Hove in the Past: Osmond Road Hove

Judy Middleton 2002 (revised 2021)

Background

The unusual name derives from Sir Osmond Elim d’Avigdor Goldsmid, the owner of the Goldsmid Estate, formerly known as the Wick Estate, and the road was laid out on land that once formed part it. Sir Osmond was the great-grandson of Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid who purchased the Wick Estate in 1830.

It was Mr H. Gimblette, surveyor to the Estate, who drew up the plans for four new roads in the area (including this road) and the development was also known as the Montpelier Estate. But it appears that it was Messrs T. Simpson & Sons on behalf of Beves & Company who were responsible for the development.

In 1894 it was stated that the new road branched off Goldsmid Road on the south side, and it was formed as a substitute for a bridle-path that had been recently diverted. The road was 390-ft in length, and 45-ft in width, and with a carriageway 29-ft wide; the pavements were 8-ft in width. There was a 15-in diameter concrete pipe sewer. In the same year the Hove Commissioners reached an agreement with Hugh Herron Cockerton and William Overton Comber-Taylor for a ventilating shaft to be constructed. Mr Gimblette approached the Hove Commissioners to see if they would take over the upkeep of the road, part of which was declared a public highway in 1894, the rest following in 1913.

Re-naming and Re-numbering

It is interesting to note that Osmond Road was not the first choice of name, and the road started off its life as Clifton Hill, which was unfortunate because there was already a Clifton Hill in Brighton. To add to the confusion the Wick Estate extended over the then Brighton parish boundary. Thus there was the anomaly that the cab-stand at Hove’s Clifton Hill was actually within Brighton’s boundary but the Borough of Brighton requested that the cab-stand should be drained into the Hove sewer. In 1904 common sense prevailed and the road was re-named Osmond Road. It took rather longer to straighten out the boundary between Brighton and Hove, which did not take place until 1928 when the boundary was set in the middle of Dyke Road. This meant that all of Osmond Road was now legally within Hove’s boundaries.

In 1905 Osmond Road was re-numbered, and in 1919 the east side was also re-numbered, although not without some opposition. The occupants of ten houses were happy with their address being in Osmond Gardens, and they objected to changing their status and house numbers to became part of Osmond Road.

Maintenance and Trees

In 1925 new street works were carried out by McKellar & Westerman for just over £114.

In 1926 the Borough Surveyor stated that the cost of planting trees around 4-ft apart would cost £32, and the Works Committee gave the go-ahead for the works to proceed.

House Notes

Number 2 – Denes Natural Pet Care was located here. Buster Lloyd-Jones founded the company, and it was most probably names after Denes Close, Brighton, where he happened to be living at the time. The company arose because of his experiences as a veterinary surgeon, and the fact that animals often knew what they ought to eat in order to cure themselves. A case in point was the behaviour of an Irish terrier who stank of garlic after he had consumed some wild garlic, which happened to be a sovereign remedy for the cure of worms. Later on, Lloyd-Jones lived at Hove and became a celebrity and a well-known author.

Number 42 – The artist Harry Mileham (1873-1957) lived here. He was the eldest son of Harry Thomas Mileham, a partner in the firm of solicitors known as Montagu and Mileham. The family lived in Beckenham, but their roots were in Norfolk. Mileham was educated at Dulwich College, then the Lambeth Schools, and finally in 1892 he attended the Royal Academy Schools. He was extremely fortunate to be there when there was a stellar cast of Royal Academicians as tutors including Frederic Leighton, Edwin Poynter, George Clausen and Alma Tadema. Among Mileham’s fellow students was Arthur Rackham. Another member of Mileham’s family also attended the Royal Academy Schools, but after he had left – he was his first cousin Gilbert Holiday who went on to become a well-known equestrian artist.

On 11 December 1895 Mileham learned that he had been awarded the Gold Medal and travelling scholarship for his painting The Finding of Moses. The prize was valuable because it enabled him to spend fifteen months abroad, mostly in Italy. Apparently, it was Lord Leighton’s casting vote that secured the Gold Medal for Mileham. Consequently, when Mileham moved to the Brighton and Hove area, and joined the Brighton Arts Club, he was known as Leighton’s blue-eyed boy, perhaps with a touch of envy. The works of Giotto and Raphael were major influences on Mileham’s style, while from the contemporary scene he admired the works of Burne Jones. He remained faithful to his particular style long after the Victorian genre had fallen out of favour.

When Mileham returned from his scholarship tour, he painted scenes of Biblical subjects such as the following:

Joseph Sold to the Ishmaelites (1898)

Rachel at the Well (1903)

Wist Ye Not (1905)

The subject of the latter was the finding of Jesus in the Temple. It was a major theme in Mileham’s life because he produced other works on the subject, besides a stained-glass window.

Mileham also enjoyed depicting literary allusions such as Romeo and Juliet, or Tristam and Isolde. He also produced a number of historical works depicting King Alfred including King Alfred Builds a Fleet (1911) that for 23 years hung on a wall of the staircase at Hove Library. In 1953 the artist presented this painting to the Admiralty, and it ended up in the mess-room of HMS Collingwood. Another of Mileham’s paintings also adorned Hove Library as a loan from 1928 to 1950. It was entitled Nymph of Artemis, and had been exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1920.

In 1922 Mileham was commissioned to paint the fourteen large panels of the Stations of the Cross for the Church of St Thomas the Apostle in Hove. When the building was no longer required by the Church of England, the paintings were removed, and installed in St Mary’s Church in Kemp Town where they can be viewed to this day. Mileham’s largest stained-glass window featuring the Last Supper was also undertaken for the church of St Thomas. Other Mileham stained-glass windows included two for St Anne’s Church, Kemp Town, and a lovely little window in St Andrew’s Old Church, Hove, depicting David playing his harp.
Mileham's stained glass window designs were manufactured by Cox & Barnard Ltd of Livingstone Road, Hove.
For the Chapel Royal, Brighton, Mileham painted a triptych altar-piece featuring Jesus as the Good Shepherd, The Prodigal Son, and Peter being saved from the waves.

Mileham used his talents for the social side too, and was much involved in the production of pageants. For example, he wrote Early England, which was performed by the boys at Windlesham House, Portslade, and he designed programmes for this school as well as for St Thomas’s.

As for his domestic life – in 1905 he married Kathleen Somers Clarke at Beckenham Parish Church. Kathleen had four brothers, the eldest being Cecil Somers Clarke who was a solicitor and Vestry Clerk of Brighton, a post he and his grandfather, Somers Clarke, held successively for over 100 years. In 1916 the Mileham’s suffered a sad loss when their eldest child, a daughter called Faith, died at the age of ten.

copyright © D. Sharp
Three of the fourteen Stations of the Cross painted by Harry Mileham for the Church of St Thomas the Apostle in Davigdor Road, to view all fourteen paintings see the St Thomas page.

Number 4 – Faith Mileham. 1906 – 1916. In Remembrance. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, Blessed be the Name of the Lord. (Faith was the daughter of the artist)
Number 5 – In Loving and Grateful Memory of Annie Dallimore – Feb 13^th 1932. and her son John C. L. Dallimore – Oct 11^th 1931. “The Memory of the Just is Blessed.”
Number 6 – In Loving Memory of a Dear Brother. Edmund Irton Westrope, Born July 29^th 1877 – Died in Canada August 19^th 1910. “Blessed are the Merciful.”

As a consequence, the family decided to make a fresh start somewhere new, moving south, and by the 1920s they were installed at 42 Osmond Road. But of course they could never forget Faith and the fourth Stations of the Cross was dedicated to her memory. Kathleen Mileham died in 1938, and the following year Mileham married Mary Kitchener, his former housekeeper and nanny to the Mileham boys. By the 1950s the Milehams had moved to Mallory Road and lived in a house called Burlingham, which is where he died in 1957.

From 1995/1996 a special exhibition of Mileham’s works was staged at Hove Museum to celebrate the centenary of his Gold Medal Award.

Number 58 – The plot of land on which this house was built was sold by O. E. d’Avigdor Goldsmid on 5 September 1905 to the County Land and House Company, 8 North Street, Brighton, for £126-1-9d. The company then sold the land to Mrs Dorothy Baldwin, also of 8 North Street, for £174-13-9d. She sold it builder George Cook for £219-16-6d. He then built a house which he sold for £875 to Walter Grant Reilly of 18 Palmeira Square. Part of the agreement stipulated that if a plate were to be affixed to the premises for professional services it must not exceed 12-in by 8-in.

It is interesting to note that the County, Land and House company acted for Goldsmid in numerous transactions, particularly with regard to Addison Road.

Noel Bennett – He lived in this road and he has been described as ‘one of the great characters of club cricket in the Brighton and Hove area’. It is estimated that during his 45 seasons of playing cricket he must have played in nearly 2,000 matches, and he took pleasure in pointing out the fact that he had taken some 1,500 wickets. During the Second World War he started a series of Christmas Day matches at Preston Park, which became something of a national institution. The event even featured on the BBC’s World Service, and a friend of Noel’s in Hong Kong for business was startled to hear a match report on Boxing Day. In the first 50 years of the Boxing Day matches, Noel only missed two because of illness, although seven of them were rained off. He lived to the grand age of 84 and died in June 1994.

War Heroes

Mr and Mrs Andrews of 2 Osmond Gardens suffered the dreadful experience of losing two sons during the First World War. Their elder son was William Frederick Andrews and both he and his brother were educated at Hove High School in Clarendon Villas. In December 1915 W. F. Andrews joined the 2^nd Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment. Private Andrews was sent overseas and found himself on the north-west frontier of India where he died on 7 August 1917, not in battle, but of colitis in Waziristan

The younger son was Eric Bernard Andrews who was born at Hove in 1897. He could not wait to join the armed forces, and as soon as he left school he enlisted in the Brighton Royal Field Artillery, Territorial Army. In October 1916 he received his commission, and served in France and Italy. Then in February 1918 he joined the Air Force, and served on the Western Front. On 16 September 1918 his plane flew beyond German lines and did not return. Consequently, he was posted as missing but it was hoped that perhaps he had become a prisoner-of-war. A member of his squadron wrote to his parents, ‘He was with a very good pilot and he himself being a particularly good observer I can scarcely believe that they would come to harm in ordinary combat with the enemy.

Meanwhile, his poor parents remained on tenter-hooks until finally his death was reported in December 1918. His commander wrote, ‘He was one of our very best observers and a great loss to the squadron.’

copyright © D. Sharp
The former Hove High School in Clarendon Villas,
the school's First World War Memorial is visible in the porch.

The brothers are remembered on two memorials; in the plaque outside their former school in Clarendon Villas, and in Hove’s Roll of Honour in the vestibule of Hove Library.

Hove Planning Approvals

1894 – W. Taylor, house and livery stables

1899 – W. C. F. Gillam for Tottenham & Wilson, four houses, east side

1900 – T. Taverner, two houses, east side

1902 – P. C. Axtell for G. Tidey, three houses, east side

1902 – W. C. F. Gillam for O. Wilson, six terraced houses, west side

1902 – T. H. Scutt for G. Cook, three houses, west side

1904 – Denham & Matthews for G. Cook, three houses

1904 – W. C. F. Gillam for Mr Wilson, stables at rear of Osmond Road

1905 – A. Smart, one housekeeper

1906 - Overton & Scott for F. Reynolds, two pairs semi-detached houses, east side

1906 – T. Garrett for W. Ellis, one pair semi-detached houses

1907 – J. W. F. Elliott for F. Reynolds, detached house, corner of Clifton Hill

1907 – Overton & Scott for F. Reynolds, one pair semi-detached houses, east side

1907 – Overton & Scott for F. Reynolds, detached house, corner of Davigdor Road

1908 – Denman & Matthews for G. Cook, one house, east side

1908 – J. W. F. Elliott for F. Reynolds, two pairs of houses, two detached villas, west side

1909 – W. & J. Elliott, one pair semi-detached houses

1914 – W. R. Andrews, one detached house

Sources

Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

Middleton, J. Hove and Portslade in the Great War (2014)

Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove

page layout by D.Sharp

09 March 2022

Osmond Road Hove