Victoria Pleasure Gardens, Burgess Hill

Opened 1897 – Closed 1939. If I had a time machine, this is one of the first places I would visit. The Victoria Pleasure Gardens in my home town of Burgess Hill are gone, buried under a factory estate. How sad that Edwin Street's tribute to Queen Victoria ended up under concrete. Hopefully this blog will give you a flavour of the place. The switchback was one of the earliest in the world and people from all over Sussex visited the gardens and boating lake in the summer, and in winter, when the lake was frozen, it was opened for skating . . . provided the ice could take the weight of Mr Street!

Category Archives: Maps and Plans

Map of Sussex, published 1912

The National Library of Scotland has a fantastic OS six-inch map of England and Wales which shows much information about the Pleasure Gardens. This link – CLICK HERE – will take you to the online version of Burgess Hill, revised in 1909. I have copied the Pleasure Gardens section below, highlighted in yellow (click on it to enlarge).

Items of interest include the Switchback, the large Pavilion, lake, boat house and the cycle track.

Plan of the Gardens, 1925

This 1925 Plan gives some idea of the size of the Gardens, and also indicates where the entrance was, just opposite Station Road.

Grounds of the Pleasure Gardens from the air, 1950

The website “Britain from Above” has a photograph of Burgess Hill taken from the West on 22nd May, 1950, which shows the area occupied by the Victoria Pleasure Gardens in the lower right of the image. Click on the small image (below right) to go to the website.

The town, Burgess Hill, from the west, 1950 - Britain from Above

Click image