views of the snaking bends in the road to Seaford with one of the old No 12 Southdown Double Deck buses on its way to Newhaven and Brighton. And in the far distance are the fields adjacent to the Ouse Estuary, some of which in the far corner look as though they might be flooded.

If you study the photo closely you can see wires leading from the poles in Mount Road, not telephone wires, but overhead electricity supplies. Most, if not all the properties on The Mount got their electricity supplied that way in those days. Wonder if it is still the same pole in the second picture but now carrying telephone wires?

In the far distance on the right, it is just possible to make out the tall square tower which was the gasworks, and to the left of that is the cylindrical shape of what appears to be a gas holder.

The second photograph from 2008 is from the same location but the view of the Seaford Road and the River estuary has disappeared behind the development.