Mount Pleasant is a row of houses fronting onto a footpath, parallel to Norman Road. The houses face south over the English Channel. Opposite its beginning, which is next to East Ascent and Mercatoria, is St Clements Place, currently numbered 1-3. No. 3 is also called Clarence House. Nos. 1 and 2 are furthest along Mount Pleasant, with a steep drop below both the houses and the rest of the footpath. No. 1 has a garden well below it, to its east.
An Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1954 does not show nos. 4-5, which would have had an even steeper drop, and were probably lost when the Star public house and other buildings in Undercliff were destroyed in a bombing raid in World War II. Below is a detailed map from 1872 which shows the area as it would have been in 1923, with no. 3 the British Hotel (now apartments).
In the 1921 census there were 11 people living at 1 St Clements Place in six rooms. The census tells us how many rooms were in each household. These were:
[In two rooms:]John Townsend, head, 28, M[arried], born Sussex Eastbourne, farm labour, W. Smith Farmer Employer, at home [written in red crayon ‘Great Worsham Farm Bexhill’]
Beatrice Ellen Bratt, boarder, 26, S[ingle], born Essex Colchester
Beatrice Louisa Bratt, charl [?], 11 months, born Hastings
[In three rooms:]Albert Edward Upton, head, 41, M, born Sussex Hastings, general laborer, Elite Theatre, Warrior Square
Edith Mary Upton, wife, 39, M, born Hants Andover, cook, private, Riviera Hotel, Warrior Sq
Christopher Leonard Upton, son, 12, born Sussex Hastings, [educated] whole time
Winifred Irene Upton, dau, 10, born Sussex Hastings, [educated] whole time
Albert Edward Upton, son, 5, born Sussex Hastings, [educated] whole time
[In one room:]John Legge, head, 26, M, born Surrey Anerley, motor driver, private, no fixed place, ‘out of work’
Annie Legge, wife, 27, M, born Sussex St Leonards, daily domestic servant, private, 17 Albany Road, St Leonards
Gladys Violet Legge, dau, 5, born Sussex St Leonards, [educated] whole time
Just from that information the house sounds horribly cramped, especially for the Legge family. It is rare that we get more details of the harsh conditions. I have written a similar story in Crystal Square, St Leonards on Sea: an unsanitary place. In this case, a brief account in the Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 9 June 1923, tells us that the house was unsanitary and was to be ‘closed’ or condemned:
CLOSING ORDER. The Public Health Committee have a report from the Sanitary Inspector on the condition of 1, St Clement’s-place, stating that the premises are unfit for human habitation and recommended that a closing order be made. – Adopted.
There is much more information in the Hastings Observer, 26 January 1924:
BEDROOM IN CELLAR. APPALLING HOUSING CONDITIONS. WHERE WILL THE
FAMILIES GO ?
A glimpse of the appalling conditions which exist in some of the parts of the town was given during the hearing of an action at the County Court on Tuesday, before His Honour Judge Moore Cann. In evidence it was stated that four persons slept in the cellar of a house which was itself unfit for human habitation.
The Mayor and Corporation of Hastings v Upton, and also against John Townsend, were claims for possession of a house.
Mr J.B. Kelly, for the Corporation, said the two defendants occupied the house and closing orders had been served on the owner on the grounds that they were dangerous and injurious to health. No alternative accommodation was offered. The closing order was made on June 1st and served on the 9th.
Edward Henry Andrews, sanitary inspector, said the premises, at 1, St Clement’s-place, were reported upon by him on May 12th, 1923. The roof and walls were so defective that the house was neither rain nor wind proof. The floors were rotten and in holes, the plaster on the walls had perished and had fallen off, the w.c. was defective, very few panes of glass were in the windows and the sashes were rotten. The premises were not fit to live in and they were both dangerous and injurious to the occupants. The Townsends occupied one back room on the ground floor and two rooms in the basement, one of which was a cellar. Five persons slept in the back room on the ground floor, two adults and three children.
His Honour: What do you suggest should be done to these people if they are evicted ?
The witness: I have no suggestion to offer. They are not the class of tenant anyone would accept.
His Honour pointed out that there were young children. Mr Kelly said the only thing he could suggest was that they should be taken care of at the Workhouse. The tenant had paid no rates for 2 ½ years.
Mrs Townsend said she had tried to find other accommodation but had not been able to do so.
His Honour made an order for possession in one month.
Clearly the judge was sympathetic, while the Council’s lawyer came straight out of Dickens, as he was aware that the workhouses were still in operation (I refer to A Christmas Carol). Presumably the judge’s hands were tied, and he had no alternative to granting the order. There is no mention of the landlord who thought it acceptable to rent such premises out, though it might have been supposed that the landlord was the person against whom the action was being taken. The mention of the rates of course means that the tenants and not the landlord had to pay them, which was quite common. We also do not know how much the premises cost, but 7 shillings a week for a small house was common in St Leonards at the time.
I traced an announcement of an auction sale in the Hastings Observer, 18 July 1918, where 1 and 2 St Clement’s Place, and also in St Leonards 3 Princes Road and 70 and 72 West Hill, were offered for sale, in a mixture of freehold and leasehold with some Hastings properties. The newspaper does not appear to have stated who bought it.
I did a little digging in the family backgrounds.
In the 1911 census Townsend was at a Suffolk reform school as both a pupil and a ‘stock-boy’. I could not with certainty find for example his marriage, but I did find a reason for his being at a reform school, though not the offence causing him to be forced to go there.
The Eastbourne Chronicle, 30 May 1908, has an account of a 15-year-old John Townsend being found staggering along the road, drunk. Both he and his mother claimed he had been sober. He had previously appeared in court for the same offence. He was fined 10s, to be paid on the spot, otherwise he would go to prison for seven days. The account ends as follows:
The money not being immediately forthcoming defendant was removed to the cells below. He cried bitterly as he kissed his mother “Good-bye.”
As for Upton, he married in 1907, at the Hastings Register Office, Edith Mary Taylor. In the 1911 census his family were at 3 Old Market, Caves Road. This was between Caves Road and Marina and has long been rebuilt. He, as a general labourer, his wife, their one-year-old son and six-months old daughter shared just two rooms. In 1916 he was conscripted, age 37, giving the address of nearby 4 Harold Mews, where he was a ‘groundman’, which meant he supported construction workers by for example digging ditches or handing tools up to them. However he only served about five months with the Buffs, being discharged as unfit. In 1939 he was at 37 Caves Road, still a groundman, with his wife.
Legge had married Annie Deeprose in Hastings in 1916. In 1939 he was a licensed victualler at 127 Priory Road, West Hill, Hastings. His daughter Gladys was a barmaid when she married a haulage contractor in 1937 at nearby Emmanuel Church.
Although the house was condemned for living in it is not clear what the landlord was meant to do: carry out extensive repairs, pull it down ? As it is still there, clearly a comprehensive repair happened at some point.
A stark, human-scale history: four sleeping in a cellar, a house ‘unfit for human habitation,’ and a judge caught between compassion and the law. This piece makes St Leonards’ cliffs feel steeper—socially as much as topographically.