Here is a letter published in the Echo this week:

The article in last Monday’s Echo (August 1) about the new restaurant which is proposed to be built at the end of Leigh Road, opposite the Grand Hotel, caught my eye.

When I showed it to my husband he suggested I write in with the following information which he gave me.

When he was a boy in the early 1950s, there was a corrugated iron building, painted green on that site.

It was sunk some 20 foot below Leigh Road, and was used by a Mrs Cole as a greengrocer’s shop.

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Back in the late 1800s/early 1900s, this was the site of the original estate office of Mr F Ramuz, who was developing the area, and it was run by AT Pettitt, the main land agents.

It was erected in open fields, before any of the surrounding buildings, and was on part of Leigh Hall Farm grounds. The Grand Hotel is actually built on Leigh Hall orchard.

The hotel was built as a coffee house and hotel, intended to provide somewhere for potential property buyers from out of Leigh to stay, while they went off to view the various properties they might wish to buy.

The Grand Hotel was not permitted to hold a licence to sell alcohol until the 1920s.

Lesley Woodward

Bournemouth Park Road, Southend