Photographs
Shops
ALFRISTON. Alfriston Post Office. Not in original location. Lamson Rapid Wire system with two stations
installed in 1980s. Photograph in Patricia Barry and Peter Longstaff-Tyrrell: Aspects of Alfriston. S.B.Publications, 2006, p.26.
ARUNDEL. Harringtons. Cash carrier in 1950s. (Lorna)
BOGNOR REGIS. Co-op, Argyle Road. Photograph of 1938 showing Rapid Wire propulsion in Bognor Regis Observer 9 Mar. 2006, p.20. System was there in 1950s. (Terry Shearing)
BOGNOR REGIS, George W. Staley. "Overhead canisters which were used to propel your money to the cashier." Shop opened in 1888, became F.J.Bobby in 1959 and was modernised in late 1970s. (Bognor Local History website)
BRIGHTON. Bellmans, ?128-130 London Road, now Somerfields supermarket. "I recall how the money for purchases at Belmans [sic] was put into wire baskets and catapulted on an overhead wire to a central cash desk. Within a minute, the change and receipt came wizzing back." Roy Grant posting 27/10/08 to My Brighton and Hove. Around 1970 became Gateways supermarket.
BRIGHTON. Co-op, Fiveways. Wire system in 1950s. (Richard Scullion)
BRIGHTON. Co-op, London Road. " I too remember the cash conveyance system in London Road Co-op. I seem to recall that the central cashier was in the basement with the overhead wire system on that floor only. The ground and upper floors used what appeared to be a network of pipes which sent the containers pneumatically to the basement. The sales assistant would place the cash container into a hole in the wall, then a few minutes later it would re-appear in the same hole with the change and receipt." John Goddard posting to Brighton in the 1950s 20/4/09
BRIGHTON. Co-op (grocery), Patcham. Wire system in 1940s/50s. Customers put the money in the carrier themselves so that the staff handling food didn't have to. Cashier was elevated in a glass box. (John Trendall)
BRIGHTON. Hanningtons. "The cashier system .. dated from the twenties. There was only one till in the store,and one cashier, who was installed in a booth on the ground floor with a shiny brass cash register... Beside the cashier's booth was a vacuum tube for use when a certain amount of money had accumulated in the booth, or when more change was needed. A brass container was sucked away to the basement where accountancy staff dealt with the request." (Bond, Sidonie. Hanningtons: a brief history 1808-2001. Seaford: SB Publications, 2002, pp.47-48)
BRIGHTON. Horne Brothers (gentleman's outfitters), West Street. Pneumatic tube system. Roy Grant in posting 1/6/09 to My Brighton and Hove.
BRIGHTON. Hunters, Preston Circus. Pneumatic tube system. (Carol Catterall)
BRIGHTON. Lea & Co., Western Road. Wire system. (Mr Aubrey and Dave Blackford posting to My Brighton and Hove.)
BRIGHTON. Plumbers Roddis (drapers), Western Road. Wire system. (Mr Aubrey)
BRIGHTON. Rings, London Road, where old Woolworths was. Wire system. David Shelton in posting 9/6/09 to My Brighton and Hove.
BRIGHTON. Smith and Brown Co-operative Clothing Stores. Corner of Trafalgar Street and Sydney Street. Wire system. Founded ca. 1904. David Shelton and Richard Evans in postings to My Brighton and Hove.
BRIGHTON. Sopers (dept. store), top of North Street, beside Upper Russel Street. "They didn't have money tills, but put the money in a small wooden cup, that was secured by overhead wires. A lever was pulled which sent the money to the cashier." Bob Wells in posting 11/6/07 to My Brighton and Hove. Closed early 1960s.
BRIGHTON. Staffords, Western Road. Wire system. (Elizabeth Garrett)
BRIGHTON. Vokins, North Street. "Little boxes running on wires." (Roberts, Margery C. A time remembered. Brighton: Brighton & Hove Museums, 1998, p. 9)
BRIGHTON. Wades (dept store), Western Road. Tube system in 1950s. (Gill Crowter and Charles Painter)
CHICHESTER. Geerings (drapers), North Street. Wire system. Shop sold 1950-51. (Edward Brown. Chichester in the 1950s. Chichester: E.B.Publications, 1996. p.26)
EASTBOURNE. Bobbys (now Debenhams). Pneumatic tube system in 1950s. (Jaime)
EASTBOURNE. Co-op, Albert Parade, Old Town. Rapid Wire system in 1950s. (Jaime)
EAST GRINSTEAD. Co-op, London Road. Wire system. (Jean Craig)
HASTINGS. A butcher's shop, few doors along from the old Marks & Spencers. Cash carrier in mid-1960s. "Cashier was a buxom blonde". (Staff at Adams, Rye)
HORSHAM. Chart & Lawrence, West Street. Cash carrier. (Sylvia Standing. Reminiscences about West Street shops in the 1940s and 1950s - at Horsham Museum)
HORSHAM. Hunt Bros. (haberdashers), West Street. Cash carrier in 1950s. (Ronnie Godfrey)
HOVE. Brighton Equitable Co-operative Society, Blatchington Road. "The Co-op in Blatchington Road was a fascinating place for children because of the overhead wires running from the various counters to the cash desk. When you purchased an item, your money and bill were enclosed in a small brass canister and off it whizzed to the cash desk. You had to wait patiently until you saw it zooming back again with your cash inside. It was the latest technology in customer care at the time. " Judy Middleton. Portslade and Hove memories. (Stroud: Sutton, 2004) p. 141. Photograph of exterior on p. 143. Shop opened in 1920.
HOVE. Palmeira Stores. Wire system. (Elizabeth Garrett)
HOVE. Shaws, George Street. Pneumatic tube system. (Elizabeth Garrett)
LEWES. Co-op, 3-4 West Street. The Co-op had moved there by 1878 and the premises were largely rebuilt about 1905. It closed in the 1980s and the building is now Wallis and Wallis, Auctioneers. Gipe? wire system. "You pulled the lever down, you put a cup in, put the cash in with its little docket and you pulled the lever. There were about five railways which went along to the cash desk." (Lewes remembers). Also Wells mentions "depressing a lever". Downstairs was grocery on one side and provisions on the other: upstairs was drapery. Leonard Woolf [husband of Virginia] came every Wednesday by car from Rodmell. (Geoffrey Symonds describing 1940s in National Sound Archive).
LEWES. T.Fogden (men's outfitters), High Street. Formerly part of Haines - see below. One Lamson pneumatic tube line to take cash upstairs to office. (Tim Fogden)
LEWES. Percy Haines (drapers), High Street. Wire system before WW2. Shop was on two levels. Sold in 1954 and one half became Fogdens.
LEWES. Morrish & Son, Lewes Drapery Emporium, 186 High Street, now ASK Pizza. Wire system. (Lewes remembers)
LEWES. Roberts (grocers), opp. Town Hall, now Shoe Gallery. Wire system. There were two counters, dry goods and meat/cheese, and a cash office at the back. Probably until 1950s. (Charles Painter)
LEWES. Walker & Co.(grocers), 223 High Street, now divided into Clarks shoes and Wilson, Wilson & Hancock opticians. Wire system. (Lewes remembers)
LITTLEHAMPTON. Murray Manns (drapery). Rapid Wire system in 1970s. "Polished brass display racks, an old-fashioned gas lamp .., an impressive criss-cross of rapid wires, and a splendid oak cash desk, raised like a pulpit, as its nerve centre." Daily Telegraph, 30 Dec. 1971.
NEWHAVEN. Co-op, corner of Bridge Street and Chapel Street (where Working Men's Club is now). Lamson Rapid Wire system with six propulsions. Two are now at Seaford Museum and two at Newhaven Museum. (Charles Painter)
WORTHING. Potter Baileys (grocers), lower end of High Street. "Potter Bailey's, on the corner of Anne Street, the next street down, was a large grocery store, just one of a thriving chain with branches all over the district. There was a network of overhead wires in the main shop, on which messages and money whizzed about in every direction on brass weights, to and from the various counters and the central cashier, who sat perched up at the main junction in an elevated cash-desk like a pulpit." Dave Disss. Dizzy. (Lewes: Book Guild, 2005) p. 52
Museums
BATTLE. Yesterday's World,
High Street. Has a Rapid Wire system in grocer's
shop display.
NEWHAVEN. Museum,. Paradise Park, Avis Road. Rapid Wire system with propulsions from Newhaven Co-op (Peter Mason). The museum also has a section of pneumatic tube from HMS Forward, a site which monitored shipping in the Channel in WW2.
SEAFORD. Museum. Rapid Wire system with propulsions
from Newhaven Co-op (see above).
indicates systems which
are still there (as far as I know) though they may not be working.