It is seventy years since railway workers moved into 4 Belmont in Seven Dials to establish Brighton Railway Club. But the railway came to Brighton long before that.
The first railway line from London to Brighton was built by the London & Brighton Railway in 1840.
A company called Baker & Son were paid £9766.15s to build Brighton station between May and August 1841. The station was opened on 21st September 1841.
When the railway came to Brighton, there was a windmill on the present site of Brighton Railway Club. It was known as Lashmar’s New Mill and had been built in 1821 to replace Lashmar’s Old Mill. In 1852 a team of horses and oxen moved the mill 11 kilometres north of Brighton to become Jill of the Jack and Gill windmills above Clayton.
Brighton railway works was founded at the same time Brighton Station was opened, before the more famous railway works at Crewe. Between 1852 and 1957 more than 1,200 steam locomotives were constructed there, as well as prototype diesel and electric locomotives. Locomotives stopped being built on the site in 1957. For the next seven years, a factory making bubble cars was based on the site. After this, much of the land became a car park hosting a Sunday market until it was redeveloped in the early years of the 21st century as the heart of the New England Quarter.
In 1952 Brighton Railway works covered nine acres and employed 650 staff. In the same year British Rail created the British Railways Staff Association to meet the social and sporting needs of their employees. The association was made up of five regions, each with its own branches, most with social premises. Members of each branch were able to visit other branches throughout the country. One of the southern region branches was Brighton Railway Club, established in 1954 at 4 Belmont in Seven Dials.
The club thrived through the fifties and sixties, with Alf and Sylvia Pallet behind the bar. The bar was expanded in the seventies.
When the railways were privatised in the nineties, British Rail Social Clubs became an independent association called the National Association of Railway Clubs with Brighton Railway Club as its Brighton branch.
Today, Brighton Railway Club continues to provide a meeting place for railway workers, their families and friends, and others in Seven Dials. Our bar is open to all five days a week with darts, pool, snooker and a state of the art jukebox. We host regular gigs and clubs for everything from rock’n’roll and jump’n’jive to northern soul and flamenco making us Seven Dials’ top music venue. After seventy years of providing a welcoming club for our members and the local community we are looking forward to the next seventy.