Undercliff is a road in St Leonards which at present is numbered 1 to 14, going from east to west. It used to be numbered 1 to 18, but four houses were destroyed in World War II. This post will mainly show how some information on those lost houses, and proposals to rebuild them or otherwise use the land, is available from planning applications at The Keep and on the Hastings Council’s website.
I have not investigated in detail when the houses were built, but Undercliff was one of the first roads in the town. In 1871, the 90-year lease of 10 Undercliff was to be sold at auction, dated 24 June 1828 from James Burton, which was less than four months from the first construction in the town (Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 4 February 1871). The date is probably of the sale of the empty plot to a builder rather than of a complete house.
The image below is from the Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1872 and published in 1875. In the middle is the Star P.H. [public house], which was briefly only, as here, at no. 18, but later expanded into no. 17. The next two along the street are nos. 16 and 15, which were also destroyed. The houses at bottom left were also destroyed but in this case for the Marine Court block of flats, the highest such block in the country when built in the late 1930s. For those unfamiliar with the area, there is indeed a steep drop behind the street, hence Undercliff, with the drop now a brick wall. The sea is just to the south, beyond both Marine Court and the since cleared Colonnade (just visible at bottom right).
The site was until recently a car park.
The 1921 census is useful in telling us how many rooms were in each household, besides what kinds of people lived there. Below I give the head of household’s details.
15. 11 rooms. Alfred Shirreff Kensington, head, 71, married, born Kent Blackheath, Ch of England clergyman Retired [plus wife]
16. 5 rooms. Dulcie Violet Mary Cardwell, head, 43, single, born Yorkshire, Sheffield, naturalised French citizen resident, home duties [plus sister Eveline, similar details]
16. 1 room. Louisa M. Gross, head, 56, widowed, born Sussex Hastings, home duties [plus daughter Norah, 16, working for the Warschawski Studio Ltd., 21 Grand Parade]
16. 5 rooms. Annie Mayo, head, 64, widow, born Kent Canterbury, [occupation] none [plus two daughters, one an out of work trained nurse]
17. 9 rooms. Mary Gwyther, head, 51, widow, born Hampshire Aldershot, home duties [plus as visitors a retired priest and his wife, and a servant]
18, Star Hotel. 4 rooms. Francis John Poole, head, 47, married, born Sussex Hastings, licensed victualler [plus wife, three daughters, and two sons]
The Cardwells somehow were French despite their surname and place of birth, but had become British citizens. The Star Hotel sounds rather crowded — the four rooms presumably are for the upper floor alone. You would expect a hotel to have more rooms, though…
The National Archives’ Discovery catalogue indexes both its own holdings and numerous other archives. From it I found that The Keep at Falmer has these documents, all planning applications except perhaps for the 1914 one. They will include drawings, unlike some on the Hastings Council website.
1905. DH/C/6/1/7288. Star Hotel, 17/18. Bathroom for no. 17.
1914. DH/C/18/149. Plan of single private drains at 4-5 St Clement’s Place and the Star Hotel.
1926. DH/C/6/1/9702. Star Hotel, 17/18. Alterations.
1953. DH/C/40/53/117. Star Hotel, 17/18. Licensed premises – rebuilding. Note: Premises destroyed by enemy action [same as HS/FA/53/00117 below].
In the Observer, 5 July 1958, there was talk of the compulsory purchase by the Council of a number of addresses in St Leonards that had been destroyed in bombing, including 17 and 18 Undercliff.
There are quite a number of planning applications on the Hastings Council website. I give brief details of them below. The titles are from the originals, while the reasons for refusing permission are my summaries from the decision. Planning applications are included from about 1950 but at first with few details, with gradually more details being given, such as drawings. Permission being given does not necessarily mean that anything was subsequently built. In addition, sometimes applications were refused only to be quickly followed by a, presumably altered, application. It is interesting that in 1962 eight flats with four parking spaces was considered acceptable, but in 1966 four houses with three parking spaces was not.
1953. HS/FA/53/00117. Nos. 17/18. Rebuilding of licensed premises. Display of neon sign. Messrs. Watney Combe, Reid and Co. Granted without conditions (historic)
1956. HS/FA/56/00584. Nos. 17/18. Erection of Public House with living accommodation and 90 bedrooms for use in conjunction with Marine Court. Marine Court Ltd. Refused permission [inadequate daylight for Marine Court and this development, too dense]
1961. HS/61/01008. Nos. 17/18. Erection of block of 9 flats and 6 garages. The Francis Group of Companies. Granted permission [includes drawing, not shown here]
1962. HS/62/00536. Nos. 17/18. Erection of four-storey block of eight flats with four garages. Mr J. Done. Granted permission.
1962. HS/62/00692. Nos. 17/18. Erection of advertisement board. Messrs. Dowling & Company. Granted permission.
1962. HS/62/00952. Nos. 17/18. Erection of block of 8 flats and 4 garages. Mr J. Done. Granted permission.
1964. HS/AA/64/00259. Nos. 17/18. Erection of advertisement hoarding and screen fence. Hastings & St Leonards Poster Advertising Co. Ltd. Granted permission.
1966. HS/OA/66/00549. Nos. 17/18. Site for the erection of four 2 storey terraces of four houses and three garages. Mr J. Done. Refused permission [out of scale, and a garage space required for each unit].
1966. HS/OA/66/00647. Nos. 17/18. Site for the erection of four 3 storey terraced houses with integral garage. Mr J. Done. Granted permission.
1977. HS/OA/77/00438. Site of nos. 15-18. Erection of four 3-storeyed terraced houses with garages and vehicular/pedestrian access. M.M. Done. Granted permission.
1978. HS/AA/78/00701. Nos. 15-17. Display of two floodlit advertisement panels. London and Provincial Posters Ltd. Granted permission.
The above shows how sometimes a wealth of information can be found on ideas that landowners had but which sometimes were refused, or about which they changed their minds. It also shows how the actual ownership of the land seems to have changed over the years.
Searching the electronic newspapers as well as census returns are obvious sources to find more about the history of this end of Undercliff. For example The Southeastern Advertiser, 2 December 1876, has a large advert for the 15 properties owned by James Mann, an ironmonger of 7 East Ascent who died in 1858. He was intestate, and the auction was on the instruction of the executors of his widow Charlotte. The properties included both the Star and no. 17 (a ‘private dwelling-house’) as well as, among others, 7 East Ascent, the British Hotel (shown in the map in this post) and 117-119 Marina. We rarely know what happened at the auction, but on this occasion the Observer, 17 December 1876, tells us that the Star was ‘bought in’ (failed to reach its reserve) at £2400 while 17 Undercliff was sold to Mr Freeman for £870. In the 1881 census no. 17 was a lodging house run by Ellen Wingrave, a 38-year-old widow with two young daughters.
The photo of the site given below suggests that perhaps there are plans for the site — it’s no longer a car park — but I could not trace a planning application.
