The 12 July 1862 issue of the St Leonards and Hastings Gazette & Visitors’ Vade Mecum reported on the sale of a ‘block’ of 13 houses and a plot of land at an auction at the Warrior’s Gate pub, the site of the present Post Office on London Road. The account is unusually detailed, and states that the auction went on for about two hours, with spirited bidding before a large audience, some of whom were the tenants of the houses. We are told that the houses were mostly erected 27 years before, ‘let to the occupiers at what is now considered a very moderate rent’, so clearly never raised, and that many of the tenants were occupants from 1835. It continues:
The property is situated in Norman Road, Gensing Road, and Shepherd Street, and belonged to a daughter and two sons of the late Mr William Went Tree, the first-named owner, after a protracted illness, having expired one day previously to the sale. The purchasers and amounts of purchase were as follows. – Mr Taylor (occupier), 19 Norman Road, a seven-roomed house, £500; Mr Eldridge (occupier), 20, Norman Road, a six-roomed house with shop and bakehouse, £535; Mr Burgess, 21, Norman Road, a house with seven rooms and shop, £640; Mr Burgess also purchased a smaller house adjoining for £250; Mr Price, 2, Gensing Road, a small six-roomed house, £250; Mr E. Avery, 3, Gensing Road, six rooms, £245; Mr How, the adjoining house, £240; Mr —-, 22, Shepherd Street, a corner house, containing five rooms and a shop, £330; Mr N. Parks, 23, Shepherd Street, a four-roomed cottage, £190; Mr Cramp, a four-roomed cottage, £195; Mr How, a similar house, £170; Mr Townshend, (occupier), 26, Shepherd Street, (four rooms), £170; Mr Holebone, 27, Shepherd Street, (four rooms and entrance passage), £200; Mr F. Tree, a plot of ground 62ft. by 22ft., £122. The total amount of purchases was £3737. Thus it has been calculated by those conversant with building matters that the property has realised, by sale and hire, treble the value of its first cost. It is understood that some of the property has again changed hands at a premium.
The mention of the ‘first-named owner’ was to Mary Tree, who was buried, aged 23, at the Borough Cemetery on the 12 July.
I found these details fascinating, if tantalising. Remember that the houses were in a block ? They clearly would have formed a C-shape on those streets as shown on a near contemporary map, below. Unfortunately, as in war, the houses are on the edge of the map, and a few properties to the east are therefore not shown. The houses were on the northern side of Norman Road, then the eastern side of Gensing Road, then the south side of Shepherd Street.
Many if not all of the houses are still substantially the same if only in outside appearance. If they were all built in 1835 it is interesting that Norman Road looks different from Gensing Road as shown in the photo below.
The auction lists 19-21 Norman Road West, 1-4 Gensing Road, 22-27 Shepherd Street. Today I walked over to see the current street numeration. Norman Road’s north side, going west from the old Methodist church, is (odds only) 65 to 75, then a hairdresser at no. 77 at the corner, and then for Gensing Road consecutive numbers 60 to 56 until Shepherd Street. That road seems to have kept its old numbering, as it is 22, 23, etc. going east, with the corner house being no. 22, as in the auction details. However the map shows four properties on Gensing Road while there are now five numbered properties there. Nobody said historical research was easy…
The 1861 census doesn’t really help as it is hard to figure out what is were. For example, it gives up on that corner house and gives it as ‘Corner of Shepherd St & Gensing Rd.’ I noticed that the census gave parallel numeration on each side of Gensing Road, starting north from no. 1, which must have made life awkward for postmen.
I give below the main householders in the 1861 census of what appear to be the auctioned properties, with other occupants noted in brackets. It doesn’t match up – why was 1 Gensing Road not mentioned in the auction, for example – but does show how cramped Gensing Road was, that most occupants were working-class, and that most householders were born in East Sussex. I invite further speculation to try to match up the census with the auction details, let alone the modern streets. Gensing Road’s parallel numeration is noted briefly below.
After every address I have given the number of occupants in that house in square brackets.
19 Norman Rd West [5]
James Taylor, head, M, 56, stable keeper, born Bucks Whaddon
[Wife, daughter, 2 lodgers]20 Norman Rd West [14]
Edward J. Thomson, head, M, 41, stone mason, born Kent Sheerness
[Wife, 2 daughters, 4 sons, visitor]Nathaniel Tanner, head, M, 35, carpenter & joiner, born Gloucestershire Stroud
[Wife, son, 2 daughters]21 Norman Rd West [9]
John Eldridge, head, M, 44, baker & grocer, born Sussex Westfield
[Wife, 3 daughters, 2 sons, 2 servants]1 Gensing Road [12]
William Carey, head, M, 60, general laborer, born Sussex Ewhurst
[Wife, who was a charwoman, 2 sons and 3 daughters, 2 lodgers]Ambrose Avis, head, M, 22, bricklayer’s laborer, born Sussex Rotherfield
[Wife, a charwoman, son]2 Gensing Road [10]
John Collins, head, M, 34, mariner, born Sussex Bexhill
[Wife, 2 daughters, son, brother Newman Collins, mariner, and a lodger]George Parsons, head, M, 48, agricultural laborer, born Sussex Westfield, ‘deaf’
[Wife, lodger]3 Gensing Road [12]
George Burton, head, M, 31, stableman, born Sussex Warbleton
[Wife, daughter, 2 sons, 2 lodgers]Henry Vinall, head, M, 33, blacksmith, born Sussex Hurstmonceux
[Wife, 3 sons]4 Gensing Road [4]
Thomas Akehurst, head, W, 66, casual laborer, born Sussex Hooe
[Sister]Walter Robins, head, M, 36, employed at a brewhouse, born London
[Wife]Corner of Shepherd St & Gensing Rd. [8]
Samuel Sinden, head, M, 55, baker & milkman, born Sussex Hastings
[Wife, who was a laundress, 3 daughters, 3 sons]Gensing Nursery
2 Gensing Road…
3 Gensing Road…
4 Gensing Road…
5, house to let, uninhabited [eventually to the Nag’s Head at no. 11, so all this this is apparently the west side] [After 20 Shepherd Street there is:]
22 Shepherd Street [3]
Elizabeth Filman, head, W, 60, born Sussex Peasmarsh
[Son, a carpenter, and a lodger]23 Shepherd Street [4]
Thomas Barden, head, M, 60, carpenter, born Sussex Icklesham
[Wife, son, lodger]24 Shepherd Street [4]
Edward Avery, head, M, 55, Cab Proprietor, born Sussex Hastings
[Wife, 2 sons]25 Shepherd Street [4]
Stephen Goodwin, head, M, 40, Cab Proprietor, born Kent Romney
[Wife, 2 daughters]26 Shepherd Street [2]
William Townshend, head, 49, plasterer, born Warwickshire Southern
[Wife]27 Shepherd Street [9]
Aaron Stubberfield, head, M, 33, laborer to Coal Merchant, born Sussex Wartling
[Wife, 2 sons, 2 daughters]William Peacham, head, M, 34, laborer at Gas Works, born Sussex Battle
[Wife, who was a charwoman, daughter] [This house was followed by the Wesleyan school; no. 33 is the highest number]The buyers are hard to identify, but I am sure that N. Parks was Newton Parks, a retired butcher at 16 Undercliff in the 1861 census. Mr How was presumably the coal merchant on Marina.