Hove in the Past: St Aubyns, Hove.

Judy Middleton 2003 (revised 2021)

Background

At the beginning of the 19^th century the land on which St Aubyns was later built, belonged to Thomas Corney. In his will dated 13 July 1811 he left the land to his nephews James Corney and Robert Corney. Thomas Corney must have died soon after writing his will because his nephews were admitted to the property in 1812.

The land extended north to the churchyard wall belonging to St Andrew’s Old Church, which in those days stretched further south than the wall we are familiar with today, and south to the turnpike road (later Kingsway). The land included two detached houses called Hove Lodge and Hove House.

The land was sold for £3,600 to Henry Hopkins, who in his turn, sold it in August 1823. Perhaps Mr Hopkins became short of money for he sold the land at a loss - £3,578-10s - to George Stephens, Hove brick-maker.

Stephens died in 1851, leaving the land to his adopted son Thomas Fowle Stephens. It turned out to be a wonderful legacy for T. F. Stephens who, in 1855, had the satisfaction of selling it for £7,000 to Thomas Wisden Esq of Henfield. The reason why the land had shot up in value was because of the extensive house-building activities going on in the Cliftonville area.

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
A 1863 artistic impression of how St Aubyns will look when all buildings are finally completed.
St Andrew's Old Church is framed by the west and east sides of the road.

Thomas Wisdom also made a profit when he sold the land. But first of all in 1862 he had to invest £170-0-6d in enfranchising it under the Copyhold Act. Then he sold the land for £11,300 to Frederick Tooth and John Tooth, timber merchants and builders. (Frederick Tooth was the first person to be buried in Hove Cemetery on 15 January 1882 – the cross, in polished rose marble, is still in a remarkably good condition.)

Hove House and Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Hove House was a large property situated south-east of Hove Street facing what later became Kingsway. It was built in 1738 along with other properties, known at first as New Terrace, and later as Hove Terrace. The house was also known as Old Hove House, probably to distinguish it from the other Hove House in Hove Street, which became Hove Manor when John Brooker purchased the right to be Lord of the Manor.

Dr Morrell founded a school for boys at Hove House. The school had strong links with the Unitarian Church in Brighton of which Dr Morrel was the first minister, and his two successors Mr Wallace and Mr Malleson, were also pastors at the church.

It is said that Sir Marc Isambard Brunel especially selected the school as a suitable environment for his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) because he approved of the school’s ethos and Dr Morrel’s modern approach to education. Unlike public schools, there was no flogging or fagging, and bullying was not tolerated. Dr Morrel also believed that girls should be properly educated.

But facts are hard to come by, regarding Brunel’s time at Hove. One biography stated that Brunel was at Hove in around 1814, while other authorities plumb for 1817 because Dr Morrel was not in the area until then, and the first service was not held at the Unitarian Church until 20 August 1820. Brunel was definitely at Hove in 1820 because in that year he wrote home as follows:

I have been making half a dozen boats lately, till I have worn my hands to pieces. I have also taken a plan of Hove, which is a very amusing job. I should be much obliged to you if you would ask papa (I hope he is well and hearty) whether he would lend me his long measure. It is a long 80-foot tape; he will know what I mean. I will take care of it for I want to make a more exact plan, though this is pretty exact I think. I intend to take a view of all (about five) the principal houses in that great town Hove.

Brunel must have had fond memories of his time at Hove because when in around 1825 he heard that Dr Morrel was due to preach in a chapel at Marylebone, Brunel walked all the way from Blackfriars in order to see him.

However, it appears that Brunel’s time at Hove nearly came to an untimely end. Brunel’s party piece was to pretend to swallow a coin. But on one occasion a half-sovereign became lodged in his gullet. There was general panic, the doctor was summoned, and Brunel was suspended by his heels while a surgeon wrestled to remove the offending coin. This anecdote, with horrid and dramatic embellishments, was recounted to the schoolboys by an old cobbler who had his stall near their playground, and recorded by Henry Solly who arrived at Dr Morrel’s in 1826.

St Aubyns Place

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
St Aubyns in the early 1890s, across the open land to the left
is Hove Drove (later renamed Hove Street), Hove Manor,
the Ship Inn and Hove Coastguard Station.

The first housing to be built at St Aubyns was at the south end when the road was known as St Aubyns Place. According to Henry Porter, the builder Jabez Reynolds started building the houses in the 1860s, extending to number 18 on the west side, and to number 19 on the east side. In those days, the surroundings were almost rural. Between the two wings of St Aubyns Place, there was a pleasant green enclosure, and old maps mark at least five mature trees there. The enclosure was the property of Frederick Tooth and John Tooth. To the west was a large nursery garden belonging to Balchin & Nell with several long greenhouses plus large, stone tanks – it was called the Cliftonville Nursery. To the east there was a large archery ground with flagstaff and a double row of trees on the east boundary where Seafield Road is today. The Hove Toxophilite Society opened the ground in 1863.

By 1869, in order to take account of new buildings, St Aubyns Place was re-numbered. For example, number 5 St Aubyns Place became number 9 St Aubyns, and number 6 St Aubyns Place became number 10 St Aubyns.

St Aubyns Place was declared a public highway on 18 November 1875, the Borough Surveyor stating that it extended from the Shoreham Road (later Kingsway) northwards for 625 feet.

St Aubyns

The rest of the road was built by the 1880s and the whole road was known as St Aubyns – it became a public highway in November 1882. The Borough Surveyor described it as being1,000-ft in length while the width was 47-ft 7-in, except for a length of around 200-ft at the south end where the width was 63-ft 9-in.

copyright © J.Middleton
An old view of St Aubyns with a single parked car. The tower of St Andrew’s Old Church can be seen in the distance

The east side of St Aubyns has terraced housing from number 31 to number 89. By contrast, there are some rather grand detached houses on the west side, the most imposing being number 40 and number 42, which rise to four storeys.

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
An old view of the east side of St Aubyns looking north to St Andrew's Old Church.

Trees

In 1882 Hove Commissioners decided that trees should be planted on both sides of St Aubyns at approximately 45-ft apart for a cost of £40.

It was a wise investment because there are some magnificent elms there to this day. It is quite unusual to find elms flourishing so close to the sea, but of course they are not to be found at the south end. Elm trees are especially precious today because countless specimens in the country as a whole have been lost to the ravages of Dutch elm disease. Indeed, Brighton & Hove is now the proud host to the largest collection of elm trees in the kingdom.

Namrik Mews

It is situated at the south-west end of St Aubyns. It was marked on the 1875 Ordnance Survey Map, although not named. At that time St Aubyns was partially built up, and there were only ten houses north of the mews with around the same level of development on the east side.

Namrik Mews was built on the site once occupied by Namrik Lodge where a Mrs Mary Bush Stewart lived in 1881. The census for that year listed Mary as a widow and a Lodging House Keeper, her residents were Misses Ann and Elizabeth Jennings, Mrs Marion Sargent (all living off investments) and an 8 year school girl named Margarette Deh Carpent who was born in Lahore, her relationship to any of the Lodge's residents is not stated.

It was in 1889 that Namrik Mews made its first appearance in Street Directories, but in those days it was called Namrik Stables. There were open fields to the west of Namrik Stables all the way to the Ship Inn , Hove Manor and Hove Coastguard Station in Hove Drove (now Hove Street)

In the 1891 census three stables were listed with one being unoccupied. Charles Hawkins, coachman and groom, and his family occupied rooms above one stable, and James Taffer, and his wife, lived above the other stable, together with a lodger who was a groom.

During the 1920s the old bathing machines used on Hove beach in the summer, were stored in Namrik Mews during the winter months. Eventually, the bathing machines were sold off to Lytham St Anne’s.

In 1999 Namrik Mews contained some of the original stables, some converted into garages, and a rather charming house with arched windows and the notice ‘Namrik Stables’ still affixed. But the buildings are considered to have been altered too much to merit listed building status.

In August 2000 it was stated that Richard Ray had been manufacturing glassware at his studio for over a year. For some designs – for instance, the border of a mirror – he used crushed glass that was then re-fused in a kiln; the finished work looked like ice.

The name ‘Namrik’ is something of a puzzle as to its origins and its connection to Hove. The following are suggestions of a possible source for the name ‘Namrik’ :-

1) There is a small island called Namrik in the Marshall Islands’ archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, it has no historic connection with the UK, although it could have been visited by a former Hove sea captain ?

2) The renowned archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam (1826-1910) lived in the Brighton and Hove area for the last 30 years of his life, notably at Westbourne Villas. Rassam’s excavations of the ancient city of Nineveh in 1852 was widely publicised and caused great excitement in Victorian England. Nineveh is close to Mosul, where Rassam was born and is less than 20 miles from a place called Namrik Wadi.

3) Probably the most likely explanation for the use of the name ‘Namrik’ comes from the days of the British Raj. There were over one hundred retired people and their families in Victorian Hove who had connections with India, in the form of service in either the Indian Army, the Indian Civil Service or the East India Company. There is a small hamlet called Namrik in the northern Indian State of Sikkim.
Although never a part of the British Raj, in the north of Tibet there is another small village called Namrik.

See also Hove and the Raj.

House Notes

Number 1 – The noted archaeologist Dr Eliot Curwen lived in this house and died there in March 1950 at the age of 84. He came from a well-known Cumbrian family and for some years worked as a medical missionary in China. Indeed, his son,

A Report from the Sussex Archaeological Collection

Dr E Cecil Curwen, also a noted archaeologist, was born in Peking in 1898. The older Dr Curwen settled at Hove in early middle age, and kept his large medical practice going for almost 50 years. During the First World War he and Dr Desborough Clark were the honorary medical officers at the Convalescent Police Seaside Home in Portland Road when 544 wounded soldiers were treated there. Dr Curwen was honorary consulting surgeon at this institution for 40 years.

Dr Curwen became fascinated by archaeology in 1909 after attending a lecture on the subject given by Hilaire Belloc, and at once joined the Sussex Archaeological Society. He and his son were among the pioneers of pre-history because before they started their labours in 1910, not much was known about Sussex prior to the advent of the Romans. Both Curwens wrote on the subject and the elder Dr Curwen re-organised the Society’s museum.

Number 3 – On 8 May 1868 William Wilde took a seven-year lease on the property at a cost of £100 a year. He rented it from a trio of Lombard Street bankers, namely John William Burmester, Philip Patton Blyth, and William Champion Jones. These gentlemen also had an interest in various plots of land in Albany Villas, Medina Villas, and Ventnor Villas, as well as number 9 St Aubyns.

Number 9 – On 4 May 1869 the same three Lombard Street bankers mentioned under number 3, leased this house to Charles William Waterlow for seven years for £110 a year. The deed states the property was formerly known as 5 St Aubyns Place.

The Honourable Roden Berkeley Wriothesly Noel (1834-1894) lived in this house with his wife and family for several years. He was the fourth son of Charles Noel, Lord Barham, created the 1^st Earl of Gainsborough in 1841. His mother Frances was his father’s fourth wife, and she was the second daughter of the 3^rd Earl of Roden. Noel was educated at Wellington and graduated from Cambridge in 1858. He served as Groom of the Privy Chamber to Queen Victoria from 1867 to 1871, and when he died he left the diamond beetle pin the Queen had given him to his daughter Frances.

At one time Noel was on the staff of the Daily News and was a contributor to the Daily Chronicle. Despite his privileged background, he wrote and lectured on socialism, one of his works being entitled London Doss Houses and Portsmouth Slums with Father Dolling. But he also wrote a biography of Lord Byron. Noel was famous in his day as a poet, although entirely forgotten today. His first volume of poetry Behind the Veil was published in 1863 – his last Little Child’s Monument went on sale in 1881.

His name was one of four famous residents chosen to be inscribed under the dome of Hove Reference Library (the names no longer being visible). In the library’s collection there is a somewhat poignant letter dated 4 April 1894, just weeks before his death, in which he stated that he had made £9 for the Hospital the previous day with his poetry reading ‘though the audience was not so numerous as I have been accustomed to get in other towns’. He died suddenly at Mainz on 26 May 1894. He left £11,570-8-9d, and his house in St Aubyns to his wife.

Number 10 – This property was first known as 6 St Aubyns Place, but by 1869 had become number 10 St Aubyns.

Number 19

In 1859 Mrs Gayleard, widow of Revd James Gayleard, established a school for young ladies in this property, and it was still there in 1887. It was described as ‘essentially a home school, and as such enjoys a high reputation … particularly through India and the Colonies’. There was a large, private field with a pavilion, which was suitable for tennis and other outdoor amusements.

Dr Helen Boyle, the celebrated pioneer woman doctor who founded Lady Chichester Hospital in New Church Road was one of the guests of honour at this event.

Dr Helen Boyle was the cousin of the Vicar of St Nicolas Portslade the Revd Vicars Armstrong Boyle

In the 20^th century the Honourable Mary Macdonald occupied the house from around 1929 until her death in 1933. She was the only daughter of the first Prime Minister of Canada Sir John A. Macdonald.

Number 20 – The property was built in around 1880, and Dr Octavius Winslow was the first tenant.

copyright © J.Middleton
In 1915 this house (22), provided a welcome refuge
for Belgian families fleeing the German onslaught

Number 22 – This house also dates back to around 1880. The first occupants were the Coke family – Mrs Coke lived there with her daughters Jessie and Fanny, and sons Charlie and Percy. One of the sons became an officer in the Hussars.

In 1915 Mrs Lovett Cameron loaned this house so that it could be used as a temporary home for middle-class Belgian refugees. Hove residents rose to the occasion by lending furniture, while Mrs Maynard provided clothing from the depot she managed. Local authorities played their part too with Hove Council waiving the payment of rates, and the gas company reduced their bill by a third. Two Belgian nuns were on hand to look after the families. Later on, the house became the Hove Club for Belgian Ladies, and The Duchess of Norfolk opened it in 1922.

Numbers 30, 32, & 34 – In the 1860s Alfred Thorncroft Mills purchased some land from Frederick Tooth and John Tooth, and these three houses were built upon it. It appears there was more than one mortgage on the property. On 8 April 1862 Mr Mills, gentleman, secured a loan of £8,000 from the Tooths, and George Philcox Hill of Brighton. On 10 January 1868 Mr Mills took out a further loan of £1,500 with Revd Arthur Bruce Frazer, rector of Horsham, while he also borrowed £700 from Charles Bridger, Augustus Goring Bridger, James Bond Orme, and Somers Clarke – the latter gentleman taking over both these debts at a later stage.

These three houses were put up for sale on 9 September 1872, described as well-built marine residences. Number 30 featured the following:

4 good bedrooms on the upper floor

WC on the half-landing

2 best bedrooms and 2 dressing rooms on the first floor

Ground floor contained a spacious dining room and drawing room, fitted with handsome, marble chimney pieces, elaborate cornices, and plate glass windows

Entrance hall, and WC

Basement contained a ‘capital kitchen’

Housekeeper’s room

Scullery

Wine, beer and coal cellars

The house was let on a lease from 25 March 1868 at £110 a year, and the lessor or lessee could extend the lease at the end of seven or fourteen years.

These three houses were again on the market just eleven years later, being put up for auction at the Old Ship, Brighton, on 5 November 1883.

Numbers 30 and 32 were withdrawn, but number 34 sold for £1,620. On 25 May 1889 spinsters Eliza Osborne and Mary Hollingdale purchased numbers 30 and 34 for £1,050.

On 24 June 1892 Somers Clarke let number 30 to Thomas Halcrow Johnson and his wife Emma Sophia Johnson for seven years – the rent for the first year was £60, and for the remainder it was set at £80 a year. The people who signed the lease were Somers Clarke, George Walter Willett, and the Johnsons. On 1 January 1907 Mrs Johnson took out a further lease on the house at £80 a year. She died in 1913, and then the estate agent had the problem of trying to find a new tenant. Several letters were written to solicitors Howlett & Clarke in 1914, and one contained the following:

We should like to call your attention to the fact that there is a considerable amount of grained and varnished work … which is out of date for decorative purposes and does not add to the chances of letting the house.

Moreover, the agents suggested that the proposed rent of £90 a year was far too high, especially since the house did not possess a bathroom while a nearby house had a bathroom and electricity throughout, and was on offer for £80 a year. Furthermore there were seven or eight other houses in St Aubyns to let and ‘houses do let well in this road’.

On 22 March 1889 Somers Clarke sold number 32 for £1,450 to Charles Bellerby.

This advert from the Brighton Herald of 1912 shows there had been very little movement in property prices over the subsequent 20 years.

Number 36 – A Mr Tooth occupied this house in 1881 when in the same year it was reported that he had shot a mad dog.

Number 38 – This house was the family home of Edmund Vallance (1841-1937) whose forebears were Brighton brewers. His father Charles Vallance became a brewer and miller at Bristol, and it was there that Edmund was born. But Edmund did not tread in his father’s footsteps and preferred to emulate his cousin Benjamin Vallance by following a career in medicine.

copyright © V. Vallance
A fine portrait of a gallant soldier –
Captain Vane de Valence Mortimer Vallance
of the 5^th (Royal Irish) Lancers

Edmund trained at the Sussex County Hospital, and in 1865 travelled to India as Staff Assistant Surgeon. In 1867 he was serving with the 3^rd Dragoon Guards, by the following year he was with the 2^nd Dragoon Guards, and in 1869 he joined the 19^th Hussars, which his family always regarded as ‘his’ regiment.

In 1868 Edmund took part in the Abyssinian Campaign under the leadership of Sir Robert Napier. This celebrated expedition rescued the British consul plus some missionaries who had been thrown into prison by King Theodore of Abyssinia. It is ironic that a notable prisoner they rescued was the archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam who later settled at Hove and lived for many years with his family in Westbourne Villas.

Edmund Vallance married Jane Mortimer, and although their first son Vivien died as a baby, they went on to have twins Vane and Valerie. Vane de Valence Mortimer Vallance grew up to become a dashing captain in the 5^thLancers.

He was fortunate to survive the First World War because he saw action in so many battles – at Ypres, Le Cateau, the Marne, Aisne, Loos and the Somme. The 5^th Lancers were the last British troops to leave Mons, and the first to re-enter it in November 1918. Captain Vallance was twice Mentioned in Despatches, and was awarded the Military Cross.

In November 1932 Edmund and Jane Vallance celebrated their Diamond Wedding Anniversary. Mrs Vallance reflected on how women’s lives had changed for the better. In her youth everything had to be done at home, and women were worked to death. Should a young girl venture out into the street without wearing a paid of gloves, it was considered shocking.

This house later became the Polonia Hotel and afterwards the Devonshire Hotel. In February 1988 there was a fire at the hotel. The blaze started in the junction box and spread into the space above a false ceiling in the basement. The power failed and the building was plunged into darkness. Four fire-crews from Brighton and Hove dealt with the flames while an ambulance stood by. Fortunately, more than 100 residents – many of them homeless people – escaped unharmed.

Today EF (International School of Languages) occupies the property plus the adjacent house number 36.

Number 40 – This house was called Lynton Court – in 1927 Hove Council approved plans to convert the property into flats.

In August 1996 Mike Grabsky, aged 38, of Lynton Court won the UK Monopoly championship. Then he had to face players from 36 countries at Monte Carlo. He had previously won the UK title in 1987. Grabsky, a computer programmer, became English Monopoly Champion in 1999 at Leeds after beating 30 other challengers – ironically, his final opponent was his wife Jane, a banker.

Number 41 – Charles James Wills once occupied this house. He was one-time Medical Officer of the Telegraph Department in Persia. He took a keen interest in the country and penned two books on the subject – The Land of the Lion and the Sun or Modern Persia (1863) and Persia as it is (1886).

Number 44 – This house was built in 1892. The Street Directory for 1940 recorded that Ernest J. Mitchell ran a hotel there. By the 1990s it was known as the Carlton Rest Home.

In December 1999 it was stated that Russell and Fiona Pinsent owned the home. The couple also ran St Helen’s Rest Home in Mile Oak Road, Portslade, which closed in the autumn of 1999. By 2019 the property was known as Carlton House where people suffering from dementia were cared for.

Number 46 – For a time in the 1990s this house was empty and somewhat derelict – soon squatters moved in; an eviction order was not obtained until 2000. The irony of the situation was that the Chichester Diocesan Housing Association had purchased the property specifically to renovate it and create flats for people without proper homes.

Number 48 – The property was built in 1892 and was home to Mr and Mrs R. Willis. Madame Visetti lived here too – she was the widow of Albert Visetti, musical director to such famous singers as Adelina Patti. Madame Visetti was also the mother of Radclyffe Hall whose most celebrated book was The Well of Loneliness.

copyright © J.Middleton
Madame Visetti, the mother of controversial author Radclyffe Hall, once lived in this property

Later on it became the Cinderella Hotel. The hotel was mentioned in Nicky Singer’s best-seller Feather Boy (2002). She wrote that the hotel ‘had a flight of ballroom-type steps up to the huge front door. And I’m looking, as I always do, for the glass slipper.’ In fact the house has only one step but number 42 has a flight of nine steps.

Number 59C – The Bellingham family lived here. On 25 June 1945 Percy Bellingham, aged 42, and his daughter Sheila, aged 12, drowned in the sea at Hove, although apparently they were both within their depth.

Number 69 – Widow Mrs Ethel Mary Yates lived here. In 1939 she gave the use of this house to the war effort, and it became a Red Cross sub-depot of which she was Principal. There were 60 members and within three years they had knitted almost 2,000 garments. Number 69 became a sector post for ARP wardens too. Mrs Yates died on 20 September 1942.

Number 79 – Colonel Stewart Alexander Cleeve, late of the 51^st King’s Own Light Infantry and the 13^th Prince Albert Light Infantry, lived in this house after his retirement. From 1851 to 1861 he was on the HQ staff of the Bengal Army.

He served throughout the Burma War from 1852 to 1853. During the Naval action and destruction of the enemy’s stockades on the Rangoon river, he was on board HEIC steam frigate Feroze, and took part in the storming and capture of Rangoon.

On 21 September 1898 the Colonel’s youngest daughter married William Whateley at St Patrick’s Church, Hove. She was attended by six bridesmaids, including her sisters May and Beatrice. After the service, guests went back to the house in St Aubyns where the reception was held.

Colonel Stewart died at the age of 87 in this house on 24 February 1913. He was given a military funeral at St Andrew’s Old Church. His coffin was draped with the Union flag, on which rested his helmet, sword and medals, and the coffin was borne to the church on a gun carriage drawn by six horses. The funeral was attended by military family members as follows:

Colonel E. J. S. Cleeve (late RFA) son

Lieutenant Colonel E. S. Cleeve (RFA) son

Colonel W. F. Cleeve (late RA) nephew

Colonel S. D. Cleeve, nephew

The Cleeves were a family with a strong military tradition. Colonel Stewart Alexander Cleeve’s father was Lieutenant Colonel William Cleeve (RA).

On the south wall of the south aisle inside All Saints Church, Hove, there is a brass plaque in memory of Sub-Lieutenant Alexander Stewart RN who died at Hove on 8 December 1888 ‘from the climatic effects of service on the west coast of Africa aboard HMS Goshawk’.

Miscellaneous

Ernest Austin – The Sussex Daily News (23 August 1916) recorded that Ernest Austin, younger son of Alfred Austin of St Aubyns, had died recently. Apparently, Ernest was a gifted compose and had embarked ‘upon a career of great brilliance in the world of music’ when it was interrupted by the war. He composed under the name of Ernest Verdayne, most probably because there was another Ernest Austin who was already established in musical circles.

Ernest Dowson – Ernest Dowson (1867-1900) was a famous poet in his time and he was known to visit his uncle who lived in St Aubyns. His friends included Aubrey Beardsley, W. B. Yeats and Oscar Wilde. Dowson’s most famous works were Cynara (1891) and Vitae Summa Brevis. Although today the name ‘Dowson’ may not ring many bells, the following phrases of his still resonate:

Days of wine and roses

Gone with the Wind

I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! In my fashion

Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart (1887-1970) – He lived in St Aubyns from March 1947 to December 1949. He was a man of wide interests and experiences, ranging from rubber planting in Malaya to playing football in Moscow for the famous Motozovsti team – he was also a keen fan of fishing.

Professionally, he was a career diplomat, and in 1911 he was sent to Russia as a vice-consul. Relationships between the two countries ceased when the Russian revolution broke out, but he was soon back on Russian soil as a semi-official representative. Unfortunately, this ended in 1918 when he was imprisoned in the Kremlin. He regained his freedom when the British government agreed to exchange him for Maxim Litvinov who was being held in England. By a strange twist of fate, both Lockhart, and Litvinov’s widow Ivy, later lived at Hove. At one stage Lockhart was involved with the famous spy Sidney Reilly in a plot to replace Lenin with a more democratic leader in what became known as the Lockhart Plot.

Lockhart was devoted to the Czech people, and for seventeen years he broadcast a weekly talk in Czech on the BBC World Service. He was a personal friend of Jan Masaryk, and wrote a memoir about him. He was also a prolific author, penning the following titles:

Memoirs of a British Agent (1932)

Retreat from Glory (1934)

Return to Malaya (1936)

Guns or Butter (1938)

Comes the Reckoning (1948)

The Marines were There (1950)

My Europe (1952)

Giants Cast Long Shadows (1960)

Lockhart later moved to Ditchling to live with his son Robin. In 1970 he moved to a nursing home at 6 Walsingham Road, Hove, where he died at the age of 82 on 27 February 1970.

Clive Olive – This unfortunate youth, who was the victim of the famous Ollie murder in 1973, once lived in a top-floor flat with his mother in St Aubyns.

The Only Alternative Left – This was the name of a guest-house that Monica Crowe ran in 1987. She instituted leisure weekends where smoking was banned, and only vegetarian dishes served. Guests could learn about meditation, or shiatsu, or listen to amateur chamber music, or feminist poetry reading. The guest-house was still in operation in May 1990, by which time it was known as The Left, and was staunchly feminist. Although men were welcome during the week, it was strictly sisters only at the weekend. Downstairs, Julie Mercy ran the Cafe Jules. Apparently, before the Second World War, there was a gentleman’s club here.

Sources

Census Returns

Local newspapers

Lowerson, J. editor Cliftonville, Hove, a Victorian Suburb (1977)

Middleton, J. A History of Women’s Lives in Hove and Portslade (2018)
Middleton J, Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

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

Solly, I. These Eighty Years (1893)

Street Directories

Sussex Daily News (23 August 1916)

Vaughan, A. Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1991)

The Keep

HOW 39/17-18 – Re. 30-34 St Aubyns

HOW 39/40 – Conveyance of two pieces of land, Portslade, and St Aubyns

HOW 66/2 – Re. 3 & 9 St Aubyn’s Place, 1869

29 May 2019

St Aubyns, Hove.