It may be thought that little documentation can be found on relatively modern roads, but I found a great deal on a pre World War II road. As it happens, it is also a good example of what is common today but used to be rare: a single builder purchasing and developing a large piece of land. The former practice was being one of several builders purchasing individual plots from the landowner. My research came about after coming across, in the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, a bomb damage report from an air raid.
King Edward Avenue is a longish road running north-south in Silverhill, St Leonards, to the east of Sedlescombe Road North and to the west of Coronation Wood in the Old Roar Gill. It was largely built during 1935-39 and in 1952. It is numbered from north to south, with evens on the west side and odds on the east side.
The road was one of several on the Briars Estate, which was both owned and built on by George Fryer of nearby 33 Glen Road. He was the son of Hastings builder Peter Fryer, who died in 1915 at 26 Elphinstone Road.
In the 1921 census George was of 43 Elphinstone Road, age 40, builder and contractor, place of work Hughenden Road, wife Margaret Elizabeth Fryer, 39, born Cranbrook, Kent. His wife died in 1944 at Ramsgate. He died 17 February 1947 at 33 Glen Road, apparently having remarried. He left an estate of £52474.
The estate architect was Frederick Gordon Watford, who was born in 1898 at Hastings, son of Lot Watford, an umbrella maker. In the 1901 census as a toddler and again in 1939 he was living at 67 High Street in Hastings’s old town; he died in 1962 in Hastings. He married, in 1928, at Carshalton, Helen Kathleen Boorman, daughter of a sign writer and decorator. He had served as a Private in the East Surrey Regiment in World War I, receiving a gunshot wound in the right thigh.
Besides the bomb damage report, this account is based mostly on catalogue entries from The Keep, the record office for East Sussex, of the many planning applications (none of which I have looked at). I have also used the newspapers. The brief reports of planning applications in the newspaper were ignored except for the initial one. There are of course many repetitive adverts for later resales. Also ignored were adverts for Fryer’s general building practice, although I did notice one showing that he both owned and built the Marina Estate in St Leonards. This was for Cavendish and Tudor Avenues and Boscobel Road North, with only 19 houses left, as advertised in the Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 29 June 1935. Unlike many builders, who could only afford to buy a few plots at a time from the freeholder, Fryer was clearly able to buy quite substantial parcels of land to build on.
The illustrated advert below from 1936 shows that there were a few basic models to choose from. Most of the houses seem to have had 3 or 4 bedrooms. Walking down the street it was obvious that with a few exceptions they are semi-detached houses. Possibly those exceptions are rebuilds after war damage (I did not investigate this). Some are mock-Tudor with roofs sloping down on the first floor, reducing the upstairs space, but a larger number have a cube-like shape.
Some planning applications relating to only one or two houses have been omitted in the list of planning applications given below. The house numbers are simply indicated as 1, 3, etc. Fortunately the street numeration never changed.
Citations to the Hastings Observer, which are in italics if quoted or otherwise summaries, and are noted as HSLO. The cited DH planning applications are at The Keep, the date being that of permission, not the application. The ‘Note’ comments for the applications are from the catalogue.
11 October 1935. Road and sewer layout. DH/C/6/1/12795
9 November 1935. House. [Nos.] 1, 3, 5-20, 22, 24. Note: 5, 7, 9 demolished by Govt 1944. DH/C/6/1/12820
16 November 1935. HSLO.Ten pairs of semi-detached houses, Briars Estate. Mr George Fryer, owner, per Mr F. Gordon Watford, architect.
12 June 1936. House. 21-24, 26, 28-40, 42, 44, 46, 48. Amended plan for 22 and 24. DH/C/6/1/13109
11 July 1936. HSLO. Suggestion from owner of the Briers [sic] Estate that roads be named King Edward Avenue, Madeira Drive, Normandy Road, and The Crescent, Madeira Drive, adopted [King Edward VIII became monarch on the 10 January 1936, and abdicated 10 December 1936].
18 July 1936. HSLO. Advert for the Briars Estate, ‘attractive 3 and 4-bedroom type houses now ready for inspection in King Edward Avenue, from £775 freehold.’
14 August 1936. House. 25, 27. DH/C/6/1/13205
28 August 1936. House. 41, 43, 45, 47, 50, 53, 55. Note: 50, 52 not built. DH/C/6/1/13229
29 August 1936 HSLO, advert for The Briars Estate, as shown above. ‘A house that will increase in value’ was a good prediction, as the houses are typically sold nowadays for about £360,000. The Internet of course has plenty of images of recently sold houses, including layouts, though modifications may have occurred since their construction.
18 September 1936. House. 49, 51, 54, 56, 57-60, 62, 64. Note: 54-64 not built. DH/C/6/1/13247
19 September 1936 HSLO. Show house at no. 13, which was equipped with a phone. Furnished by Plummer and Roddis [later Debenham’s].
11 December 1936. House. 53, 55. Amended plan. DH/C/6/1/13350
9 January 1937. HSLO. No. 12, 3 bedrooms, let by Dyer & Overton for £65 p.a. or £70 if garage included; 3-year leases; apparently 4-bedroom houses available, £70 p.a., £75 if garage.
15 April 1937. Deed of covenant between George Fryer, 33 Glen Road, builder, and Hastings Urban Sanitary Authority with respect to 29-35, odds. DH/C/15/179
10 July 1937. HSLO. The owner of a house in King Edward-avenue asked for a reduction of [rates] assessment because a similar house at Folkestone was assessed at a lower figure. The Folkestone house was nearer the town than the Hastings one. There was no library near in Hastings, as in Folkestone… “You should have thought of all that before you moved,” commented Mr Groome. The assessment was confirmed at £43 gross, £33 rateable.
1938 Kelly’s Directory. The 1937 Kelly’s had merely noted the existence of the road but this edition listed 33 inhabited houses. There are no clues to the occupations except that no. 27 housed both Mrs Bovill and ‘Betty Madam, ladies’ hairdrssr’.
11 March 1938. Bungalow. 52-62 evens. Note: 54-62 not built. DH/C/6/1/13926
7 April 1938. House. 59-77 odds. Note: 71-77 odds not built. DH/C/6/1/13985
14 October 1938. House. 54-68 evens. Note: Not built. DH/C/6/2/171
30 September 1939 Register. This was a UK-wide listing, by address, of all civilians. It was compiled for rationing purposes. The transcript below for some houses shows how useful it is for identifying the residents’ jobs. Also, like the census it states severe disabilities. Its value for genealogy is, however, reduced by the lack of any information on how people were related. The Register is available on the priced Ancestry and Find My Past databases.
5 [King Edward Avenue]. [Schedule no.] 193.
Lavender Frederick J., M[ale], [born] 26 Nov 71, M[arried], gardener domestic
Lavender Mary E., F[emale], 26 Aug 87, M, unpaid domestic duties
Lavender Fanny, F, 18 May 43, W[idow], incapacitated
- 194.
Elphick William, M, 21 Dec 02, M, general labourer
- 195.
Stredwick John, M, 26 Sept 69, M, journey[man] decorator
Stredwick Louisa, F, 19 Jan 72, M, unpaid domestic duties
Thompson Kenneth, M, 30 Oct 19, S[ingle], no occupation, British Red Cross
- 196.
Batt Caroline J., F, 14 Oct 62, W[idower], pensioner
- 197.
Fennell Frederick, M, 3 Dec 83, M, plumber
Fennell Jemima J., F, 9 June 73, M, unpaid domestic duties
MacGregor Mary J., F, 8 Apl 65, W, private means
- 198.
Kennard Charles, M, 8 Apl 72, M, gardener (jobbing)
Kennard Louisa J., F, 9 June 73, M, unpaid domestic duties
Edmunds Sarah, F, 25 Dec 69, S, old age pensioner
Goodridge Minnie, F, 10 Jan 69, W, no occupation
Elmslie Margaret, F, 30 Sept 02, S, no occupation
- 199.
Kennard Naomi, F, 12 Nov 60, W, old age pensioner
30 December 1939. HSLO. Advert offering houses on King Edward Avenue and Madeira Drive for 19 shillings a week, or £55 per annum [which is over £5 more expensive than renting weekly !]. Also garages for 4s 6d weekly. Geo. Fryer, owner and builder.
11 March 1943. The date of one of the biggest raids in Hastings, with 38 civilian deaths. Much damage was done in the Silverhills area, and below is a photograph taken at the time by the local police showing damage.
The photograph appears to show a destroyed pair of houses in the middle with considerable damage to the left hand house on the right, and lesser damage to the other houses. The Part II list of damaged properties — those destroyed or so badly damaged they need to be pulled down — is given below. I am assuming that 5 and 7 are the middle houses, and 9 the badly damaged house. Nobody on the street appears to have been killed in the raid.
Part III of the bomb damage reports is much longer and covers those buildings capable of being repaired. See the sample image below for the beginning of the numeration. The % sign means that the occupier was also the owner. Mr Mallyon, the occupier and owner of no. 15, was noted above as the owner of no. 9, with Mr Rix as the tenant. Reginald John Mallyon (1907-81) was a senior Post Office official. G. Fryer is listed as the owner of four houses. I went though the other pages and found he owned 22 houses on the street. Although some builders would keep back a few houses to rent out, 22 sounds excessive. I suspect that with World War II he was unable to sell many of the houses, and instead settled for renting them out, as hinted at in the 30 December 1939 advert cited above. Buying in wartime was a big commitment.
28 October 1946. House – rebuild. 5, 7, 9. DH/C/6/2/1191
2 April 1949. HSLO. Compulsory purchase order for 1000 sq yds of land, corner of St Helen’s Road and King Edward Avenue, from executors of George Fryer, deceased, apparently for fire services.
28 March 1952. House. 54-68 evens. DH/C/40/49/904A
25 July 1952. House. 71-77 odds. DH/C/40/52/350
31 October 1952. House. 71-77 odds. Amended plan. DH/C/40/52/350a
31 August 1959. House. 70, 72. Semi-detached house [also for 16-38 Madeira Drive and 269 St Helens Road] DH/C/40/59/685
I will conclude this post by mentioning the interesting article in the Hastings Observer, 4 June 1993, pages 22-23, on the history of Fryer & Sons, which was closing following the retirement of David Fryer. There is a photo of Peter Fryer, George’s father, who, a carpenter, had come to Hastings in 1861 and founded the firm two years later. Apparently there were 120 employees in the 1930s.