I was interested to read (Letters, September 29) that Laurie Keen is not convinced I am right to locate the site of Tissot's painting at the top of West Street, just above its junction with Duke Street.

He suggests it depicts Queen's Road, by its junction with Gloucester Road.

I, too, was concerned that the tower of St Paul's, now a prominent feature in the street scene, was not depicted in the painting.

However, I was satisfied that at the time, it would have been obscured by the height and location of the Regency-style terrace on the west side of the street.

This was demolished in the Thirties when West Street was considerably widened on that side, thus revealing the tower.

I had to eliminate Queen's Road from my investigations because the evidence of the layout of buildings and junctions in my detailed 1877 Ordnance Survey plan did not conform to the painting, which is dated 1875-1878.

For instance, the junction with Gloucester Road was wide and splayed, as it is today, unlike the turning on the left in the painting.

In fact, it had a drinking fountain in the centre. There was also a hotel on the north corner, not an old bow-fronted shop. In the painting, one can glimpse buildings at the bottom of West Street.

They cannot be seen today from this corner, even with that street so much wider now.

Mr Keen suggests the buildings on the right appear to curve into a junction on that side. Possibly with the advantage of a larger photo, I am unable to concur.

As he says, these buildings are not as tall as those in the painting, nor are they as detailed, although having bow windows.

However, they were there at the time of the painting, being originals erected some time after the coming of the railway in 1840-1841.

Mr Keen may still be right. As he suggests, Tissot could have erroneously painted the background from memory. I doubt it but perhaps we were all duped.

Perhaps a reader has a photo of West Street opposite Duke Street before widening?

Ken Fines

-Northease Drive, Hove