Redcross Street

Redcross Street looking towards City College, May 2008

Photo by Maureen Brand

Redcross Street graffiti, May 2008

Photo by Maureen Brand

A brief history

By Maureen Brand, North Laine resident

Redcross Street developed in the late 1830s with crowded terraced housing for artisans, encouraged by the coming of the railway and the needs of workers.

Trade directories

The Post Office Directory of 1846 records a milliner, tailor, boot and shoemaker and coal dealer within the street, but in 1848 the Folthorp directory could find only "small tenements".

Mathieson's Brighton and Suburban Directory of 1868 was more forthcoming, listing a baker, two beer retailers, greengrocer, commissioning agent, cabinet maker, engineer, mason, haberdasher and coal dealer.

20th century

A photograph in the Regency Society's James Gray Collection shows Redcross Street in 1959, apparently two storey cottages (any cellars not visible) and it is suggested that the name emanated from the streets of London.

Today it is stunted in length, with a couple of shops either side at the Trafalgar Street end but cut short by the car park of City College (which may in itself be the subject of redevelopment in 2008/9).