Eastbourne: Curling drinking fountain

The evening of my arrival in Eastbourne, after six hours’ travelling on four trains, I was desperate to stretch my legs so went for a stroll along the beachside promenade. After 30 minutes or so, the sun was beginning to set and I was about to turn around to return to my hotel, when I noticed this magnificent drinking fountain, just across the road on the edge of Seahouses Square. 

Drinking fountains are one of my fascinations, and, over the years, I’ve written about many of them on this blog, so I couldn’t resist taking a good look at and many photographs of this one. The plaque on the side of the fountain reads:

This drinking fountain was donated in September 1865 by Mrs. Elizabeth Curling (1790 – 1873), who lived in Kent Lodge, Seaside Road (now Trinity Trees). The fountain was originally located in the middle of the road in Seaside, near the junction of Leaf Hall Road. It was first moved to the corner with Langney Road, probably in the 1950’s [sic] before being restored and relocated here on 21st December 2000. 

A nearby signboard that lists information about the area around Seahouses Square provides some additional facts. The drinking fountain

was donated by Mrs Curling in response to a serious outbreak of Scarlet Fever in 1863 when many children died.
Poor quality water was blamed. The fountain soon became a popular meeting point for the area and was known as ‘Speakers’ Corner’. 

As I suspected it might be, the drinking fountain has been grade II listed by Historic England, and the entry on their website gives the following information:

Cast iron structure. Rectangular with two intertwined dolphins on top supporting a lantern (restored), all raised on three octagonal Portland stone steps (restored). Mutule cornice above panels and fasces below. Alternate sides have tap, bowl and two small circular shelves on which rested the drinking cups (now missing). The other faces have oval inscription panels each engraved 'erected MDCCCLXV'. One has the biblical text 'Jesus said whoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again', the other, 'Jesus said whoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst'. … Old photographs show it originally had a gas lantern on top. 

Also on the Historic England website, on 30 September 2020, local historian Kevin Gordon posted the following comment:

The fountain was made by the Handyside Company of Derby and was originally installed opposite Leaf Working Men’s Hall in Seaside. It would have once had small troughs underneath for thirsty dogs, but these have since been blocked off. In Victorian times it became Eastbourne's 'Speakers Corner.
The fountain was donated by Mrs Elizabeth Curling (1790-1873) a local philanthropist. She provided a chapel at the Eastbourne Workhouse and gifts for the inmates at Christmas. She assisted schoolchildren with generous donations to local school funds and prizes.
When Mrs Curling died aged 83 in 1873, the Eastbourne Gazette said “The death of Mrs Curling will leave a blank not only in the public and private charities of the town, but in the hearts of all who had the privilege of her friendship. Distress, in whatever form it came before her, was sure to meet with sympathy coupled with a readiness to relieve it and the poor will feel that one of their best friends has been removed from them.” 

I then followed up on the information about the fountain’s manufacturer, Andrew Handyside and Company, and found a very comprehensive blog by Andy Savage, who has made it his mission to locate and document everything ever made by this ironworking company wherever the item is located around the world. And that led to the discovery that there is another drinking fountain, which is exactly the same model as the Eastbourne fountain, located on the beach at Alum Chine, in Westbourne, Bournemouth, in the English county of Dorset. The photographs on Savage’s blog show that the other fountain was in very poor condition when the blog was published in 2012; I don’t know what its current situation in. Savage’s research has uncovered more details about this model of drinking fountain:

This particular design of drinking fountain is listed as Design Number 24 on Page 42 of the 1879 publication "An Illustrated book of Designs for Fountains and Vases, costing from £1 to £1200 manufactured by Andrew Handyside".
The price for this fountain is listed in April 1880 as between £18 0s 0d and £20 5s 0d depending what finish was applied (no finish, bronze/marble paint etc).
According to the drawing it’s 6 foot 7 inches from the base to the bottom of the lamp support and includes a [sic] animal drinking trough in the base. Looking at the photographs of this fountain in Eastbourne it would appear that the animal drinking troughs have been covered up at some point. 

Of course, now I’m considering a visit to Alum Chine beach to check the other drinking fountain for myself.

Eastbourne Pier: an obsession with gold paint

One thing I noticed when I visited Eastbourne Pier earlier this month was the amount of gold paint that had been splashed about rather liberally on various surfaces. The Pier was built in the late 1860s and I sincerely doubted that the Victorian constructors had painted any part of it such a golden colour. And, as the Pier is a grade II* listed building, it seemed odd to me that Historic England would have authorised the use of gold paint in any restoration work. 

When I looked back at photos I’d taken during my first visit to Eastbourne in 2014, I could see there was no gold paint anywhere. So, I delved a little deeper and discovered, on the National Pier Society website, the origin of the gold paint. In July 2016, ‘Historic England and the local council ordered Pier owner, Sheikh Abid Gulzar, to stop all work on it after he painted its cupola gold without permission’. Gulzar’s response? ‘For me it is a project of the heart. It was the most neglected pier in Britain but there has been a lot of work carried out. I am looking for the next generation to enjoy it. I am not scared to think outside the box. I’m not charging people. They are coming onto my investment free of charge’. 

Rather surprisingly, in September 2016, following a meeting between Gulzar, Historic England and local council officials, ‘the council’s planning officers recommended that the application be allowed provided no further parts of the pier were painted gold until consent had been given.’ Perhaps the deciding factor was the fact that Gulzar was paying for the repair and restoration of the Pier, rather than Historic England and Eastbourne Council. In March 2017, even more gold paint was permitted, after Gulzar ‘applied for planning permission to paint the remaining two domes in the middle of the pier gold to match the existing 13 domes.’ 

But what is this obsession with gold paint all about? It seemed to be a personal preference of Sheikh Abid Gulzar; the Pier is owned by Golden (Lions) Eastbourne Limited (‘Golden Lions’), of which Gulzar is the sole shareholder and director. And, according to an article on the Eastbourne.info website, Gulzar has long been known as ‘Mr Goldfinger’ in the local and national press. The article, which provides a summary of Gulzar’s life, continues rather scathingly:

The “Goldfinger” persona
Gulzar’s public image is a deliberate construction: gold-liveried cars (a custom gold Mercedes AMG, gold Teslas, a gold Rolls-Royce), outsize gold-and-diamond rings, dark blazers with bright red ties, and portraits of Margaret Thatcher in his offices. After buying Eastbourne Pier he extended the aesthetic to the building itself — gold paint on the Victorian ironwork, gilded lion statues, and “Sheikh’s Pier” branding.

By this stage I could see that the ostentatious Gulzar’s love of bling was the reason for the gold-painted domes and turrets, and the golden lions on Eastbourne Pier, but what about the gold hippo I spotted on the Pier? Surely that was someone’s attempt to mock Gulzar’s obsession? But no. I then found articles about Gulzar adding gold-painted hippopotami statuettes to Hastings Pier, which he also owns. Now that truly is bizarre, and I wasn’t at all surprised to read that some unknown person or persons were being sought by Hastings Police for throwing one of the hippos off the Pier.

Eastbourne: the Pier

In the 150-plus years since it first opened in 1872, the iconic Pier in the East Sussex seaside town of Eastbourne has been subject to the whims of fate. Just five years after it opened, the Pier structure at the beach end had to be rebuilt after it was destroyed by the waves of a powerful storm, and there have been numerous other calamitous events: an exploding mine caused major damage in 1942, a fire destroyed the theatre in 1970, and the aftermath of a hurricane wrecked the landing stage in 1987. The most catastrophic event in recent years was undoubtedly the huge fire in July 2014, which reduced the arcade structure at the landward end of the Pier to a scorched and blackened metal skeleton. 

I first saw Eastbourne Pier in August 2014, not long after that fire, and, not surprisingly, the entire pier was fenced off, its future at that stage uncertain. Though the fire damage was limited to approximately one third of the structure, and the remaining two thirds appeared not to have suffered severe structural damage, the logistics and financing of any rebuild were to prove extremely challenging. 

By the time of my next visit to Eastbourne in May 2017, the Pier had been bought by Sheikh Abid Gulzar and the process of restoring the Pier to its former glory had begun. The fire damaged arcade structure had been removed, and the landward end of the Pier repaired to the extent that people could once again access the undamaged sections at the seaward end.

Though I’m not someone who would ever patronise the facilities offered by Eastbourne Pier, I definitely like to see structures like this being retained and restored for their historic value, and for the entertainment of those who do enjoy such amusements and frequent its bars and restaurants. So I was delighted to take a stroll around the Pier during a visit to Eastbourne earlier this month, though disappointed to see many of its shops closed and/or empty, and its buildings looking run down in some areas. Sheikh Abid Gulzar appears to be an entrepreneur with interests in a multitude of businesses; I hope that doesn’t mean he will neglect his responsibilities to the maintenance and continued viability of Eastbourne Pier.