A POPULAR Hove pub is due to close its doors on Sunday. It will be the latest in a string of inns to close in the area. Some have become residential properties or small supermarkets, while others attempt to weather the storm via revamps and a change in beers. FLORA THOMPSON looks back at some Brighton and Hove pubs in their heyday...

PUB landlords thanked punters for their support as they announced their watering hole would cease to trade last week.

The Alibi in Victoria Terrace, Hove, is closing on Sunday, after the managers took it over nearly six years ago. The key has been handed back to owners Punch Taverns.

The company said it was evaluating all its options before making a decision on the pub’s future but it hoped to re-let it to a new licensee.

It comes as a number of pubs have called time on service in recent years in the city despite thriving for decades and, in some cases, a century or more. Others are fighting the closure trend by relaunching after communities lamented their loss.

In 2005, author Rosie Collis wrote a book about the history of the city’s pub culture entitled ‘Brighton Boozers’, which demonstrates how central they are to the tapestry of the area. The range of pictures in The Argus archive showing pubs at the centre of city life supports this.

Photographer Simon Dack rediscovered a lively photo of friends having fun in a pub trying to build a penny tower in the 1960s – but does anyone recognise which pub it is?

In 1960, The Bull in Ditchling was at the centre of celebrations when the village held its annual fair.

Another picture shows regulars crowded outside the popular The Edinburgh pub in Upper Gloucester Road, Brighton, in the 1990s.

In the last few years a swathe of pubs in the city have gone through changes and some of them have been unable to remain as the epicentre of the community they once were.

In 2010, news emerged that derelict pub The Snipe in Carden Avenue, Hollingbury, was being eyed by Sainsbury’s. The supermarket was granted planning permission to build a store, which is now trading, and it planned to convert the upstairs to offer three flats.

In June 2013, 19th century pub The Cobbler’s Thumb in New England Road, Brighton, was deemed unsafe. Brighton and Hove City Council sought to demolish it. It stood on the corner of the road for more than a century and details of the then New England Inn and its landlord feature in the 1881 census. The space has now been filled by an award-winning project to house the homeless in shipping containers.

More recently, campaigners have fought bitterly to keep the Rose Hill Tavern in Rose Hill Terrace, Brighton, open and save it from becoming turned into housing. It first opened in 1870 and closed in May when it was sold by Enterprise Inns.

The Rose Hill Tavern Action Group called it a valuable meeting point with a rich heritage, including a distinctive United Brewery green-tiled frontage and it has been listed as an asset of community value, the first of its kind in the city, in the hope of preventing developers from going ahead. More than 600 people have signed a petition against the plans.

In October, Southern Co-operative was given the go-ahead to turn The Atlas pub in Old Shoreham Road, Hove, into a supermarket. It closed in 2013 and has been empty since.

The news concerned the owner of the Amherst Crescent Post Office, which has operated opposite the site for 60 years and has a convenience store. A protest was held outside the pub and it has yet to be transformed.

The London Unity in Hanover Terrace, Brighton, was sold and converted into a four-bedroom house. It was on the market for £465,000 and has now been sold, estate agents Barrie Alderton said.

The Newmarket Arms in Bear Road could also be converted into flats and a detached house. The proposal is for a one-bedroom flat, a two-bedroom maisonette and a three-bedroom detached house.

Harbour View in Wellington Road, Portslade, could be demolished if a decision, expected soon, is supported by city councillors.

It had its licence revoked in October and police tried to close the pub over allegations of under-age drinking and drug abuse. It could be replaced by a new bar.

As some pubs closed others were revived.

Last year, The Martha Gunn in Upper Lewes Road, Brighton, was renovated by independent pub company the Regency Corporation.

The £265,000 facelift had punters branding the pub “unrecognisable”.

Weeks later, a reverend blessed the country’s first community-owned pub on a housing estate. The Bevendean pub in Hillside closed in 2010 leaving the Moulsecoomb, Bevendean and Bates estates as the most populated area in Sussex without a pub.

Since then, people have raised money by buying community shares to give the pub a rebirth as The Bevy.

The co-operative offers food and ale with plans for a community kitchen and even an edible beer garden.

It is being managed by Chris Pobjoy, 55, and has 700 shareholders.