Holiday mini-blog : Brewery, Bus Station ...

 ... Somerfield and Waitrose

But we will start with the brewery.

The iconic tower was cut down in 1940 to prevent it being a landmark for German aircraft.

James Corfe started the brewery in 1816, which was taken over in 1850 by GB Puttock. In 1870 John Constable took it over and extended the buildings and yard, building the landmark square tower in 1871. The brewery employed 60 men and had stabling in Duke Street. It was closed in 1917 and the brewing business transferred to the Swallow Brewery in Arundel. The front of the building remained as an off licence until 1921.

The old brewery under the new ownership of Henty & Constable Ltd ...

... turned its hand to producing mineral water under the name of Anchor Springs. The water came from a well on the site reported to be 97 meters deep.

The Littlehampton bus station was NOT on Surrey Street although there may have been a busy bus stop there. The on-line article about the closure (yesterday's blog) began to solve the location confusion.

Q E D - East Street.

That's East Street, included in the map extract below running north past the brewery site ...

... and seen below with the pedestrianised High Street on the left and East Street on the right.

Now we have an ancient view of East Street taken from a few yards away from the above junction.

Note the pub on the right, still there in a more recent view.

Note carefully that road sign ringed in yellow! a two way junction with a roundabout. Now look at the picture of the closed bus garage ...

... and there (ta da) is the road sign. So if we step back a bit as in the "modern" picture above ...

... we note that pub is now private dwelling(s) and there is a large building with one huge window on the left. If we swing round to the left ...

... we see a line of bus shelters on a relatively new road called Anchor Springs. The name is taken from the mineral water product of the long-closed brewery and from the spring that provided the tasty non alcoholic beverages.

The slab of the brick building was once ...

... a Somerfield supermarket - and then ...

... a Waitrose supermarket, and now ...

... a very closed supermarket! This noble but disused edifice is on the site of the former Southdown bus garage. The shop entrance is at the back of the premises, opposite a large car park.

Ironic, is in not, that a closed and disused bus garage should be replaced by what has become a closed and disused supermarket!

But the site, if not the building, still remains as the Anchor Springs bus terminal in Littlehampton, right next to where it was either outside or inside the bus garage, from 1926.

Ardgartan Article Dateline Monday 17th
Yesterday's trip was simply into Glasgow with a tour of the city and a visit to the Riverside Transport Museum. The latter has featured previously in these blogs so fbb has assembled a few relevant omnibological snippets.

But we begin with a reflection on the sights and scenes at Lomond Shores, visited on Sunday 16th. 

Readers may be musically adept , thus able to recognise the words as somewhat similar to a well known Scottish song.

By yon bonny stalls 

  and by yon bonny stores

Where car parks fill up

  at Loch Lomond

Where me and my true love 

  have been to Lomond Shores

On the bonny bonny banks 

  of Loch Lomond

'Twas there that we shuddered 

  by the burger stall

On the redeveloped shores 

  of Loch Lomond

Where on  concrete paths 

  you couldnae see the loch at all

On the bonny bonny banks 

  of Loch Lomond.

Where wee birdies sang

   and the daffodils waved

And in sunshine the waters 

  were gleaming

Now with crazy golf 

  and other costly things

It's for the guid auld days 

  we are dreaming

Chorus

You take the First Bus 

and I'll take the wee train

And I'll be in Balloch before ye

But me and my true love 

will never go again

To the awful retail grot

of Loch Lomond

You may have gathered that fbb was not impressed with Lomond Shores. 

It would appear that First Bus was not impressed either. Back in the day, when Lomond Shores was opened, First ran most of their Balloch services to a terminus at the new and exciting venue.

Here is said terminus with First's finest awaiting departure from the lavish waiting facilities.

With the arrival of the new network named "The One", Lomond Shore was abandoned and buses terminated at the far more lavish Balloch bus station.

Did fbb write "lavish"?

The Balloch bus station (i.e. a bit of Central SMTs garage) used to be partly undercover.

From a very shaky bit of video on-line, it would seem that the covered building was once part of today's empty yard!

The only bus service running to Lomond Shore today is a PTE tendered route 207 ...

... operated hourly Mon to Sat until 1800 (with lunchtime break).

The PTE information includes a goof map ...

... but that produced by First Bus is better as it shows all services!

The operator of the 207 is McColls ...

... whose buses can be found on a number of tendered services in the Dumbarton area.

A Puzzle Picture

What is it? And where is it?

Answer tomorrow - if fbb remembers!

 Tomorrow we will visit Glasgow