This week we are stopping off in sunny Sussex to welcome brand new title the Shoreham Herald to our collection, alongside 111,501 brand new newspaper pages. Meanwhile, from all across the United Kingdom, from Scotland, Northern Ireland and England, we’ve updated ten of our existing titles.

So read on to discover more about our new and updated titles of the week, and also to learn about the town of Shoreham’s ties to the early British film industry, when it was tipped to become ‘a second Los Angeles.’

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Without any further ado we’re off to the south coast now to welcome new title the Shoreham Herald to our collection. The sister paper of the Worthing Herald, which was founded in 1920, the Shoreham Herald was known as the Adur Herald from 1977 to 1990, when in February 1990 it became the Shoreham Herald.

Providing news from the town of Shoreham-by-Sea, which is commonly shortened to Shoreham, a coastal town and port in the county of Sussex, the Shoreham Herald is a weekly publication, which used to appear every Friday. Now published every Thursday, the title also reports on the news from the Adur area, an area that gets its name from the Adur river, which runs through the town.

As well as such local news, the Shoreham Herald publishes letters, coverage of shows and events in the area, sports reports, as well as an extensive classified section. It has a sister paper in its own right, the Steyning Herald, and it is printed to this day.

That’s it from our brilliant new title of the week. Meanwhile, we’re delighted to have updated ten of our existing titles from across the UK. The largest update of the week is the Leamington Spa Courier, to which we have added over 14,000 brand new pages, whilst we have also added over 10,000 new pages to the Nelson Leader. The week also sees updates to Northern Irish title the Londonderry Sentinel, whilst new pages join five of our Scottish titles, including the Fraserburgh Herald and Northern Counties’ Advertiser and the Stornoway Gazette and West Coast Advertiser.

Shoreham-by-Sea – A ‘Second Los Angeles’

Browsing the pages of this week’s new title, the Shoreham Herald, we found reference to the town of Shoreham’s star-studded past. As the Sussex newspaper reported on 21 October 1988, ‘Shoreham Beach was once better known as Hollywood because of the host of film and stage stars who lived there.’

According to local expert Neb Wolters, ‘in the Twenties and Thirties [Shoreham Beach] was the scene of many a motion picture in those heady days of Bungalow town.’ Bungalow Town was the name given to the area of Shoreham Beach, which saw development in the early 20th century, on the shingle spit in the historic port town.

Shoreham’s ties to the film industry were again referenced by the Shoreham Herald in December 1986, when the Reverend Colin Blagg of the Church of the Good Shepherd, on Shoreham Beach, asked for help in compiling a book on the church’s history. The article outlined how ‘the church’s early days and its links with the Shoreham Beach silent film industry’ were ‘particularly well documented.’ Indeed, following the clearing of Shoreham Beach in the Second World War, the Church of the Good Shepherd was one of the only reminders of Bungalow Town and the area’s past.

Our film-focussed publications, The Bioscope and the Picturegoer, meanwhile, reveal more about Shoreham’s association with the early days of cinema. The Picturegoer on 10 May 1919 wrote how it was word on the street that ‘Shoreham Bungalow Town is likely to become a second Los Angeles,’ whilst The Bioscope on 14 July 1921 outlined the history of one of Shoreham’s film studios, the Progress Film Company:

The Shoreham Daylight Studios and Bungalows were equipped and opened in May, 1919, and from that date they have, under the experienced direction of Mr. Sidney Morgan, succeeded in getting through a very varied and lengthy programme, the completed productions including ‘Sweet and Twenty,’ ‘Lady Noggs,’ ‘Black Sheep,’ ‘Little Dorritt,’ ‘Two Little Wooden Shoes,’ ‘By Berwen Banks,’ and ‘A Man’s Shadow.’ And now, to-day, after three years experience, the directors and management have unshaken belief in the Daylight Studio situated at the seaside working in conjunction with artists in residence.’

Indeed, The Bioscope traced the Progress Film Company’s move to Shoreham in May 1919, writing how ‘Mr. Sidney Morgan is taking a stock company down to Shoreham for the coming Progress season, and tells me that he has secured a number of very prominent film artistes, together with an attractive list of books, plays, and original stories.’

But the Progress Film Company were not the first film production firm to make movies in Shoreham. Predating them was F.L. Lyndhurst’s Sunny South Film Company, which The Bioscope advertised in December 1914. The Sunny South Film Company produced such films as Building A Chicken House, The Jockey and Moving a Piano.

Find out more about Shoreham’s movie-making past, Britain’s early film industry, and much more besides, in the pages of our Archive today.

New Titles

Updated Titles

This week we have updated ten of our existing titles.

You can learn more about each of the titles we add to every week by clicking on their names. On each paper’s title page, you can read a free sample issue, learn more about our current holdings, and our plans for digitisation.

You can keep up to date with all the latest additions by visiting the recently added page.  You can even look ahead to see what we’re going to add tomorrow.