A Rottingdean Experience

Our real reason for visiting the village of Rottingdean was to picnic in the Kipling Gardens. The Gardens are absolutely beautiful, and I highly recommend visiting them if you have a chance. Ofcourse, as soon as we got settled for the picnic, the children started with the bathroom visits! When our comapnion returned from the first trip, I was waiting with my youngest to make another. (She is 4 years old)

When we approached the bathroom, she refused to enter. Now, this was NOT due to the state of the bathroom. As a rule, the public bathrooms in England are exceptionally clean. That aside, she repeatedly refused to go in, finally stating that she was not going in b ecause it was not a bathroom, it was "someone's house".

Unfortunately, I have no photos of the building, but it was a very small building, something like a shed, that could in no way be mistaken for someone's house. So, I picked her up and showed her the inside so that she could see it was, indeed, a bathroom. Still, she absolutely refused to enter, and elaborated, saying that it was a lady's house, and that a man had come in the window and killed her. After a moment of thought, she then said, "His name was Eric."

I finally gave up and walked toward the back of the building, through a car park, and saw two pubs, one across the street to the left and one directly across the main street, so we went to the one on the left, which did look like a house. She said not one word about it.

When we returned to the Kipling Gardens, I told our companion what had happened, and he then told me that Rottingdean used to be a smuggler's village, so it is entirely possible that what she was saying really happened.

As I was doing research for the bit about St. Margaret's, I learned of the raid by the French pirates as a possible source for her story, and I also found this interesting bit of history:

The Queen Victoria Public House (also known as Hole in the Wall) was originally located on the site of the West Street car park. When the car park was built in the 1930's, the Queen Victoria and a few other properties were demolished. The Queen Victoria now stands almost directly opposite where it was originally located. Now remember, we walked across a car park to reach the pub...

There is another old pub in Rottingdean that was referred to as "The Black Hole", and is thought to have been a hang out for smugglers. The location of the Queen Victoria, directly across the road from the beach, would also have made it a convenient hang out for smugglers.

This is, ofcourse, conjecture, but it does make one pause - of all the places in England we visited, the only places she refused to enter were this bathroom and the old Derby jail! My contact in Brighton is currently researching these leads, and this will be updated as soon as possible.