Picture source: Shops Book Brighton 1900-1930 by the late Neil Griffiths. Click for QueenSpark Books site.
As a result of The Battle of Oxford Street and Harry Cowley's gift for public speaking and direct action, the barrow boys and stall holders were permitted to trade in the central rose-walk of the Level between Ditchling Road and Lewes Road until 1926, when the market moved to the cobbled frontages of the houses in Marshall's Row. This was also the year of the General Strike, when over two an a half million men and women (transport workers, gas & electricity workers and printers) joined one million miners who had been locked out of work, in a strike that lasted for nine days. It was more than just London Road that was brought to a halt.
The removal of the Open Market to the Marshall's Row frontages allowed the development of the children's playground in 1927, with a boating pool, bridges and a pergola. The boating pool has now been converted into a safer children's paddling pool and the addition of a café and the skateboard park (constructed in the 1980s) now accommodates a wider band of age groups
Historically, the Level was where Brighton's Prince Regent used to have one of his favourite cricket pitches and traditionally, the Level has been used as a forum for political meetings demonstrations and a starting point for protest marches.
The only time I can remember the traffic in Brighton being brought to a halt was in 1983, when American Cruise Missiles arrived on Greenham Common. A well-organised Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament telephone tree packed Brighton's busiest junctions (the Clock Tower & Preston Circus) with demonstrators and all traffic was stranded before Sussex Police could take preventative action. Happily, the crowds were dispersed through sensible diplomacy between the police and the organizers of the demonstration. There was unfortunate vandalism to the police-box at the Clock Tower, but there were no flying truncheons.
