142, Western Road, Brighton

Image: © Simon Carey Taken: 28 Mar 2016

Originally a residential dwelling called Sutton Lodge that appears to have been built in the 1830s by the Codrington family in the garden of Hampton Lodge. After the family’s sale of the estate in 1899 it was acquired by William Sutton who most likely gave the building its name. It was Sutton who sold the building onto the London & Provincial Bank who would add the ornate Western Road frontage as part of its expansion outside London. The bank was acquired by Barclays in 1918 who continued operating here until the 1970s when it closed the branch. The building subsequently became a branch of the post Office which it remained until 2005 when it was closed. Since then it was occupied by the pre-prepared food business Cook who moved to another premises in Hove in 2011 and following a period of the shop being empty it was acquired by Soda Stream in 2012. Given the name Ecostream the shop attempted to tap into Brighton’s well known fair trade and green consumers by offering products that could be taken away in the purchasers own bottles and containers. Whilst Soda Stream felt they’d done their homework regarding Brighton (The city has the country’s only Green MP), they didn’t expect some consumers to do their homework on them. What unravelled was an Israeli company whose main factory was built on what was deemed illegally occupied land on the West Bank. Despite protestations by the company that they employed a number of Arabs and Palestinians who earned three times the average of fellow workers, the pavement outside the shop became the scene of demonstrations by pro-Palestine supporters which soon attracted counter demonstations by pro-Israeli groups (Brighton has had a fairly significant Jewish population since the 19th century). Every Saturday bemused shoppers would walk between lines of demonstrators engaged in slanging matches whilst trying to stuff leaflets into their hands, whilst those exiting the Waitrose car park via Hampton Place would occasionally have to run the gauntlet of small groups and the odd lone policeman chasing each other. When tensions were high the police would separate the rivals by placing them on either side of the road taking advantage of the then empty Image In July 2014 after two years of protests Soda Stream threw in the towel and closed the shop most likely due to falling profits. Since then the building has been empty. 1905-1972 - BANK (London & Provincial 1905-19, Barclays 1920-72) 1973-2005 - POST OFFICE 2006-2011 - PREPREPARED FOOD (Cook) 2012-2014 - Ecostream

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