Greens Gentlemens Outfitters - White Rock

[Oscoe]

Can anyone shed any light on the history of this great old shop?

Thanks

[whiffler]

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/ ... ry/1393761

[ColinL]

I looked up on the Hastings Observer archive but I was unable to locate anything.
Is there anything particular that you were looking for.

It was a shop of a by-gone era aimed at a clientele that had long gone by the 1960s.

[Oscoe]

thanks gents for those replies.

My understanding is that it was a family owned business throughout its existence - so possibly 3 or 4 generations?

In its heyday it employed quite a few staff with specialists looking after the different areas - hats, suits, shoes etc almost like a mini-department store -

I would love to know if the last former owner/operator is still alive (I bought a suit there in 1998)

and if anyone has any pictures of the place in its heyday - interior shots with staff and so on.

[Richard]

In the early part of the last century the Palace Hotel came under the control of Spiers & Pond, the world’s first large catering firm that had been formed in Melbourne, Australia, in 1858 but relocated to Britain in 1863 when they capitalised on the poor state of railway catering so that by 1873 Spiers & Pond had refreshment rooms at over 100 railway stations on nine different railway lines and the railway bars.

To give some idea of the scale of their operation they sold 8,000 gallons of sherry each week and it was estimated that the company could feed 200,000 to 300,000 people every day. By 1960 Spiers & Pond had been acquired by Express Dairy.