Alan Brown: Nevill photos and cuttings

Nevill Historical Images > Alan Brown

Alan Brown lived in the Nevill since its very beginnings, having been born there when his father bought a house over 80 years ago. Alan was living in Highdown Road when he sadly passed away in 2016.

Alan was a kind, well-respected, and a most interesting community member on the Nevill. He was one of the first people to help convert the Fever Hospital into the St Mary’s Social Centre Community Hall in Christie Road, Lewes, which opened in 1962.

Alan could recall every change on the Nevill over the last 70 odd years from concrete air raid shelters to remembering the stream that used to run behind his house. A great contributor to local life, with an amazing collection of photos of local life, and an amateur historian of the ‘Nev’.

Adapted from Village Voice: Nevill, in Sussex Express, 26 February 2016, by David Sale and Heather Evans

Here we present some of Alan’s photos and newspaper cutting spanning 1943 to 1971, many involving the St. Mary’s Social Centre, Lewes:

• Images and cuttings from 1943 to 1957
• Newspaper cuttings charting the Social Centre’s dispute with the Church over its use of St Mary’s Church Hall as their headquarters, and the building of their new community hall, 1958 to 1962
• Photographs of St. Mary’s Social Centre’s new hall being converted from the old fever isolation hospital, 1962
• Cuttings from 1962 to 1964
• Cuttings from 1966 to 1971

For a history of the old fever isolation hospital, see The Lewes Hospital for Infectious Diseases, by Peter Russell.