Hove in the Past: Search results for Hollamby

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Hove Plaques Index F - H

Listed below:- Alderman Alexander Fraser, William Friese-Green, Patrick Hamilton, Sir Hamilton Harty, Admiral John Hindmarsh, Sir Jack Hobbs, William Hollamby.

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Alderman Alexander Bruce Siddons Fraser (1847-1933)

Judy Middleton (2002 revised 2014)

When Captain A.B.S. Fraser retired from the Army (his regiment being the 3^rd Queen’s) he settled initially at Worthing. He became a member of Worthing Town Council and he was elected Mayor of Worthing in 1896.

Later on he moved to Hove and by 1906 he was living at 106 Portland Road. He continued with his interest in civic affairs by becoming a member of Hove Council. He served as Mayor of Hove from 1907 to 1910. He was also a Justice of the Peace.

On 23 May 1908 in his capacity as Mayor of Hove, Captain Fraser had the honour of formally opening St Ann’s Well Gardens. It had not been an easy task for Hove Council to acquire the land, which had been a private pleasure ground but was sometimes open to the public. Not all councillors were in favour of laying out money to buy the land while there were always speculators hovering in the wings ready to cover the site with housing.

Captain Fraser and his brother Major Campbell Fraser promoted a horse show that was held at Aldrington Recreation Ground on 29 June 1908.

The brothers also shared a hobby for gardening but not in a relaxed way because the method they favoured followed the French way of intense planning. Probably it suited their temperament having spent their youth in the Army. But their way of gardening was unusual enough to excite interest and many notable people came to inspect their garden at Withdean. The ultimate accolade was when King Edward VII spent an hour visiting the garden.

In 1909 Captain Fraser presented a handsome trophy for the use of the Sussex Police Cricket League Cup. In 1929 Hove Police won it for the third year in succession.

Alderman Fraser died in August 1933 at the age of 86.

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The father of Captain Fraser and Major Fraser was General Alexander Fraser of the Bengal Engineers who enjoyed a lengthy and successful career as an engineer on various projects in the sub-continent. It would be fascinating to know what the two sons thought of their mother’s literary ambitions because Mrs Alexander Fraser was a prolific author of romantic fiction in Victorian times with at least 26 novels to her credit. Perhaps her writing served as a welcome distraction from her matrimonial difficulties because her marriage fell apart. Twice she tried unsuccessfully to secure a legal separation. This failure left her in limbo but meanwhile the esteemed General enjoyed life with a second family. It may be significant that one of her works was entitled Faithless. Although Mrs Alexander Fraser was born and brought up in India, she died at Steyning, Sussex in 1908.

Sources

Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

Local newspapers

Internet Sources

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William Friese-Green (1855-1921)

Judy Middleton (2002 revised 2014)

Early Years

William Friese-Greene was born in Bristol on 7^th September 1885, being the youngest of seven children; there were five girls and two boys. He left school at the age of fourteen and he was apprenticed to a local photographer. It seems a very long apprenticeship at seven years. Perhaps Freise-Greene thought so too because they went their separate ways after five years. Friese-Greene was obviously keen to get on with life and at the early age of nineteen he married a 22-year old Swiss girl Helena Friese. He always considered his given name (William Edward Green) lacking in distinction and so he added his wife’s maiden name and put ‘e’ on the end of Green for visual balance. The couple had one child, a daughter called Ethel.

London

Friese-Greene knew the celebrated Fox-Talbot of Laycock Abbey who advised him to go to London if he wanted to further his career in photography. Although Fox-Talbot died in 1877 Friese-Greene did not follow his advice until 1885.

Meanwhile, Helena and her sisters ran the family business in Bath and managers were installed at his businesses in Bristol and Plymouth.

In 1887 Friese-Greene attempted to interest the public in a moving picture for the first time at his premises at 92 Piccadilly. It featured a little moving skeleton; it proved such a success that police warned him he was causing an obstruction on the pavement because of the number of people jostling to look in his window.

Messrs Chipperfield, instrument makers of Clerkenwell, built his first two cameras but Lege & Co, of Hatton Gardens, built his third camera in 1889. In that same year Friese-Greene produced his first film on celluloid.

A Problematic Patent

On 21 June 1889 he applied for a patent for an Improved Apparatus for Taking Photographs in Rapid Series. It is difficult to imagine such a basic fact causing controversy but it has been the subject of endless debate; it was the basis of Friese-Greene being credited as the inventor of cinematography. Early editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica cited Thomas Edison of the United States with the invention. But he did not patent his Kinetoscope until 1891. In later years it became apparent the genuine discoverer was in fact Louis Le Prince who in 1888 shot the first moving picture at Leeds.

A Problematic Biography

Most of this article is based heavily on Ray Allister’s Friese-Greene: Close-up of an Inventor (1948). But severe critics have labelled it as romantic and inaccurate. However, it contains details of his life at Hove not to be found elsewhere, which makes it an important source. There was a film based on the book called The Magic Box, which was produced for the Festival of Britain in 1951. This too has been slated and poor Friese-Greene’s reputation took a nosedive. But in recent years a re-appraisal of his life has taken place and he is seen in a kinder light. After all, despite his failings, nobody can deny he was one of the pioneers of the moving picture.

copyright © J.Middleton
The plaque at 20 Middle Street, Brighton.
Note the heraldic Brighton dolphins at the top.

Friese-Greene opened more studios, including one in Brighton. When he came to London, his first partner was Esme Collings who also had a studio at Brighton. But there was a heated quarrel and the partnership was dissolved, Friese-Greene taking the Piccadilly and Brook Street studios while Collings took the Bond Street and Brighton ones.

Bankrupt

Friese-Greene filled the classic notion of an inventor; he was brilliant and innovative but absolutely hopeless in the management of his finances. He achieved the unenviable record of being declared bankrupt three times.

The first bankruptcy occurred in 1892 and it is possible he spent some time in Brixton Prison for debt. A sad result of his plight was that he sold the rights to his moving picture camera for just £500. To add to his misery his wife Helena died in 1895 and a battle-axe of a sister-in-law moved in to keep house for him.

But he managed to send his sister-in-law on her way and married Edith Harrison in 1897. This was a genuine love match but it is odd to record the marriage took place in the very month in which his daughter Edith got married.

In 1903 Friese-Greene was bankrupt again while in 1904 he went to prison for debt. But nothing daunted he used the time to read a pile of books he never had time to read before.

In 1905 Friese-Greene moved to the Brighton area. In the same year he took out a patent for cinematography in natural colours and because some people saw the possibility of such an invention, money was lent to form a new company based at 203 Western Road, Brighton. Two years later Friese-Greene established a new laboratory at Middle Street, Brighton, and a plaque records the fact. But it was a brief occupation and he did not live on the premises.

A Move to Hove

In around 1910 Friese-Greene moved his family to a rented house at 9 Worcester Villas, Hove, and there they remained until 1913. It was at this house that their fourth son Raymond was born shortly after the move. When Raymond was around two years old, he wandered out into the road unobserved and was kicked by horse. He died three days later.

Their other sons were Claude, Kenneth, Graham, Maurice and Vincent. By the time of the last arrival Friese-Green was bankrupt for the third time. The brokers invaded all his properties including the house in Worcester Villas where at least the men had the delicacy to adjourn to the garden while Edith was inside, screaming in pain from childbirth.

In fact, the brokers were regular visitors to Worcester Villas but the youngsters made sure not all their visits were uneventful. Porridge was secretly put into the pockets of one man while another sat on a chair that promptly collapsed under him. The boys attended the East Hove Higher Grade School in Davigdor Road and they had season tickets for the train, which they caught from Portslade Station. By 1912 Friese-Greene had a new studio at Hove called the Claude Studio after his eldest son. By that time Claude was fourteen years old and worked as a cine-technician.

Biocolour and Court Cases

In 1911 the manager of a Brighton cinema formed a company called Biocolour to exploit Friese-Greene’s 1905 (prism) colour process and regular shows were given at Montpelier Electric Theatre. However, in 1912 Charles Urban and George Albert Smith obtained an injunction that forced it to close down.

The story behind the action was that George Albert Smith patented a colour process in 1906 and Charles Urban formed a company called Natural Colour Kinematography Ltd to make and show films using Smith’s invention. Although Friese-Greene’s patent was taken out a year earlier, he did not have the money to fight the case. When S.F. Edge, a famous racing motorist, learned about the situation, he was outraged because it went against his notions of fair play. Edge provided the money to fight the case and formed a company called Bioschemes. The case duly went to court.

But amazingly, Mr Justice Warrington came down on the side of George Albert Smith and upheld the Kinemacolor patent. Edge was not at all satisfied with the verdict and he lodged an appeal on the grounds that Smith made too wide a claim for his patent. For example, Smith claimed he could make all natural colours whereas he was unable to create blue with his two-colour process. The Court of Appeal decided in favour of Friese-Greene and Bioschemes. But the case had cost thousands of pounds. Indeed Urban lost so much money he decided on one last throw of the dice and appealed to the House of Lords; he lost. Kinemacolor was finished but then it was also too late for Bioschemes too. The only redeeming factor about this sad story is that Claude Friese-Greene did not give up on his father’s invention and worked on improvements for years; he became a successful cinematographer in his own right.

A Christmas Eve Visit

By 1915 three of Friese-Greene’s sons were serving in the Army and Will Day decided to pay the family a surprise visit on Christmas Eve. Day was an old friend and a great champion of Friese-Greene’s inventions; he also collected old cinema apparatus. He found the house freezing cold with the boys huddled in overcoats. There were no curtains at the windows and no food either. Day was appalled and emptied out his pockets before he had to return to London. But Day was also very angry because he could think of at least twelve men who had made fat profits out of Friese-Greene’s inventions. Day opened a subscription list but the fund only reached a measly £136.

Hard Times

Friese-Greene found himself a job in a London laboratory. He travelled up to town on the 8.15 a.m. train and returned on the 7.25 p.m. train. Meanwhile, the constant poverty had ground Edith down until in 1917 she left the family home in order to earn some money of her own, taking her two boys with her. The couple were to share a roof together only once more and that was for a short spell.

Friese-Greene’s demise was dramatic. There was an important meeting of the cinema trade at the Connaught Rooms on 5^th May 1921. He made a speech pleading for unity in the trade because after all the film trade was a British industry. By the close of his speech he was incoherent and sobbing and had to be helped from the platform. He sat down, put his face in his hands and died.

It was indeed ironic that he was given a splendid funeral when he had been so desperately short of money in his lifetime. On the day he died he had precisely one shilling and ten pennies in his pockets. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery and the eminent Sir Edwin Lutyens designed his monument. The inscription reads

William Friese-Greene

The inventor of Kinematography

His genius bestowed upon Humanity

The boon of Commercial Cinematography

Of which he was the first inventor and patentee

Friese-Greene’s other patents were for explosives, inkless printing and airships. Edith died on 20 July 1921 after an operation for cancer.

Today there is a blue plaque on 9 Worcester Villas but as it has been placed at the first storey, it is a little difficult to make out the lettering from the pavement.

Sources

Allister, Ray Friese-Greene, Close-up of an Inventor

Early Film-makers of the South Coast booklet(ND)

Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

Gray, Frank & Cushan, Ewart Hove to Hollywood (ND)

Gray, Frank, editor The Hove Pioneers and the Arrival of Cinema (1996)

Internet searches

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Patrick Hamilton (1904-1962)
Judy Middleton (2002 revised 2014)

Patrick Hamilton was a Sussex-born writer whose parents were both writers too; his father Bernard was a friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. When Patrick was born on 17 March 1904 at Dale House, Hassocks, Bernard was aged 40 and his mother Ellen was 43 years old. Patrick was the youngest sibling with Lalla and Bruce being older.

In around 1908 the Hamilton moved to 12 First Avenue, Hove, where the family and their three or four servants occupied the entire house. Like his fellow writer from Hove, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Hamilton was not exactly complimentary in his feelings about Hove. You would expect two sensitive writers to have some nostalgia for their childhood environment but this was not so.

St John’s Church.

Hamilton remembered the houses as being tall, grey and drab with no social or historical message for him; moreover they were not even ostentatious, funny or bizarre. In reality the houses are not ‘grey’ but constructed of bricks of a yellowish tone, often called white bricks in the trade. Today, such symmetrical Victorian streets are admired and protected by conservation orders. As regards the immediate environment, there was the ever-changing sea at the south end and the church of St John the Baptist, with its elegant spire at the north east corner. It is ironic that the blue plaque on Hamilton’s childhood home brings a noted literary association to his despised First Avenue.

Hamilton said the inhabitants of First Avenue rather looked down upon the residents of Brunswick Square and Adelaide Crescent, that area being in decline at the time after having been the most fashionable place to live. This decline lasted until well after the Second World War and in the swings and roundabouts of fashion, residences in that area today now command high prices.

But Hamilton had to concede that 12 First Avenue contained a vast amount of space and there was the added interest of an extra tap in the bathtub for sea-water, as well as the usual hot and cold taps. Bathing in sea-water was considered beneficial to health and was a perk provided for several houses in the immediate vicinity. There was a large tank situated under Hove Lawns that drew off sea-water at high tide. Although sea-water has long since ceased to be available in private houses, the machinery involved is still underground, gently rusting away.

Hamilton was a nervous child and had a compulsion about doors being shut properly, which necessitated him having to visit the door several times to make sure all was in order. He also disliked having to go to sleep in the dark on his own. His nurse was far away in the basement and she would have to traipse up and down stairs several times before he could settle for the night. His parents tried putting a night-light in his bedroom. This was like a tea-light placed in a saucer but the youngster found the flickering shadows it produced even more terrifying than total darkness. Eventually, the nurse’s bed was moved into his bedroom but still she could not get a decent night’s sleep. She slept so soundly that Hamilton would often ask if she was still alive. She managed to keep her temper under control until one occasion when she shouted at him not to be so stupid.

In 1912 when he was aged eight, Hamilton began to attend Holland House School, which was five minutes walk away in Cromwell Road. He disguised the school as Rodney House when he wrote about it in The West Pier. He said there were around 40 or 50 boys; an aristocracy of five or six from the squares and the avenues, the bourgeoisie (sons of merchants, doctors, dentists and retired officers) from the roads (Wilbury, Holland, Tisbury and Norton) and the rest from the villas (Hova, Ventnor, Denmark etc) or from obscure streets verging on Portslade. His brother Bruce was also at Holland House and at least the pair of them looked back fondly at their schooldays there as a sort of Elysium where many golden day had been spent.

Soon after the Great War started, the Hamiltons moved to Chiswick where Hamilton attended Colet Court prep school. But he was unhappy there and soon returned to the safety of Holland House as a boarder. In 1918 he was sent to Westminster School but that did not last long.

It was because his sister Lalla was an actress, that Hamilton became involved in the theatre world. He joined the theatrical company run by the colourful impresario Andrew Melville, who later lived at Whychcote, Portslade. During his time with Melville, Hamilton learned a great deal about stage-craft, which stood him in good stead when he came to write his most successful plays Rope (1929) and Gaslight (1938). The royalties from these plays provided him with a steady income for the rest of his life and are still performed today.

Those two plays also made wonderful films. Gaslight was the first to hit the silver screen in 1940. This was a British production but there was a more famous American version in 1944 directed by George Cukor. It starred Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman and an 18-year old girl making her screen debut called Angela Lansbury. Then in 1948 Alfred Hitchcock directed a memorable Rope and there were many innovations in the filming of it; James Stewart played a convincing lead part.

But Patrick Hamilton was also a novelist and a mention of Hove crops up in some of them. In his first novel Monday Morning (1929) the young hero leaves a hotel in King’s Gardens, Hove, and travels to a boarding house in Earl’s Court.

In his third novel Tuppence Coloured another young man leaves Hove for London. But the most famous novel with local connections was The West Pier, which Graham Greene considered the best novel ever written about Brighton. It is sad to record that the three people who mattered most to him did not think much of the book; they were J.B. Priestley, his published Michael Sadleir and his brother Bruce. The conman Gorse in The West Pier (1951) was modelled on the notorious killed Heath.

John Betjeman particularly admired the second book in the trilogy Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse (1953);it later became the successful TV series The Charmer. The last book of the trilogy was Unknown Assailant (1955), which was also his last book.

An earlier well-regarded trilogy was Twenty Thousand Streets under the Sky (1935) while others regard Hangover Square (1941) as his masterpiece.

Patrick’s father died in 1930 and his mother moved back to Hove temporarily to live with his sister. Patrick and Bruce visited Hove from time to time but the visits in 1949 were somewhat bizarre. Patrick stayed in a rented house in Hove Street with Lady Ursula Chetwynd-Talbot who also wrote books. But at the time he was still married to his first wife Lois. He used to spend the week with Ursula (nicknamed La) and return to Lois for the weekend. He was still emotionally involved with Lois and for a time he could not make up his mind about what to do. Eventually, La became his second wife.

Patrick Hamilton died on 23 September 1962, his illness being caused by liver failure due to alcoholism; it must have been in his genes because his father and his sister drank heavily too. La died in a plane crash in 1966, Bruce died in 1974 and Lois died in 1975.

Penguin Books sponsored the blue plaque at 12 First Avenue, which Jim Buttimer, Mayor of Hove, unveiled in June 1988.

Sources

Argus

Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

French, Sean Patrick Hamilton (1993)

Hamilton, B. The Light Went Out (1972)

Internet searches

For more details about Holland House, see under Hove’s Old Schools in this blog

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Sir Hamilton Harty
Judy Middleton (2002 revised 2014)

Hamilton was an Irish-born musician who started out in Hillsborough, County Down. He came from a large family because he had nine siblings, five brothers and four sisters, and he was the fourth son. Harty’s father was passionate about music and an inspiring teacher who taught pupils how to play the organ, piano, violin and cello as well as giving singing lessons. He also built up a fine library of music scores that ranged from oratorios to symphonies and from opera to piano classics. It was to this library that Harty attributed his musical education and his father encouraged him to play through as much as possible. By the age of twelve, Harty was organist at Magheragall Church in County Dublin.

In 1900 Harty left Ireland for London and two years later he met Agnes Nicholls; the couple married in 1904. She had made her operatic debut in 1895 and she had some influential friends who helped Harty in his aspirations to become a conductor. In 1907 at the Cardiff Festival she sang as a soprano soloist Harty’s fine setting of Keats’s poem Ode to a Nightingale. But the marriage was not a success.

As for Harty’s musical life, his arrangement of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks and Water Music were well known but in recent times have fallen out of favour. He was much influenced by the Celtic Revival and in 1887 he composed an Irish Symphony while his last composition was The Children of Lir. His tone poem With the Wild Geese was popular.

Harty was always a talented pianist but he also excelled in the delicate art of accompanying a singer and seemed to anticipate a singer’s needs. He had played the accompaniment when his future wife Agnes Nicholls gave a recital too.

Perhaps today Harty is best remembered as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra from 1920 to 1933 and under his direction it became the finest orchestra in England. He liked to introduce new works and composers to his audience, which can always be something of a risk. He conducted the first performances in England of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony and Shostakovich’s First Symphony. He was also something of an expert at interpreting the works of Berlioz.

Although conducting an orchestra of sensitive musicians was a serious business, Harty was not without a sense of humour. On one occasion a brass player refused to play in a softer tone when asked to do so. The brass player said his score had the passage marked as forte and Harty told him to make it ‘twenty’ instead.

But after the passage of so much time in charge of the Hallé, frictions and disagreements arose and Harty decided it was time to call it a day and resigned. Instead he became guest conductor with other orchestras who perhaps valued his experience.

In 1934 Harty sailed for Australia where he had a successful tour. On the voyage out there was a romantic interlude that has only come to light in recent years. He became besotted with a young lady by the name of Lorie Bolland and composed two piano pieces for her, one of them composed especially for her birthday. These pieces were discovered by her son amongst his mother’s papers and performed in public for the first time in 2012.

In 1936 Harty was given the devastating diagnosis of a brain tumour. He underwent an operation to remove it but had to endure the loss of his right eye. He took his time convalescing from his ordeal in Ireland and abroad. But he did manage to return to conducting.

Meanwhile, Harty became close to Olive Baguley who was secretary to the Hallé Concert Society for many years; she became Harty’s personal secretary. She also nursed him devotedly during his last illness when the cancer returned.

During the 1930s Harty lived at 1 Norfolk Road in St John’s Wood. But in 1940 the building was badly damaged by bombing and Harty decided to move out of London. After a long search he took a flat at 33 Brunswick Square, Hove.

Harty and Olive enjoyed going for walks together and once, at Rottingdean, they paused outside Rudyard Kipling’s old home to read the plaque. He remarked to Olive ‘I shall never be important enough for that.’

Hamilton Harty died at Brunswick Square in February 1941. After the war ended, his ashes were brought home to Hillsborough, Ireland, his childhood home.

Olive continued to occupy the flat at 33 Brunswick Square after his death and she presented his music library to Queen’s University, Belfast.

On 16 October 1976 a blue plaque to Sir Hamilton Harty was unveiled at 33 Brunswick Square. Professor David Greer performed the unveiling and it was fitting that he held the post of Hamilton Harty Professor of Music at Queen’s University, Belfast. The Regency Society sponsored the plaque and their vice president Eric Gillett had known Harty in his later years.

As regards Harty’s reputation today, there are many people who consider he has been sadly neglected. Those who wish to understand his talented conducting can listen to the recordings made of Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Cello Concert.

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It seems that it was not unknown in the music world for conductors to have extra-marital relationships. Sir Thomas Beecham was cited in a divorce case; then there was Sir Henry Wood who spent his last years with Jessie Linton while Lady Wood travelled extensively abroad.

Sources

Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

Greer, David, editor Hamilton Harty, His Life and Music (c. 1979)

Internet searches

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Sir John Hindmarsh (1784-1860)
Judy Middleton (2002 revised 2014)

John Hindmarsh entered the Royal Navy at the tender age of five years to act as a gunner’s servant. In 1794 when he was still only nine he received his first promotion as the result of gallantry displayed at the Battle of the Glorious First of June. This was obviously a sign of things to come because four years later he saved HMS Bellarophon at the Battle of the Nile when all the senior officers had been killed or injured and the ship was in danger of sinking. At the age of thirteen he took command of the vessel and saved the day.

In 1806 on the eve of the Battle of Trafalgar and on the deck of HMS Victory, Admiral Nelson personally commissioned Hindmarsh as a Lieutenant. But Hindmarsh did not stay on the Victory but saw the battle out on board HMS Reliant.

On 3^rd August 1836 Hindmarsh was in command of HMS Buffalo when it set sail for the Southern Hemisphere to visit South Australia and New Zealand. The ship contained 176 hopeful emigrants and out of that number there were 37 adults and 5 children of a ‘superior class’. A lady belonging to the latter class was a thorn in his side for the whole voyage because of her never-ending grumbles. Moreover, because of her status, he had to endure her presence at his right hand at the Captain’s table.

HMS Buffalo anchored in Holdfast Bay, South Australia. It was on 28 December 1836 that Hindmarsh set foot on dry land in what is now known as Glenelg and issued a Proclamation establishing the Government of the Province of South Australia. Hindmarsh was the first Governor and every year since then South Australians celebrate Proclamation Day with a ceremony conducted by the State Governor at the Old Gum Tree, Glenelg. A town, island, river, and lake were all named after Hindmarsh and he was responsible for naming the capital of South Australia, Adelaide, after the William IV’s Queen.

Hindmarsh gave up command of HMS Buffalo in May 1837. In a later voyage she was wrecked off the Coromandel Peninsula, New Zealand, on 28 July 1840.

Hindmarsh served as Governor of Heligoland in the North Sea for sixteen years and on his retirement in 1856 he was made a Rear Admiral, having already been knighted in 1851.

After retiring, Hindmarsh lived in Hove at 12 Albany Villas where a blue plaque commemorates him. He died in 1860 and was buried in the churchyard of St Andrew’s Old Church, Hove. It is sad to record that he joined his wife and sister who died the previous year. In fact the three of them died within 15 months of each other.

The inscription reads Sacred to the Memory of Rear Admiral Sir John Hindmarsh, Knight, KH who died on 29^thof July 1860 aged 76 years. Also in memory of Susanna Wilson, Lady Hindmarsh, the beloved wife of the above, who died on the 2^nd April 1859 aged 73 years. Also in memory of Ann Hindmarsh, sister of the above, who died on the 13^th February 1859 aged 70 years.

The Hindmarsh grave was ‘re-discovered’ by Mrs Susan Glennie of New Zealand, Hindmarsh’s great-great-grand-daughter, who found the tombstone in a sorry state of disrepair. Mrs Glennie appealed to Hindmarsh Building Society in South Australia and with financial help from them plus the backing of the State Government, repair work was put in hand. The funeral directors Hanningtons oversaw the work. All the letters were re-cut and the memorial was placed on a solid foundation. On 3^rd June 1979 Australian representatives arrived to inspect the tombstone. Amongst the party were Test Match cricketers Rodney Hogg and Warwick 'Rick' Darling who were in England for the Prudential World Cup Series.

Admiral Hindmarsh was fortunate to choose a plot on the south side of St Andrew’s Old Church, which apart from a strip of land on the south, has remained intact. If he had been buried on the north side, the chances are his grave would have been lost for good, as happened to the grave of Charles Augustin Busby, the architect of Brunswick Town.

Sources

Argus

Dictionary of National Biography

Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

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Sir Jack Hobbs (John Berry) 1882-1963
Judy Middleton (2002 revised 2014)

Jack Hobbs was born on 16 December 1882 in Cambridge and he was the eldest in a family of twelve children. He inherited his middle name from his mother’s maiden surname and a love of cricket from his father. His father’s occupation was originally in the building trade placing slates on roofs. In 1889 he moved into the cricketing world and found a post at Jesus College, Cambridge, as groundsman and umpire.

Jack Hobbs grew up to become one of England’s greatest batsmen. In 1904 he played for Cambridgeshire but in 1905 he joined Surrey and stayed with them for 30 years. Between the years 1907 to 1930 Hobbs played in no less than 61 Test matches. Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe (of Yorkshire) were a famous pair of opening batsmen. Hobbs captained the English team in 1926 and during his long career in first-class cricket, he scored an enviable 197 centuries. It is interesting to note that out of this impressive record, 98 centuries were scored after he had passed his 40^thbirthday.

In 1906 he married Ada Ellen Gates and the couple had four children, three sons and a daughter. He was devoted to his wife and it is pleasant to record that in later years she sometimes accompanied him when he went on tour because he did not like to be parted from her. When Ada grew old and frail in health, her husband looked after her.

The Great War caused some tension in Hobbs’s wider family because Jack did not rush to volunteer for the armed services as so many men did. He was always conscious of the poverty of his early years and he wanted to continue to support his wife and children. But he did join the Royal Flying Corps in 1916 as a mechanic and later saw action in France but he would never talk about it. He was demobbed in February 1919. In the Second World War he was a member of the Home Guard at New Malden.

In 1946 he and Ada settled at Hove and lived in a succession of flats. They started off in Third Avenue, then moved to Wilbury Road and afterwards lived at Furze Croft, adjacent to St Ann’s Well Gardens. Finally, they moved to 13 Palmeira Avenue.

Jack Hobbs was knighted in 1953, thus becoming the first professional cricketer to be awarded such an honour. But Hobbs was diffident about accepting it. Friends and colleagues assured him that it also an honour for cricket. The knighthood was a cause of celebration to cricket aficionados as well as ordinary members of the public because he was a very popular sporting figure.

On 17 May 1958 he and Arthur Gilligan unveiled the memorial panels in the Maurice Tate gates at Sussex County Cricket Ground, which the Duke of Norfolk has just pronounced open.

Lady Ada Hobbs died on 13 March 1963 aged 79 and Sir Jack Hobbs died on 21 December 1963 aged 81. They were buried in Hove Cemetery on the north side of the path leading to the chapels. Also remembered on the headstone was their daughter Vera Joyce King who was born 23 March 1913 and died on 24 October 1993.

On 14 March 1982, the centenary of Hobbs’s birth, Neil Macfarlane, Sports Minister, unveiled a plaque at 13 Palmeira Avenue. The plaque was in the chocolate and cream livery of Surrey County Cricket Club. The Sussex County Cricket Club and Brian Rowe paid for the plaque. Mr Rowe was a lifelong cricket fan and was the proud owner of a bat with which Jack Hobbs scored 172 not out in 1921.

Sources

Argus

Chambers Biographical Dictionary (9th edition 2011)

Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

Internet searches

Middleton, J. A History of Hove (1979)

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William Hollamby (1829-1918)
Judy Middleton (2002 revised 2014)

Hollamby and the Goldstone

William Hollamby was something of a Hove celebrity in his time but today his chief claim to fame is that he was the instigator of the re-discovery of the Goldstone. In the 1830s farmer William Marsh Rigden had ordered the Goldstone to be buried because he was angry by the number of sightseers traipsing over his fields to view the ancient relic. People liked to spin all sorts of yarns concerning the venerable boulder, including the idea it had been an altar of the Druids and perhaps young maidens had been sacrificed on it. This imagined aura of blood naturally aroused people’s curiosity.

Today people view the stone with indifference. If it did have any importance, it has been lost because it was moved from its original position. It is thought it might have been an ‘outlier’ in connection with a stone circle situated in what is now the north part of Hove Park. An ‘outlier’ was a single upright stone used as a foresight to a stone circle, in a similar way to the heel stone at Stonehenge.

But it is impossible to chart the original alignment of the circle or the Goldstone. If the Goldstone tells us anything today, it is that Hove was once a place of important religious observance because as well as the circle, there was the Bronze Age barrow (Palmeira Avenue covers the site) from where the unique and priceless amber cup was retrieved, plus three more barrows in the vicinity of Holland Road. One certain fact is that ancient people did not erect barrows and circles at random and the place must have had a certain resonance.

copyright © J.Middleton
This view was posted in 1921. Note that the term ‘Druid’s Altar’ was still being used. The postcard shows how the Goldstone was originally displayed surrounded by smaller stones. Perhaps the latter were not thought to be authentic relics of the stone circle. At any rate they were later removed.

William Hollamby believed it was important to the history of Hove that the Goldstone should be found and set up again. He enlisted the help of Mr Cornford, Parish Beadle, who had heard where it was buried and by May 1897 they knew the probable site. But first they needed the permission of Mr J.J. Clark who was farming the land and Mr R. Brown, junior. Naturally, they hoped the Goldstone would soon see the light of day. In fact it was not unearthed until 29 September 1900 and it was finally set up in Hove Park, which opened in 1906.

Public Life

Hollamby was a man of some energy and much involved in public life. He was a Hove Commissioner and afterwards sat on Hove Council for 22 consecutive years. He was a director of the Sussex Mutual Permanent Investment Building Society and a member of the local cricket, football and athletic clubs. Before there were swimming baths at Hove, he encouraged youngsters to swim in the sea by donating a cup and medals for swimming prowess. He helped Captain MacWhinnie and Mr W. Cockburn to start Hove Regatta.

Hollamby was a champion of the ordinary, working man. Newspapers paid tribute to ‘his earnest and strenuous advocacy of the rights and privileges of the working classes, whose claims he always championed despite the fierce opposition.’ He was a pioneer in fighting for the provision of allotments for the working class at a time when there was little public sympathy for it. But he persevered and eventually had the satisfaction of obtaining number 1 plot on the Marquess of Abergavenny’s Estate. Hollamby also took a leading part in the building of a Workmen’s Club and Mission Room in Livingstone Road. He was the first secretary of the Workpeople’s Industrial Exhibition and Flower Show.

Hollamby’s wife Sarah died on 15 March 1890. In October 1915 Hollamby was becoming rather frail and he moved to Lingfield, Surrey to live with one of his sons. It was there he died in his 90^th year on 18 October 1918 but it was only fitting that he was brought back to be buried in Hove Cemetery. Mr Cornford, undertaker, of George Street, Hove, son of the Parish Beadle previously mentioned, made all the funeral arrangements.

Hollamby’s Memories of Old Hove

In May 1897 a long article was printed in the Hove Echo recounting the reminiscences of William Hollamby, senior. He could recall old flint cottages in Hove Street that had steps on the outside; this meant you had to go outside when you left the downstairs room and climb the stairs in all weathers to get to the bedroom. Some of these cottages had been pulled down but a few remained. Hove Manor still had its barns, cowshed, buttery and stables where fine horses used for hunting had their stalls. There was a macabre tradition of nailing the feet of foxes to the stable door.

There used to be a little sweet shop in Hove Street, much patronised in Hollamby’s youth, where you could buy home-made sweets.

Hollamby and his boisterous friends often used to shout and tease the workers at the Malt-house in Hove Street. But the men had their revenge. They rigged up a bucket of water with a string leading to the loft, and then just when the boys were being their noisiest, the string was pulled and a bucket of cold water drenched the boys. Not surprisingly, they left the Malt-house well alone afterwards.

Hollamby’s Family

William Hollamby and his wife Sarah had four sons and three daughters. The eldest was named William after his father and it seems he was by no means a model scholar. The information comes from the Log Book of Farman Street Schools. On 24 August 1866 Mr Hamilton, the master, noted that William was idle and stubborn.

‘Kept him till 2.45 to learn Collect and Gospel and then he knew hardly one verse of Gospel. Punished him slightly. His mother came up in the afternoon and was very violent and abusive in her language towards me. Told her that the boy would not be allowed to return. She threatened to see Mr Kelly.’ (Revd Walter Kelly was vicar of Hove).

On 3 September 1866 Mrs Hollamby sent her son to school, hoping the master would relent and admit him. Thus William Hollamby resumed his school career on condition that he was attentive and obedient and learnt the Collect and Gospel every Friday. On 9 October 1867 Mrs Hollamby wrote they were moving to Cliftonville and as young William was rather delicate, they thought he had better go to West Hove School. She thanked Mr Hamilton for the ‘pains taken with him.’ It is amusing to note that the reluctant scholar went on to become headmaster of training ship HMS Exmouth. It would be interesting to know how he dealt with recalcitrant boys. By the time his father died in 1918, young William had held the post for 31 years.

As for the other sons, Horace went to Australia while Fred and Harry were employed in the Civil Service. In his youth Harry was a keen cyclist and rode hundreds of miles on the old solid-tyre machines. He played for Hove Cricket Club and was a member of the Royal Navy Artillery Volunteers where he won many prizes for his skill at shooting. He used to enjoy swimming in the sea all the year round and was only obliged to stop when restrictions during the Second World War forbade civilians to go on the beach. At the age of 60 he retired as Overseer of Telegraphs, having spent 40 years in the service. He died in January 1945 and the age of 74.

William Hollamby’s three daughters, Alice, Elizabeth and Anna, all became local schoolteachers. Alice Hollamby was a second-year pupil teacher at Ellen Street Girls’ School when it opened in 1879. The school was in beautiful new buildings but this did not prevent outbreaks of disease. For instance, in September 1881 the school was closed for four weeks owing to an outbreak of smallpox and there was a second outbreak in November of the same year. In January 1887 Alice began teaching at Connaught Road Girls’ School; by this time she was a certificated teacher (2^nd class).

Meanwhile Anna Hollamby was first assistant at Ellen Street Girls’ School in 1883 and on 11 July 1884 she left to take charge of Connaught Road Infants’ School.

When Hove Recreation Ground was formally opened on 2^nd May 1891, a procession composed of all the schoolchildren at Hove, marched up The Drive to see the ceremony at the new Recreation Ground. It was recorded that three Misses Hollamby were amongst the teachers shepherding the children up The Drive. Alice left the teaching profession when she married and became Mrs Nash. She died in May 1960.

copyright © J.Middleton
It is possible there were three Misses Hollamby in this photograph somewhere because it was a similar occasion to 1891 when Hove Recreation Ground was opened. In this photograph the children are going to celebrate the opening of Hove Park in 1906.

For more information of the history of the 'Goldstone' see Ancient Hove

Sources
Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade
Hove Echo (May 1897)

Archives
ESC 104/3 Connaught Road Schools, Log Book
ESC 102/1/1 Ellem Road Girls’ School Log Book 1879-1907
ESC 101/1/2/ Ellen Road Girls’ School Log Book 1907-1929

Copyright © J.Middleton 2014
page layout by D.Sharp

Ancient Hove & Portslade

Judy Middleton 1984 (revised 2017)

THE GOLDSTONE

For people in late Victorian Hove there was never any doubt about the Druid connection with the Goldstone. Of course there was no evidence to support the theory but it was so colourful and had been repeated so often, that it had come to be accepted as fact. More lurid still was the notion that the Druids may have offered human sacrifice there.

Stories about the Goldstone had already begun to circulate in the early 19^th century when the enigmatic Druids had taken a firm hold on the public imagination. The antiquarian Dr William Stukeley had pronounced Stonehenge to be a Druidic temple; the Vicomte de Chateaubriand had produced a fascinating but fictitious account of a blonde Druid priestess presiding over a human sacrifice amongst the standing stones at Carnac in Brittany, France; while in 1832 Bellini wrote Norma whose heroine was also a Druid priestess.

It is not difficult therefore, to see that any standing stone was likely to attract the designation of being Druidic. But some authorities think Druid religious practices were bound up with sacred groves and oak trees rather than stones.

Not a great deal is known about the Druids because they had no use for the written word and their traditions were passed on orally. It took an apprentice Druid in the region of twenty years to acquire all this quantity of knowledge.

What we do know about the Druids comes from the opposition, as it were, namely Julius Caesar, Pliny the Elder and Tacitus. One thing is certain – the Druids were held in high esteem by their fellow Celts.

It is true Druids did perform human sacrifices and sometimes this was done by burning the victim in a wickerwork man-shaped cage or by ritual archery or crucifixion.

It was the imagined aura of blood around the Goldstone that caused it to become a sightseeing attraction in the 1830s. Many fashionable visitors to Brighton enjoyed gently shaking up their livers by a pleasant ride out to the rural delights of Hove to scrutinize the Goldstone and speculate about its use.

William Marsh Rigden, the farmer upon whose land the Goldstone stood, was not so happy about the Goldstone’s popularity. In those days the Goldstone was situated south of Old Shoreham Road and east of Hove Drove, later renamed Sackville Road. In fact Farmer Rigden was furious about the careless way visitors trampled down his crops in their anxiety to have a good look at the Goldstone. By March 1834 he decided to call a halt to this vandalism by getting rid of the Goldstone. Two labourers called Churcher and Terry were told to dig a pit 6 feet down into the clay. When this was done the Goldstone was dragged by means of chains to its burial place. The site was at the north end of an old barn near Goldstone Farm.

Drawn from the original by copyright © J.Middleton
The Goldstone according to Horsfield in 1835

Rigden’s action does not seem to have provoked any strong protest at the time. It was not until some 35 years later that dissenting voices were heard. Thus the historian MA Lower wrote in 1870 – ‘a utilitarian farmer … dug a hole and buried this relic of unknown ages … some archaeologists wish he had been buried under it’. By 1896 Hove councillors were asking questions; ‘Is the Urban Council aware that a very ancient relic of past British worship (Druidic) known as the Gold Stone has been ruthlessly buried out of sight by the enterprising and ignorant land speculator and builder?’ (Note how Rigden has acquired additional status over the years).

William Hollamby was stirred by the loss of the Goldstone. Hollamby was a remarkable man with a long history of service to Hove and in 1898 he entered his twenty-second consecutive year as a member of the Town Council. He had a hand in many local organisations and was on countless committees. He was also a keen advocate for the rights of working-class men and fought to provide allotments for them at a time when the idea was unpopular. Hollamby was convinced the Goldstone was a Druidic relic and must be found and set up in Hove once more.

First of all he had to seek the permission of Alderman JJ Clark (who founded the well-known bakery in 1887) because he now owned Rigden’s farm. The popular story goes that only one aged inhabitant, namely Mr Cornford, verger at St Andrew’s Old Church, could remember the exact spot where the Goldstone was buried. But contemporary newspaper accounts make it clear Rigden’s two employees, Churcher and Terry, were still alive and had a vivid memory of burying the Goldstone.

The Goldstone was finally unearthed on 29^th September 1900. The re-discovery was felt to give a boost to civic pride – a sort of ‘one up on Brighton’ feeling. At the mayoral banquet in November 1900 following Alderman J Colman’s re-election as Mayor, the vicar of Hove claimed the unearthing of the Goldstone proved Hove was the most ancient town in Sussex. He was also proud that a humble figure of the church had been instrumental in pinpointing the exact location of the hidden stone.

Drawn from the original by copyright © J.Middleton
"Rockfeller". The face in the Goldstone as
seen by Clem Lambert in July 1913

In 1906 the Goldstone was set up in its present position in the newly formed Hove Park and surrounded by a hooped iron fence. There must have been many children who walked past the Goldstone on their daily constitutional in the park with nanny or mother. Souvenir postcards with inaccurate captions were produced, some clearly printed in black and white, others with smudgy, dark colours. But the outline of the stone was clear to see. In the summer of 1984 this was not so because only the tip of the Goldstone could be observed above a sea of pink hydrangeas. Today the Goldstone has reverted to a more natural state and can be seen unhindered, although shadowed by a nearby tree.

In July 1913 Clem Lambert noticed something about the Goldstone that nobody else had recognised. He was a prolific local artist who was born in Brighton in 1850 and many of his works are kept at Hove Museum. What Lambert discovered was that if you stood by Old Shoreham Road looking north on a bright, sunny morning, you could clearly see a face. He executed a sketch to prove his point, calling the face ‘Rockfeller’

In 1915 Herbert S Toms saw the sketch and thought it was either a joke or a wild exaggeration. But when he went to view the Goldstone under the specified conditions, he had to acknowledge Lambert was right. Toms kept up his interest in the Goldstone and produced two articles about it for the Sussex County Magazine in 1931 and 1932. Toms was an archaeologist who had trained under the redoubtable Lieutenant-General Pitt-Rivers. Toms later became curator of Brighton Museum.

As to the composition and origin of the Goldstone, there are a number of theories; the most common being that it is a mass of breccia (rock made up of angular fragments). In the 1960s there was some interesting correspondence on the subject in the Brighton & Hove Herald. One man thought the Goldstone unusual in having portions of volcanic rock embedded in it that glistens in sunlight. He thought it was a glacial deposit. A second reader disagreed saying there had been no major glacial action south of the Thames and the Goldstone was probably a conglomerate of flints, sand and ironstone. Another writer pointed out such masses of conglomerate and hard sandstone (like the Goldstone) and known as sarsens or greywethers were at one time quite common on the Downs.

The Goldstone is nothing if not controversial. You would think a thing like height and weight would be easy to agree upon. Not so, as can be seen from the following comparisons.

1) 1835 – Horsfield’s Sussex - 6 or 7 feet high

2) 1870 – Lower’s Sussex – nearly 7 feet high

3) 1897 – Porter’s Hove – weighs about 11 tons

4) 1900 – Daniels’ Hove – about 14 feet x 10 feet x 5 feet at thickest part; weighs 20 tons

5) 1932 – Sussex County Magazine Volume 6. 9 feet high 13 feet 6 inches long

6) 1937 – Mee’s Sussex – 14 feet long; weighs 20 tons

A STONE CIRCLE

The Goldstone was not the only standing stone at Goldstone Bottom. In May 1818 the Revd J Douglas wrote a letter to Gideon Mantell containing the first mention of other stones. ‘This stone (the Goldstone) is in a line south of Goldstone Bottom, at the end of which, close to the rise of the hill, is a dilapidated cirque, composed of large stones of the same kind’.

Drawn from the original by copyright © J.Middleton
Detail from J.Edward's revised map of 1819. The position of the Goldstone has been ringed.

It sounds quite a prominent feature. It seems strange that J Edwards in his exact and detailed Companion published in 1801 makes no mention of it although he had plenty to say about the Goldstone. Sicklemore, whose book was published in 1824, stated the stones were evidently ‘removed from their original position’ but gives no reason for this assumption.

There is further confusion about the number of stones. Porter in his History of Hove (1897) stated there were seven. But there are two drawing of the stones that do not agree with this or each other. One is by HG Hine and shows sixteen stones (twelve of them forming a rough segment of a circle) and the other is by RH Nibbs and only shows six.

A similar fate overtook the circle as befell the Goldstone although apparently not at the same time. Perhaps Farmer Rigden was less troubled about the stone circle. It is not certain when the stones were removed but it was probably some time in the 1840s. It is claimed some of the smaller stones were broken up and placed at the base of the Victoria Fountain, which was erected in the Old Steine in 1846. Other stones were used to fill in the old pond in Goldstone Bottom. It is possible some were buried like the Goldstone. In 1955 when workers were excavating a sewer trench in Benett Drive (north-east of Hove Park) they unearthed four large stones. These blocks were around 5 feet x 2 feet x 1 foot 6 inches. Explosive charges were used to blow them up but the stones were of such hard material it took a compressor two hours to drill a hole twelve inches deep.

It was William Hollamby too who discovered the site of the obliterated pond and had the stones dug up and placed around the Goldstone. In 1900 it was thought he would restore the circle but this was obviously impossible. Hollamby died on 18^th October 1918 in his 90^th year and was buried in Hove Cemetery. No doubt he would be pleased to know his obituary headed ‘A Hove Patriarch’ mentioned the recovery of the Goldstone first of all – the long list of public bodies and charities with which he was associated came later.

THE GOLDSTONE LEGEND

Most people are familiar with the legend of Devil’s Dyke. It is a long tale set way back in time when the devil was becoming very irate at the piety of the people living in the Weald and the number of churches there. He determined to cut a pathway through the Downs to let in the sea and drown the buildings and the people. There are different versions as to the outwitting of the devil, either by St Cuthman and Sister Ursula, or by an old woman who lit a candle in her window and knocked the cockerel off his perch so that he crowed. The devil could only work under cover of darkness and the light of the candle plus the cock crowing convinced him dawn had arrived and he threw down his spade in disgust. But the part relevant to Hove comes before his defeat. When he was frantically digging, a mass of breccia rolled down onto the devil’s foot. This so enraged him that he sent the fragment of goldstone whizzing over the hills to Hove. The wonderfully named Cisbury Oldfire, a Poynings schoolmaster, was the author of this version, which was published in 1876. Many years afterwards Alec Whitcher, later director of Brighton and Hove Albion who played football at the Goldstone Ground, wrote ‘surely no other club in the Kingdom has had so notorious a figure to ‘kick-off’ for them’.

In English legend large stones were often regarded as missiles of the devil. Three huge stones at Boroughbridge in Yorkshire are known as the devil’s arrows. The story goes that the devil destroyed Aldborough by standing on Howe Hill and hurling huge stones at the town. The significance of the word ‘howe’ will be discussed later.

THROUGH THE MISTS OF TIME

Now that the idea of the Goldstone as a sacrificial altar of the Druids has been dispelled, the question remains as to what it and the other stones were doing there. It seems unlikely they were there by accident; although it must be said that another collection of greywethers at Stanmer caused some excitement until research showed they had been dumped there in recent times to remove them from the path of the plough.

If that had been the case at Goldstone Bottom, it seems improbable farm labourers would have gone to the trouble of arranging them in a segment of a circle over an area of 100 yards. It would have been easier to dump them close together in some out of the way spot, or alternatively place them around the adjacent pond. It is more logical to assume some more ancient hand placed them there for a purpose.

J Edward (1801) inclined to the opinion that the Goldstone was placed there as a boundary mark. This is not so prosaic as you might think because boundaries were considered to be special places where supernatural forces might be active. This is why stiles and gateways often crop up in folklore.

The Goldstone could have marked a pathway. The Revd J Douglas noted in 1818 there were blocks of similar composition on either side of the ‘British trackway’ leading to Devil’s Dyke. There was another similar stone but smaller than the Goldstone, and around a mile away from it on the right of the road leading to Shoreham.

AH Allcroft, writing in 1927, thought some stone circles were places of assembly, like the moot. The chief man of the community presided over such assemblies and it is interesting to note the word Allcroft gave to this office – the Danish ‘Gode’. Obviously this could be a derivation for the word Goldstone and that Hove had strong Danish links will be demonstrated later.

The Goldstone could also have been an outlier – that is a single upright stone used as a foresight to the stone circle; in other words a stone corresponding to the Heel Stone at Stonehenge, which was erected before the other large sarsens.

It is only in recent years that the full complexity of stone circles like Stonehenge has become clear. Our forefathers believed the stones were put up to form a crude temple. Now the evidence reveals the placing of the stones was mathematically planned in order to make exact astronomical calculations. If such knowledge of the heavens were important to the people living in the vicinity of Stonehenge, surely such awareness would be of value to people living in Sussex too. One only has to consult an Ordnance Survey map to discover that the Downs are peppered with ancient sites. If the Goldstone Bottom circle were genuine, it would put a much earlier date on the site than the most optimistic Hove councillor could have hoped. The monument builders were active from around 3300BC to 1500BC.

The validity can never be substantiated because the all-important orientation of the stones has been lost. From the two rare sketches we do have, the Hove circle appears to be a rather primitive affair when compared with the stateliness of Stonehenge.

The greywethers at Stonehenge were transported from miles away while the bluestones came from ever further away. There must have been something special about the site to make it worth so much trouble.

What was significant about Goldstone Bottom? True the greywethers did not come from a great distance but the monument builders were certainly not haphazard in their choice of site. They had a greater sensitivity to the shape and feel of the landscape and the natural world than later generations. They detected paths of influence running through the earth; perhaps in a way similar to the acupuncturist who is aware of meridians pulsing through the body.

Such lines of influence in the earth have been popularly called ley lines, although the idea is still hotly disputed. This could be one reason for the placing the circle there. Another could be the presence of underground water or a blind spring – a factor sometimes associated with stone circles. That such water was present is evident from the proximity of the Goldstone Pumping Station. Of course the water table was at a different level in Neolithic times and probably around 10 feet higher; therefore its presence would be more easily detectable to a person sensitive to such influence on the surface. The old pond was probably a later addition – possibly a dewpond – if it had been a natural spring it would not have been stopped up by a few boulders.

A ley line would help to explain what some have considered the odd position of St Andrew’s Old Church. It was not built on an eminence and it stood on its own to the north-east of the village whose houses were situated on either side of Hove Street. But the site makes more sense if it were situated on a ley line heading north through the Goldstone and stone circle. Note that the Revd J Douglas when writing about the Goldstone in 1833 uses the words ‘it is in a line to the south of Goldstone Bottom’. In fact St Andrew’s Old Church might stand on a cross ley line because St Leonard’s, Aldrington, St Andrew’s, the Bronze Age Barrow at Hove and St Wulfran’s, Ovingdean are aligned to each other. Old churches often mark the route of ley lines. .

PORTSLADE HENGE

The first positively identified henge monument in the south-east was discovered at Mile Oak in August 1990. This came about because before the A27 Brighton by-pass was built, a Field Archaeology Group with Miles Russell as Project Director scoured the proposed route to ensure no valuable clues to the distant past went unrecorded. This work along the whole route was said to have cost English Heritage some £200,000.

The discovery of a henge was big news in the world of archaeology because previously henges had only been found in a strip running from the south-west to Norfolk, and also in Scotland and North Wales. The Portslade henge was excavated entirely by hand and the henge was believed to date back to around 2,000BC. It was a ditched enclosure some 35m in diameter and it is thought there was once an external bank. Its north-west entrance was aligned to the opposing hill on which there was probably once a large Neolithic structure.

Both the hill and the henge were close to a recently identified Neolithic causewayed enclosure. The henge was situated in a dry valley running south from Cockroost Hill, east of Mile Oak Pumping Station and south-east of Mile Oak Farm. (Is it a coincidence that a pumping station is to be found in close proximity to an ancient monument both at Mile Oak and Goldstone Bottom?) Today the Mile Oak site is covered by the by-pass but if you venture through the tunnel under the by-pass near the allotments, you will find on the other side a clump of trees and an old barn – the henge was nearby.

Just inside the north-west entrance of the henge a human skeleton was discovered, crouched in a foetal position near a faced sandstone block. It seems likely the burial had a ritual significance.

copyright © D.Sharp
Mile Oak Sarsen Stone
This stone was a part of the henge, it probably
acted as a focusing device just outside the
circle, it may have helped pinpoint movements
of the sun or moon throughout the year.

In the Evening Argus (18^th October 1990) it was stated ‘experts will now examine it for clues as to whether its owner was a human sacrifice’. The article was accompanied by a photograph of Miles Russell holding up the skull, which boasted a full set of teeth. The small sandstone block was deposited at Foredown Tower. It is flattened on one side and it may have been used as a sighting device.

There was an interesting article in the Daily Mail (10^th June 2000). It stated that four complete skeletons were unearthed at Stonehenge but two had since been lost. One was thought to be a victim of the London blitz but recently came to light again. The skeleton came from the foot of the circle of great stones and it was excavated in 1923 with clear indications the victim had been beheaded.

In 1978 the other skeleton was rediscovered and he must have been a fine specimen in his prime. He was still wearing his bowstring wrist-guard indicating his status as an archer. The young man had been shot in the back and the flint arrowhead had gone through his heart and embedded itself in the back of the breastbone: there were other flint arrowheads inside his ribcage.

The Roman writer Strabo recorded that Druids shot arrows into the backs of their victims and they were able to predict the future by close observation of the victim’s death throes. At Stonehenge another burial pit revealed the remains of a small child whose head had been split by a stone axe. At Sarn-y-bryn-caled, the timber circle also yielded a burial with four flint arrowheads, two of them with tips broken off due to impact.

There was another important discovery at Mile Oak, Portslade too during this preliminary search before the building of the by-pass. It was a Bronze Age metal working site with the evidence being finds of charcoal, ash, fire-cracked flints, fired clay lead droplets, scrap copper alloy, grinding stones and whetstones. It is estimated that metal-working took place here from around 1,000 to 800BC.

During previous years other finds have turned up at Mile Oak from this period. A palstave (a Bronze Age axe) was found at Scabe’s Castle and from Whitelot Bottom there came a looped palstave, a looped and socketed celt (an axe-like instrument) a piece of large, socketed spearhead, two rings, and pins of the ‘swan neck’ variety.

For more information on the history of Portslade & Mile Oak see Portslade in the Past website

BRONZE AGE BARROW AT HOVE

The Hove Barrow is very important indeed, or rather was, since it was obliterated in 1857-1858 when the land was required for housing. There are many barrows on the South Downs and a few in the Weald too but the Hove Barrow was the only one on the coastal plain except for the possibility of three, which may have stood on Selsey peninsular long ago.

The Hove Barrow was also the largest, being between 15 to 20 feet high and having a circumference of 200 feet. Many of the barrows on the Sussex Downs are quite small and of a later date – some being Saxon or Romano-British. There are other factors too that set the Hove Barrow aside from all others in Sussex; these will be discussed later. The Hove Barrow was situated 100 yards north north-east of St John’s Church and 3 yards east of the cart track – the site is now covered by the back garden of 13 Palmeira Avenue.

While the Goldstone and stone circle have been mentioned in various books, the Hove Barrow seems to have been ignored until the 1850s. There is an oblique reference to it in a beautiful work by George Hilditch painted in around 1850. It can be seen in Hove Museum. The view looks west with the tower of St Andrew’s Old Church as a point of reference. There seems to be some high ground at the front and perhaps the artist was standing on a tumulus to obtain a better view.

Drawn from the original by copyright © J.Middleton
Hove Barrow and Tumulus, 16th February 1821, based on the drawing by the Revd J. Skinner, looking east in the background is Mr Scrase's house near Wick Hill.

The first printed reference to the Hove Barrow, so far as can be ascertained, occurred in 1857 when the Sussex Archaeological Collections volume 10 published an account of its destruction. If it had not been for the Revd J Skinner’s passion for drawing, we would have no idea of how the barrow looked in situ. His drawings, which were executed in on 16^th February 1821, seem to have remained hidden in the archive of the British Museum. It was not until 1941 that one was published in the Sussex Archaeological Collections and then only in a supplementary article to a comprehensive list of Sussex barrows that appeared in volume 75 of the Sussex Archaeological Collections. It is from the drawings that we can discover not only what the barrow looked like in relation to its surroundings but also an idea of its circumference because the reverend gentleman carefully wrote under his drawing ‘180 paces in circuit’. Curwen concludes from his knowledge of Skinner’s method of calculation that Skinner meant 200 feet – probably an over estimation in his opinion. Curwen also wrote ‘Unfortunately, in the middle of the last century, there were no benevolent societies bent on preserving these interesting relics of the past when they stood in the way of Progress’.

Drawn from the original by copyright © J.Middleton
Hove Barrow and Tumulus, 16th February 1821, based on the drawing by the Revd J. Skinner, looking west in the background is the ruins of Aldrington Church (St Leonards Hove).

One interesting point that seems to have been overlooked in tumulus literature is the object to the east of the barrow. Could it have been a long barrow? There was no record of finding an inhumation inside when that too was flattened.

Barclay Phillips, who wrote the article in 1857, had known the Barrow since childhood because it was situated close behind his house. He described it as ‘nearly circular perhaps slightly elongated’. He was not on the spot when the coffin was discovered but when he heard about it the following day, he immediately went to interview the men who had made the find.

The workmen said the coffin was resting on the natural soil of stiff, yellow clay; the mound being composed of earth and debris thrown up around it. The coffin was aligned west to east and it was made of oak and crumbled away on exposure to air. But the workmen noticed the impression of the wood still imprinted on the surrounding clay, which suggested the wood had been worked with a hatchet of some sort. What a pity no more details about the coffin are known. This type of coffin is known as monoxylous, which means it was hewn out of a single tree-trunk, and it is either square ended or boat shaped; the Hove coffin could have been either. It is the only monoxylous coffin of this date to be discovered in Sussex.

The coffin did not contain a skeleton but there were numerous ‘small fragments of carious bone apparently charred’, which suggests a cremation. In that case why was a coffin between 6 to 7 feet in length used when an urn would suffice? Perhaps it was because of status and the value of the grave goods.

The cremation rite and its associations with heroes have come down to us through literature. For example, in Homer’s Iliad Achilles cremates his close friend Partroklus, places his bones in a gold vase and raises up a barrow. In Vergil’s Aeneid Aeneas cremated Misenus and also builds a barrow. In both books the funeral pyre was extinguished with wine before the bones were gathered.

The old English epic Beowulf is of more interest because although it was not written down until around the 8^th century AD it derived from ancient traditions. After Beowulf was cremated on a funeral pyre, the people erected a broad and high tumulus that was plainly visible to passing seafarers. Then twelve chieftans rode around the barrow lamenting their loss. Could it be that some memory of the circling of the barrow survived in folk memory until the 19^th century?

At any rate the Hove Barrow was well known for its Kiss-in-the-Ring, a ceremony that attracted many people to the locality and always took place upon a Good Friday. The relevant part here is that the people linked hands around the Barrow thus forming a living circle. It was probably similar to the custom of linking hands around a church, which has been noted at other places. The circle was a vital symbol to ancient people. No doubt the kissing part had its roots in some fertility rite as it occurred at an important time of the years (Spring and fertility) on a mound containing a hero’s grave facing east (rebirth).

Inside the coffin and resting in a position corresponding to the man’s chest was an amber cup. The cup is unique because only one other has been found in this country and that was in fragments and could be reconstructed properly. This cup was recovered from Clandon Barrow near Dorchester in 1882. The one thing the cups have in common is that both are made of amber. But apart from that, the style is completely different. The Hove cup is 2 ½ inches in height; the Clandon one is 4 inches; the Hove cup has a round base while the Clandon cup tapers to a conical point. In addition the Hove cup is decorated with a band of raised lines. The cup is hemispherical in shape and holds around half a pint of liquid. It is now considered one of the most important objects from the Bronze Age and a national treasure.

The Hove cup was carved out of a solid piece of amber. Amber is petrified resin from conifers and was highly prized in Neolithic times because of its colour, lightness, fragrance and its curious way of building up static electricity when rubbed. It was relatively easy to work without special tools. Amber had its religious significance too. It was held to be sacred to the great mother-goddess, it would ward off evil and it would assist the dead on their last journey. Amber was associated with sun-worship too and the coffin was aligned towards the rising sun. The great value and rarity of the amber cup must mean that the man was of some importance. The Victorians had no hesitation in dubbing him an ‘Ancient British Chieftan’.

In view of the rarity of the cup, it is hair-raising to read the contemporary account of how it was dug up. The handle had already been chipped by one of the workmen accidentally hitting it with his spade. Then the cup was yanked from its resting place by the handle, which promptly fell apart. Fortunately it was easy to repair according to Barclay Phillips. But there were some fragments left over – enough for experiments to be carried out to prove the cup was amber. We are not told what the experiment entailed but another exercise consisted of boiling pieces of amber in turpentine, which made amber soft enough to work with the fingers. Curwen was of the opinion that the cup was made in Britain although it was of a type familiar in the lower Elbe or in the Cimbric peninsular. A wooden cup, similar in design to the Hove cup, has been found at Guldhoi, Denmark, together with a bronze dagger. Amber is found in Baltic areas but it can also be thrown up on eastern British shores.

The Hove barrow also yielded a beautifully made axe-head of polished volcanic rock. It is 5 inches in length and has a convex cutting edge at either end and there is a hole in the centre for hafting. It is said to be almost identical to one discovered al Loose Howe, Yorkshire. In the early 1960s a similar axe-head was found at Cockhaise farm, Lindfield, which makes just two in Sussex. Other double axe-heads have been found in Bronze Age barrows in Yorkshire, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire. These battle-axes are thought to be purely ceremonial and may have had a religious significance.

A whetstone measuring 2.7 inches in length and 6 inches wide at the centre, was the third object taken from the crumbling oak coffin. The term whetstone is sometimes put in inverted commas because nobody can be quite sure as to the true nature of the object. It shows no sign of use and may have been worn as an amulet – especially since it was painted red. Contrary to the other objects found at Hove, the whetstone is not unique to Sussex. Another was found in Round Hill barrow while a fine example was obtained from one of four long barrows on Bow Hill near Chichester. Similar whetstones are not uncommon in Wiltshire and Ireland. In contrast to the amulet whetstones, four bona fide examples were recovered from Wolstonbury. They were made of fine-grained sandstone and showed well-worn surfaces.

Whetstones are often found in association with daggers and a bronze dagger was the fourth object recovered from the Hove Barrow. It is much oxidised and two of the rivets and traces of a bone handle are still attached to the lower end of the blade. Its length is 5.5 inches and it is the only ogival dagger found in Sussex. It has been stated that the majority of graves containing daggers were cremations.

Baron Goldsmid owned the land on which Hove Barrow was situated. Mr Lainson, his clerk of works, happened to be a few yards away at the time of the find and he claimed them for his employer. The Literary and Scientific Institution wrote to the Baron and asked if the antiquities might be presented to the town museum and this was done. At that time Hove had no museum of its own and so the objects went to Brighton Museum.

This fact caused considerable rancour to Hove inhabitants who felt quite rightly that such a unique and valuable part of Hove’s history should be displayed at Hove. The amber cup used to be on display in Brighton Museum in a little case of its own and if you pressed a button, the cup was illuminated from inside and you could see the lovely, translucent red colour. Later on, it was lumped in with a whole lot of other items in a large case. It was unceremoniously dumped down in a corner and as there was no special lighting it looked boring and dull brown. Hove Museum had been in operation since 1926 and now and then people speculated as to the return of the amber cup but did not hold out much hope. However, in the 1990s there was a change of heart and when Hove Museum reopened after a major refurbishment early in the 21^st century the amber cup was back home. In 2009 the amber cup was put into storage for some months over security fears and in 2010 it went to the British Museum as part of a History of the World exhibition. Today it rests in its own special showcase at Hove Museum and not in the crowded local history room as it used to be. You can press a button to view the faint, red glow of the amber – it must not be bright because of conservation concerns – after all, the cup is some 3,500 years old and fragile. If you want to touch the cup, there is a convincing replica nearby where you can observe the decoration and reflect that it is not far removed from the shape of a contemporary teacup.

The earth from the Hove Barrow was used to make up the ornamental gardens in Palmeira Square. It is curious to reflect that a mini-barrow (that is the Floral Clock) was erected in 1953 to commemorate the Queen’s coronation in the gardens not too far distant from the site of the Hove Barrow. A fascinating story about the re-use of earth from a tumulus was printed in a letter dated 15^th January 1966 from AWR Trusler. He wrote that his mother was born in Adelaide Crescent 106 years previously and she used to hear stories about the Adelaide ramps being built. Apparently the foundation earth was taken from a hill (probably a tumulus) at the top of Holland Road and when it was removed to the seafront, it still contained human bones.

The radio-carbon dating for the grave inside the Hove Barrow was later judged to be 1239BC but Curwen thought a more likely time scale was between 1500 and 1150BC. As to the position of the barrow itself – it is still a puzzle. The idea of a quick burial for a war chief killed in battle within enemy territory can be discounted. The hewing out of the oak tree-trunk, the high value of the grave goods, the funeral ritual and the creation of a large barrow all speak of a carefully organised funeral. In such a case the coffin would not have been laid just anywhere. TGE Powell suggests it is the barrow that makes a site sacred. But it seems more likely the place was specially selected using some criteria we do not know. The idea of burial at a sacred site is a very old one and was continued in the Christian tradition. It is not all that long ago that our wealthy or famous ancestors were buried inside church or cathedral.

One can imagine the barrow carefully placed along the path of the rising sun. To the north-east was the health-giving spring later known as St Ann’s Well; further to the east was Whitehawk Camp, which may well have been used as an assembly point for rituals rather than as a military encampment; to the north-west was the stone circle, the henge at Mile Oak, and Devil’s Dyke with its earthworks and barrows nearby and its clearly defined path from Hove.

THE HOVE CHIEFTAN

There can be no doubt the occupant of the grave in the Hove Barrow was a person of some importance. This type of barrow and its grave goods have been ascribed to the Wessex culture but it would be a mistake to think of him as indigenous. Even in Neolithic times there was inter-marriage between different groups of people wandering around Europe – for instance the Beaker folk and the Battle-axe people. There are several strands to suggest our chieftan or his people came from Scandinavia.

1) Amber – Amber was found on Baltic coasts and suggests either strong trading links or that it was brought here personally.

2) Thor - The double-axe is associated with Thor, the most widely venerated of the Norse gods. He was the thunder god and the patron of farmers and fishermen. Thor’s hammer was called Mjollnir; it was his symbol of supernatural strength and was also a symbol of fertility. The fact these legends were not written down until a much later date does not detract from the possible Hove connection because the stories would have been handed down orally for generations.

3) Whetstone – It is interesting to discover that during one of Thor’s adventures, he had a mighty battle with the giant Hrungnir and was hit by a whetstone that remained embedded in his head.

4) Red – The amber cup is dark red and the amulet whetstone was painted red. Thor had red hair, a red beard and apparently red eyes as well.

5) Oak – The oak tree was universally venerated. Sir JG Frazer tells us that amongst the ancient Germans, the oak was their most holy tree and it was particularly associated with the god of thunder.

6) Etymology – Perhaps the most telling link of all is the name of Hove. The conventional explanation for the derivation of the word Hove is that it comes from the old English word ‘hufe’ meaning a hood or covering and by extension a house or shelter. But it seems more likely that ‘hufe’ is itself derived from the earlier Danish word ‘howe’ meaning a barrow, which later evolved to ‘hof’ meaning a holy place. The early use of the word always meant a grave in a circular, holy place but later became simplified to mean a place of worship. What could be more natural than the inhabitants naming their locality after that ancient and mysterious mound? After all, every village has cottages or shelters and they are not all called Hove. In Scandinavia today there is a Hove and a Hova.

7) Archaeology – It cannot be coincidence that there is a great barrow at Maes Howe, Orkney, while a boat-like coffin was unearthed at Loose Howe, Yorkshire. There was another large barrow at Willy Howe, Yorkshire and a famous ship burial at Sutton Hoo. It is instructive to know that the local name for a barrow in Scotland, Cumberland, Westmorland and Yorkshire is how, haw or howe.

SOURCES

Chronological References to the Goldstone

1801 – Edwards (J) Companion from London to Brighthelmston

1818 – May, letter from the Revd James Douglas to Gideon Mantell

1819 – Revised map by J Edwards

1824 – Sicklemore’s History of Brighton

1831 – Brighton as it is

1833 – Mantell (G) The Geology of South East England

1835 – Erredge (JA) History of Brighthelmston

1848 – Sussex Archaeological Collections volume 1

1870 – Lower (MA) History of Sussex

1896 – 20^th April Brighton & Hove Guardian

1897 – Porter (H) History of Hove

1900 – Daniels (HG) Hove with its surroundings

1900 – 22^nd September / 13^th October / 10^th November Brighton Gazette

1911 – Cooke (AS) Off the Beaten Track in Sussex

1915 – 27^th March Brighton, Hove & Sussex Graphic

1918 – 26^th October Brighton Gazette

1924 – Allcroft (AH) Downland Pathways

1927 – Sussex County Magazine volume 1

1929 – 6^th July Brighton Herald

1931 – Sussex County Magazine volume 5

1932 – Sussex County Magazine volume 6

1935 – Lister (JW) Ancient Hove

1937 – Mee (A) Sussex

1960 – 17^th September / 1^st October / 15^th October / 29^th October / 3^rd December Brighton & Hove Herald

Books of Related Interest

Allcroft (AH) The Circle and the Cross (1927)

Branston (B) The Gods of the North (1980)

Brett (H) English Legends (1950)

Burgess (C) The Age of Stonehenge (1980)

Castleden (R) The Wilmington Giant (1983)

Copley (GJ) An Archaeology of South East England (1958)

Curwen (EC) Prehistoric Sussex (1954)

Cunliffe (B) Iron Age Communities in Britain (1978)

Dames (M) The Avebury Cycle (1977)

Frazer (Sir JG) The Illustrated Golden Bough abridged by S MacCormack (1978)

Garmonsway (GN) & Simpson (J) Beowulf and its analogues (1968)

Magnusson (M) The Vikings (1980)

Michell (J) The Old Stones of Land’s End

Middleton (J) Encyclopaedia of Hove & Portslade (2001-2003)

Powell (TGE) The Celts (1958)

Simpson (J) The Folklore of Sussex (1973)

Thom (A) Megalithic Sites in Britain (1967)

Walsh (JP) The Island Sunrise (1975)

Watkins (A) The Old Straight Track (1925)

Wernick R The Monument Builders (1974)

Barrows

Ashbee (P) The Bronze Age Round Barrow in Britain (1960)

Grinsell (LV) The Ancient Burial-Mounds of England (1936)

Sussex Archaeological Collections volumes 10 / 72 / 75 / 81 / 82

Brighton & Hove Archaeologist

Place Names

Glover (J) Place Names of Sussex (1975)

Mawer (A) & Stenton (FM) Place Names of Sussex (1930)

Roberts (RG) Place Names of Sussex (1914)

For a discussion of ‘howe’ and ‘hof’ see Allcroft, op cit.

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