Tag: moulsecoomb

More Than a Pub

A warm welcome from Marina and The Bevy

My favourite place in Brighton is The Bevy in Hillside. The Bevy is more than a pub, it’s a community pub in the heart of Moulsecoomb and still the only community pub on a housing estate in the whole of the UK. 

From it’s opening  and blessing by the local vicar at the time Father John. The Bevy has always strived to put the community first.

With it’s mix of friendly staff and wonderfully diverse regulars and wide variety of groups and events. There is something for everyone. 

From arts and crafts to memory moments cafe for people with dementia to the Friday friends lunch club. Great food monthly Saturday  markets Saturday night music and the Bevy bus for home Brighton games.

For me it is like a second family. Where we all help each other out. From care packages to sorting out food from the garden and from fareshare and everything in between. I love enjoying a drink or two with one of the  older regulars who I think of as a second dad.

During lockdown they started up The Bevy meals on wheels which has been voted the best in the country. 

It’s a great place to meet up with family and friends. So why not hop on a 49 bus and come and join us all.

Marina, 2022

Marina’s story about The Bevy has been included in the walking tour at Brighton Festival 2022. You can read and listen to the other 11 stories that have been included by clicking here.

Proper Brighton

My favourite place in Brighton is the railway bridge over Lewes Road at Moulsecoomb. When I was a child in the 1960s we used to stay with my granny. She taught at the Infant School, so as a key worker and a widow she and her son (my father) had been allocated one of the first houses built on the estate, in Southall Avenue. Forty years later, I loved playing on the grass of The Avenue which seemed to me as green as the lawns in a Ladybird book. And, excitingly, we used to walk under the railway bridge to reach the Wild Park. I’d look forward to shouting and hearing the huge echo. I taught my little brother to do this too – the two of us hollering plus his feet banging on his metal pushchair made a satisfying, parent-defying din! My father did use the opportunity to point out how huge and strong the bridge had to be: I’ve had a fascination for engineered structures ever since. When I travel to Brighton now, going under the bridge is the signal that I’m in ‘proper Brighton’.

Jenny, 2022