Landslips have occurred from time to time on the cliffs to the south of West Hill Road onto gardens and buildings on Caves Road and Marina. This post tells the tale of two such landslips in 1937 and 1939 as taken from contemporary newspapers.
The image below is from a 25 inches to 1 mile Ordnance Survey map which was revised in 1938 and published in 1946. Three buildings are named in the newspaper accounts and can be identified on the map. The first of these is in the centre, a building marked P.H. At the time this was the Marina Inn, at 2 Sussex Road (it closed in 1996, when the Fountain pub at the other end of Caves Road was renamed The Marina Fountain). Around the corner from it is Caves Road, with the first house encountered on the cliff side being no. 52. Near the top of the cliff are two houses next to each other, one of which is apparently Cliff Cottage. The road at the bottom is Marina, which with other roads next to the sea in the town was also called ‘the Front’, facing the English Channel.
The Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 20 October 1937, has a vivid account, headlined (admittedly on page 10, and not in big type) FALLING CLIFF ALARM. Complaints by Caves Road Residents. NARROW ESCAPES.
The article begins:
Residents in Caves-road, St Leonards, are seriously perturbed about the continuous falls of rock from the cliff that towers above their homes, and are approaching the Council representatives for the St Leonards Ward in the matter.
The scullery of one house is more or less underground, and the window has had to be cemented up and the wall reinforced to withstand the 15 ft. pile of rock and earth that is resting against it.
So afraid are the residents of the great boulders that frequently come tumbling down into the road that many of them make a detour along the Front when visiting the town.
On Friday night there was another fall, and a woman and a young girl narrowly escaped injury when a mass of rock and earth weighing, it is estimated, about 5 cwt., crashed into the Marina Inn, completely blocking the saloon bar passageway. A car that attempted to pass along the road a few minutes later got stuck by the pile of rubble that became wedged under the chassis.
The road near the Marina Inn is about half the width that it should be. At this point it should measure about 15 ft., but when an “Observer” reporter visited the road this week he found that owing to the continuous collapses of portions of the cliff it measured only 7 ft. 6 ins. The remainder of the road was buried to a depth of several feet. This was not due to any recent falls as thick grass was growing on the steeply rising earth.
The article goes on to say that Mr J.G. Davis, the licensee of the Marina Inn, wanted to present a petition to the Council asking for action. The Town Clerk, however, told the reporter that the cliff was not the property of the Corporation and therefore they were not responsible for it.
There were steps leading up the cliff that were used by schoolchildren with, at the foot, a notice saying that the footpath was used by the public at their own risk.
Mr Davis said he had asked the Bopeep Corporation Yard a dozen times to clear the road after a fall. Understandably, he said “It is seriously affecting my trade. People won’t come round here at all.”
He had written to the Borough Engineer half a dozen times and had had no reply, and he had threatened not to pay his rates. He said when it rained the road got blocked by falling rock.
Mr J.E. Parker, a builder and decorator living with his family at 52 Caves Road, was also interviewed. He said:
‘Every time it rains the water cascades down the cliff and pours into the scullery. Last winter there was 3in. of water on the floor.’
The back of Mr Parker’s house in buried in the cliff. A 15ft. wall has been built to hold back the earth, and a passageway that formerly ran round the back of the house has disappeared under rocks and earth. There is a small cemented yard alongside the house. ‘But my wife does not dare to go outside owing to great lumps that come tumbling down,’ declared Mr Parker. ‘I am afraid the back of the house is going in one of these days.’
‘Two years ago,’ added Mr Parker, ‘there was a big fall and I was shot right out of my chair.’
We now move on to a brief but informative article in the Daily Express, 26 January 1939, reproduced in its entirety.
Cliff fall traps people in houses. Daily Express Correspondent HASTINGS (Sussex), Wednesday night.
SANDSTONE falling sixty feet from a cliff, tonight, completely blocked Caves-road, near St Leonards front, for a length of 100 feet.
The front doors of several houses were blocked, and occupants had to climb in and out of lower floor windows. Mr Davies, landlord of the Marina Inn, said to me: “The cliff came down with a roar like thunder. Luckily no one was either coming in or leaving the inn, otherwise they would have been killed.”
Miss R.F. Southey, occupant of Cliff Cottage, on West Hill, at the top of the crumbling cliff, has been warned that her house is not safe. She refuses to leave, and intends to sleep there tonight.
The Hastings Observer in its 28 January 1939 issue has more details. There is also a photo showing piles of earth against brick walls. Its story said that Wednesday was the wettest day since October 1937 and rain fell continuously for 13 hours. Heavy seas meant that shingle was thrown against some windows. Mr Davis added to his earlier comments that ‘the road in this case cleared easily, because the boulders powdered on falling and were washed away by the rain.’ He said it was lucky that the landslip was not at opening time.
As regards Miss Southey: ‘Two houses on the West Hill near the edge of the cliff have been reported dangerous, but there is no immediate danger of them falling, and the occupants, Miss Southey and Mrs Whitehead, have had no orders to leave.’ The account on Caves Road ends by stating ‘At the west end of Caves-road, where the cliff slopes to halfway up the rear wall of the houses, mud and rain have been washed down into the rooms, spoiling furniture and causing heavy expense to many of the residents.’
The 4 February issue talked of roping off the affected area and putting red lamps at night. The rear of the Marina Inn and the West Marina Garage were most affected. Mr Davis wanted action by the Council, pointing out that on Sunday evenings he would normally have ‘a good house full of customers, [but] there were only four people in the bars.’ He would normally have eight or ten cars outside during opening hours at weekends, now there were none. He also commented that ‘About nine years ago a gang of about 20 men were at work on repairs to part of the face of the cliff. They were engaged on the work for five or six weeks, and the very same night it was finished it all fell again.’ The account concluded by stating that on Monday the road was cleared and the ropes and red flags removed.
We can learn more about the three households named from the Register compiled on the 30 September 1939 of the entire civilian population, which is available on priced genealogy platforms. To some extent it acts as a census, with the 1921 census the last actual census available to us.
The information is by street. After the name (normally only the first name spelt out), gender was indicated (not listed here), full date of birth, M for married and S for single, and occupation. Relationships are not shown, so it can’t be taken for granted that the children are by both parents. They could be stepchildren, nephews, grandchildren and so on. Black stripes temporarily cover all details if that person is thought to still be alive. There are no black stripes in these households.
Struck through surnames and a surname written in indicates that a woman later married someone of that surname. For example, Audrey Parker married Bernard Knight in 1953 at Hastings. The Register is going to be increasingly useful for research as memories vanish of pre-war family life, and the next census, 1951, will not be released until about 2052. The 1931 census was destroyed by bombing, and the 1941 census never took place, hence the long wait.
Here are the Davis and Parker households, and details of the two women who would not move.
1 Caves Road [rather than the earlier reported 2 Sussex Road]
Davis Joseph G., born 8 Feb 80, M, licensed victualler
Davis Emily M., born 19 Jun 80, M, unpaid household duties
Davis George V., born 2 Aug 19, S, electrician
Davis Joseph W., born 25 Dec 21, S, plumbers apprentice
52 Caves Road [despite the dangers, the family still had not moved !]
Parker Joseph E., born 20 Feb 84, M, builder & decorator, C.P.O. Royal Navy Retired
Parker Elizabeth M. born 29 June 99, M, house wife
Parker [struck through, Wallis] Edna M. born 26 May 22, S, shop assistant draper
Parker Sydney F born 26 Aug 23, S, builder’s apprentice
Parker [struck through, Harris] Joyce M. born 20 Nov 24, S, shop assistant (boot & shoe)
Parker [struck through, Skinner] Maisie D. born 21 Mar 26, S, school
Parker Ronald G. born 2 May 28, S, school
Parker [struck through, Knight] Audrey Y., born 4 Dec 31, S, school
As for Rachel Southey, she was still hanging on in Cliff Cottage, born 1889, living alone on private means. Gertrude Whitehead, married, was living at a house called —–do [the Register has heavy tape obscuring the name], Sussex Steps, West Hill, born 1876, private means, with Lilian Trendell, spinster, born 1868, also private means, in the same household.
I had a look at 52 Caves Road the other day. Only the front third or so is still there, although the front door says 52, and possibly it is merged with its neighbour.