From the 1880s onwards, planning applications were typically, though not consistently, reported in the local papers a day or two after either being allowed or rejected. Here we have some St Leonards applications from the Hastings and St Leonards Times, 6 December 1890, as an example:
…bakers’ oven at No. 30 Western-road, St Leonards, for Mr Wallis… detached villa at West-hill-road, St Leonards, for Mr Howell be not approved not being in accordance with the bye-laws…18 terrace houses at New-road, West-marina, for Mr W.H. Attwood; pair of semi-detached villas, at West-hill-road, St Leonards, adjoining the swimming baths belonging to the Rev. J.W. Tottenham, for Messrs. A. and W. Phillips; seven dwelling houses and shops in London-road, St Leonards, at Junction with Southwater-road, for Mr H.E. Cruttenden.
Except for presumed baker Mr Wallis all the names were, I believe, of builders. This is quite a lot of information, if sometimes vague.
I turned to the National Archives’ Discovery catalogue, which indexes numerous archives including those for East Sussex, for more information. Below, following the same newspaper information, I have added in square brackets data from the catalogue. The actual applications would include the architect’s name as well as the actual plans.
…bakers’ oven at No. 30 Western-road, St Leonards, for Mr Wallis [allowed as DH/C/6/1/5004]
… detached villa at West-hill-road, St Leonards, for Mr Howell [65 West Hill Road, not allowed as DH/C/6/1/5007]
…18 terrace houses at New-road, West-marina, for Mr W.H. Attwood [1-18 Seaside Road, as it is now, allowed as DH/C/6/1/5009]
Pair of semi-detached villas, at West-hill-road, St Leonards [now the single house 1a and 1b, West Hill Road, allowed as DH/C/6/1/5010, catalogue notes ‘not built’]
Seven dwelling houses and shops in London-road, St Leonards [235-249 odds, London Road, allowed as DH/C/6/1/5011, catalogue adds ‘Note: 235 not built’]
Did you notice that the document numbers are in numerical order ? I guessed the correct number for Mr Attwood’s West Marina scheme.
I will take one of these houses – 1a West Hill Road – and explore its history until just after World War II.
The lease for the plot was sold on the 25 March 1889 for 99 years. We know that from a 1931 advert when it was advertised for sale. It took some time to decide on the application, apparently.
Nevertheless, this application was dropped by the applicant. Instead, we have, in the Hastings Observer of the 6 June 1891, a much more informative notice than the first application:
Detached villa, West-hill-road, St Leonards (Messrs. A. and W. Phillips, owners; Messrs. Jeffery and Skiller, architects); that the plans (which are in lieu of plans passed for one pair of semi-detached villas on this site) be approved.
It was numbered as DH/C/6/1/5102. The Phillips partnership were builders. Albert Wilson Jeffery and William Skiller were a well-known partnership, with offices at 5 Havelock Road. Their partnership was dissolved in 1901, with Jeffery labouring on alone. If I had only had this later newspaper reference it would of course have led me to look for the earlier application.
I then turned to the annual Pike’s directories at Hastings Library. It contains street listings which from 1893 listed, after the St Leonards School Baths (the ‘Turkish Baths’ building), ‘Dundridge, Wilson, D.H. Esq. M.A., L.L.M.’ The same information was given, in 1894, but for some years Dundridge was listed as being a furnished house, so was apparently empty, or perhaps rented out on short leases. In fact I could be more precise than 1893, as from October 1892 the Hastings & St Leonards Advertiser, with lists of residents by street, began to give David Wilson and Mrs Wilson (presumably his mother) as the residents.
I spotted a very early mention of David Wilson. The 20 March 1874 issue of The Hastings Independent announced a lecture by David H. Wilson, M.A., L.L.M., (Cantab.) at the Unitarian Chapel, South Terrace, Hastings, on ‘Is the spiritual theory a rational deduction from the evidences of Spiritualism ?’
The ‘Cantab.’ told me that Wilson was a Cambridge graduate, which meant that that he would have an entry in Venn’s Cambridge University Alumni, 1261-1900. David Henry Wilson was born in 1847 at Calcutta, son of a merchant, and went up to St John’s in 1866. In 1870 he married Rosalie Rendle.
He was called to the bar in 1874, hence the L.L.M. I was lucky enough to find him in a French census in 1887 at Hyères, on the Riviera. He was there with his wife, two sons, and two servants. In the 1901 census at Dulwich he was a widower, with a son who was a Cambridge student.
The son was Arthur David Calder Wilson, who, as of 66 Kenilworth Road, St Leonards, a 35-year-old professor of chemistry, was conscripted in 1917 and served in the Royal Field Artillery. His wife Ethel’s address was given as ‘unknown’ in his army papers.
His father David remarried in 1903, and in the 1911 census he and his wife were boarding in an hotel at Falmouth, Cornwall. He was 63, while his wife was 40, born at Reading. He died in 1925.
The details in the Advertiser of the occupants are hard to interpret as they could include those staying briefly, and often the database fails to spot ‘Dunridge.’ Examples of occupants are for example in the 30 January 1896 issue a Mrs Baker was listed as the householder, with, in larger type to indicate a visitor or visitors, Major General Warrington and family. Mrs Baker was there in March 1899, but in June there was a Mr and Mrs Boycott. And so on. The owners, whoever they were, clearly were renting out the property for short leases.
I did not attempt to sort all the occupants out, but I was intrigued by Mr and Mrs Robert Goff. They occupied the house in August 1900, then they were at Salingen, 21 West Hill, for October and November 1900, then again at 1a for January and February 1901. Why ?
In April 1901, the time of the census, the occupants were Mr and Mrs Maybery. However I could not find the property in the 1901 census. A longer stay seems to have been that of Miss Tennant, who lived at Dunridge from May 1901 to February 1904.
The Advertiser has the following obituary in its 31 May 1906 issue:
OFFICER’S DEATH AT ST LEONARDS. We regret to announce the death of Lieut.-Colonel Alfred Molyneux Cranmer-Byng, J.P., D.L., of Quendon Hall, Essex, and Dunridge, West-hill, St Leonards (late of the Grenadier Guards), which took place at St Leonards recently. The deceased officer, who was born in 1840, was a descendant of Archbishop Cranmer. Members of the Cranmer family took the name of Webb, and reverted to the name of Cranmer; ultimately the name of Byng became added. Colonel Cranmer-Byng resided at Coghurst Hall from about the end of 1870 to 1874. He had taken up his residence at Dunridge very shortly before his death. He leaves a widow. He was connected by marriage with the Frewen family at Northiam. The funeral took place at Quendon on Thursday.
He had died on the 20 May. Born with the surname of Byng, he changed it to Cranmer-Byng in 1882 by royal licence. When, aged 47, he married in 1888, at St Mark’s, North Audley Street, the 32-year-old Emma Evangeline Ker Baillie-Hamilton, he was a widowed, retired lieutenant colonel, son of Henry Byng, Captain RN. His bride had been born in Newfoundland, where her father was the Governor. An 1861 photograph of him by Camille Silvy is at the National Portrait Gallery as no. 126386.
The Advertiser, 27 December 1906, announced that Miss Wulff had let Dunridge. She was listed as the resident between the 14 February 1907 and the 9 May 1907. From the 16 May 1907 the Misses Jennings were the occupants, ending with the 27 June issue. The next issue, 4 July 1907, until the 18 June 1908 had a Mr and Mrs J.W. Sutton.
This was John Wisden Sutton, listed as a voter at 1a in 1910, claiming a vote ‘in succession’ (that is, having previously lived at) 43 Alma Terrace. In the 1911 census he and his family were at 71 Vale Road, he age 59, a lodging house keeper, born Hastings, with wife Phoebe, 51, born York, and three children: Grace, 18, a milliner; Jack, 16, a solicitor’s clerk; and Victor, 12, a schoolboy, all born in Hastings. In the 1921 census they were one street over, back at 43 Alma Terrace, he a retired lodging house keeper, and died later that year. The censuses show that he was consistently a lodging house keeper which makes his changes of address unusual.
Another obituary was in the Hastings Observer, 20 March 1909:
MISS JENNINGS. We regret to record the death of Miss Elizabeth Jennings, youngest daughter of the late Mr Reginald Jennings, at Bishops Stortford, which took place at her residence, Dunridge, West-hill, St Leonards.
Miss Jennings had been in failing health for some time…
She was buried in three coffins in the family vault at Bishop’s Stortford. She had been born in 1823, and died on the 10 March, leaving an estate of £16381, equivalent to £1,700,000 today. The Essex Newsman, 20 March 1909, stated that her father was a maltster and corn merchant.
I doubt that it is a coincidence that when, in the 1901 census at 67 Marina the same Sutton family were running a lodging house, a Jennings household was renting from them in the same building. This was Ann Jennings, 80, and Elizabeth Jennings, 77, both single, living on their own means, and born at Bishop’s Stortford, together with their neice Margaret Jennings, 39, a widow. They also shared a lady’s maid. Ann had an obituary in the Hastings Observer, 16 July 1910, but without a mention of where she lived. Clearly there was a long-running relationship between the Sutton and Jennings families.
The 2 April 1911 census was the first to give the number of rooms in each household. However the house was apparently vacant and was ignored.
The Hastings Observer, 10 June 1911, had a long list of furniture to be sold on the 15 June by Dawson and Harden, presumably on the premises, giving an idea of what the interior was like.
In the 1921 census, with 9 rooms, Dunridge had the following household:
Emily Constance Footit, head, 67, S, born Newark Notts, no occupation
Emma Young Allaway, servant, 67, S, born Rye Sussex, cook
Louisa Smaith, servant, 38, S, born Hollington Sussex, house parlour maid
In 1926, the rights to receive the ground rent of £12 per annum were offered for sale by auction. Its sale by the freeholder was a common way to try to extract yet more value from a property by receiving a capital sum rather than annual amounts.
In the 1911 census Miss Footit was living in Lincolnshire with a widowed sister. Her father was a solicitor. Her last entry in Pike’s directory is in 1931, for ‘1a (Dunridge)’. She had in fact died on the 7 December 1930, leaving an estate of £4969.
Two brief adverts for the sale of the furniture and the leasehold appeared in the Hastings & St Leonards Observer, 10 January 1931. Much more detailed adverts appeared in the 24 January issue, as shown below. The furniture was to be sold by auction on the premises, while the house’s auction was to be on the 5 February at the Castle Hotel in Hastings.
The details of the furniture give a human touch to the household, while the details on the house tell us a great deal. Besides the description listing three reception and six bedrooms, the 99-year lease implies that it was an Eversfield Estate property, as they favoured that length, and we have the actual date of the sale in 1889. I did not find these details anywhere else. I do not know, incidentally, what happened when the lease ran out. Often the freehold was sold before the lease’s end.
The purchasers were almost certainly the Kyte family, who dropped the name of Dunridge.
The 1932 electoral register listed the following voters:
Kyte, Edward Frank. 1a (Ground Floor)
Kyte, Lydia Elsie. 1a do.
Cass, Richard William (1st Floor)
Cass, Edith Mary do.
This suggests a subdivision of course, perhaps informally, where the occupants kept to their floor. The Kytes had married in 1909 in Walthamstow, she as Holdaway. Her father’s job in the 1901 census was ‘office washstand maker’. Richard Cass, the presumed tenant, was a retired Surveyor for HM Customs in 1939.
In the 1921 census at 4 Edward Road, St Leonards, Edward Kyte had been a Sub Conductor, Military Works Services, India, hence an NCO. He was 45, born Brighton, while his wife was 33, born Hackney. There were three children, all born in India or Burma: Edward, Eric and Lilian. The electoral registers suggest that they had moved to 1a from a flat at 3 Chapel Park Road.
A list of new telephone subscribers in the Hastings Observer, 6 October 1934, included:
2539, Lieutenant E.F. Kyte, Ooty, 1a, West Hill, St Leonards.
Apparently Edward had received a promotion on his retirement. ‘Ooty’ refers to a south Indian hill station, also nicknamed ‘Snooty Ooty’. The British named it Ootacamund and it is now called Udagamandalam. In 1976 the newspaper in recording the death of Elsie Nellie Barrett, age 86, noted that she was formerly of Ooty, 1a West Hill Road.
The 1935 electoral register:
Kyte, Edward Frank. 1a (Ground Floor)
Kyte, Lydia Elsie. 1a do.
Moore, Charles Frederick Kirkstead. 1a
Moore, Belle Alice. 1a
Collier, Arthur. 1a
Charles Frederick Kirkstead Moore was the son of a Leicestershire Anglican clergyman. Charles had no occupation specified when, aged, 38, he was in his parents’ household in the 1921 census. Charles served in the Boer War as a Private in the Cape Police, and in World War I as a Lieutenant in the Royal Army Service Corps. He died in 1938 at 4 Sussex Mansions, 109 Marina.
On the 24 December 1937 Edward Frank Kyte died at 1a. He left a widow, Lydia Elsie. He had an estate of £916. The 1938 electoral register listed Lydia as the only voter at 1a. She died in 1965 at Purley, Surrey. She was in Cranbrook, Kent at the time of the next record, the ‘Register’.
This was a kind of census conducted on the 30 September 1939 which listed by street address all civilians in the UK. There were 13 residents at 1a, as listed below. The idea behind a black line across details is that anyone still alive has their details temporarily concealed. Crossed through surnames with a second surname written in were when women later married, with their married surnames.
Coates Mary, [born] 7 Oct 85 M[arried] householder ‘G.P.D.’
Coates (crossed through, replaced by McCreadie) Dorothy M., 20 May 10, S, government clerk RASC
Coates (crossed through, replaced by Pym) Annie B., 26 Nov 11, S[ingle], dressmaker
Coates Muriel F., 6 June 13, S, government clerk RASC ‘see page 2’
Coates Arthur B., 29 June 17, S, house carpenter & joiner, builders trade
Gilbert Margaret E., 23 Nov 65, W[idow], none
Werner Moritz, 17 May 80, M, ‘refugee’
Werner Friederike, 12 Apr 81, M, ‘refugee’
Levick, Isabel E., 18 Nov 72, S, companion housekeeper
Rogers Marion S., 20 Nov 73, S, nurse—– [?] [black line]
Paterson Olive S., 14 Feb 18, S, government clerk RASC
Death Gladys J., 5 Dec 16, S, perfumery sales girl & assistant chambe[rmaid]
The above offers much of interest. Numerous female clerks were billeted in St Leonards during the war, such as here with the Royal Service Corps. Marine Court was also used to house female clerks.
I picked Muriel Frances Coates at random to see if I could find out more on one of the residents. She was a ‘land girl’ between 22 April 1941 and 27 February 1945 at Garslade Farm, near Wells. She had been baptised in that part of the world, at Butleigh, Somerset. In early 1945 she married, in Devon, Cecil Venn (her new surname should have been noted above like her sisters), and died in 1999 in Somerset. At her baptism, her father Arthur Bernard Coates was a stores manager. He was a Private and then a Lance Corporal in the Somersetshire Light Infantry in World War I.
I was unable to find more on the Moritz couple in an admittedly fairly brief search. I have never before seen a mention of refugees in the 1939 Register, and I have looked at many records.
What the useful Register information doesn’t tell us is how the accommodation was arranged at the time. There are two sources that often help: the directories, again, and electoral registers (which at the time often explained which floor the voter lived on, and hence by implication the flat arrangement). In this case we have in the 1940 Kelly’s Directory:
1a, Coates Arth. Bernard, board residence
Hence it was a boarding house, which is useful information. Next door, no. 1 was being run as a private hotel. The electoral register for 1939 does not list any voters at no. 1a.
There is a third planning application for the house, DH/C/6/2/825, approved 11 June 1946, for repairing war damage. Because of a shortage of both labour and materials, there were restrictions on how much could be spent. The newspapers had long lists of the properties, the financial amount permitted, and the applicant’s name. The 15 June 1946 issue of the Hastings and St Leonards Observer had, among 89 planning applications, the following war damage repair application:
1a, West Hill, St Leonards (£245, Major E. Kyte)
Major Kyte was Eric Frank Kyte, the younger son, who has two photos of him in uniform in the National Portrait Gallery as no. 133855. He became a Brigadier.
The 1948 Kelly’s Directory for Hastings and St Leonards listed:
1a, Kyte Mrs
1a, Gibbons Mrs
1a, Oxford, Arth. J.
From 1a, Mrs Kyte wrote a letter complaining about possible noise from building work at St Leonards emergency church – which was next door’s Turkish Baths, filling in for the destroyed St Leonards church (Hastings Observer, 6 April 1957). It is marked as the church on the map below.
In 1988 there were planning applications to divide the building into flats. Two existing flats became four, and there are six today. 1b is specifically mentioned in these applications, but is also given on the Ordnance Survey map in 1954, shown below. From the incomplete set of annual Kelly’s directories at Hastings Library 1954 is also the first time when, as well as 1a, 1b appeared, with a Jessie Vibert living there.
The big gap between 1 and 13 on the map was due to bomb damage and is now modern housing.
