Hove in the Past: Wilbury Crescent, Hove.

Judy Middleton 2003 (revised 2020)

Background

On 3 May 1894 Hove Commissioners gave planning permission to Mr C. Nye for a new street to be called Wilbury Crescent; on 18 October 1894 an amended section was approved.

It seems that house-building did not start right away because the first planning permission for house building did not take place until 1903, and the first to be built was the house now known as number 7. The architects for this house were Denman & Mathews, and the plans were on behalf of Mr Burleigh – the Burleighs were a famous family of local artists (see below) and Veronica Burleigh did not relinquish the house until 1970.

In 1896 the Commissioners decreed that if the home-owners provided and fixed a street lamp on the corner of Wilbury Crescent, they would pay for the lighting and maintenance.

In 1912 the local authority (now Hove Council) decided they would provide two lamps in the bridle path between Wilbury Crescent and Silverdale Avenue.

In 1914 the part of Wilbury Crescent between Wilbury Villas and Bigwood Avenue was declared a public highway, together with the part of Wilbury Crescent between Bigwood Avenue and Old Shoreham Road.

Wilbury Crescent could be described as an Edwardian street because of the rash of building going on in 1908 and 1909.

Re-numbering

In 1925 it was decided that Wilbury Crescent should be re-numbered. The Borough Surveyor reported that at present numbering commenced on the west side with odd numbers on the south side and even numbers on the north side. On the north side four houses were correctly numbered, eleven houses had no numbers at all, and twelve houses were incorrectly numbered. On the south side ten houses were correctly numbered, ten were without numbers, and 26 were wrongly numbered. He also stated that although some house numbers were consecutive, there would be a gap of eight numbers should the present state of affairs be allowed to continue.

Great Gale

During the Great Gale of 15 / 16 October 1987 baby Abigail Gardner, aged 20 months, had a lucky escape when the gable end of her parents’ house crashed through the roof and showered her with bricks.

Unlucky Landlord

Stephen Strafford owned a beautiful 4-storey house in Wilbury Crescent, which he let to seemingly respectable professional families. It was tremendously unlucky that such a transaction came to grief, not once, but twice. But as he commented sadly, landlords do not enjoy much sympathy from the general public, indeed he would claim that it was a national sport to mock landlords. In January 2009 it was reported he had let the property to a Chinese family, and after a two-month absence returned to Hove to find that a cannabis farm had been created on his premises. There were 300 plants plus all the mess that accompanies their cultivation. Even more galling was the fact he had only re-furbished the property two years previously. Now, it had been trashed with the damage estimated at around £70,000. He did not know whether or not his insurance policy would cover the cost.

By 2013 Stephen Strafford had owned the property for 28 years, and used to live there himself. It was said to be worth £700,000. This time he let the house to a man claiming to be an electrician earning £40,000 a year. But neighbours became suspicious about people coming and going, and a search warrant was obtained and executed on 9 July. Police discovered cannabis worth around £4,000 inside the property. He could not believe that such an outcome could happen again within the space of a few years.

The Burleigh Family

Charles H. H. Burleigh (1869-1956)

He was born at Brighton, and spent almost all of his working life in the local area. It is interesting to note that the 1871 census records a Charles Burleigh living at 7 Brunswick Road, Hove. This was most probably Charles H. H. Burleigh’s father because also living at number 7 was two-year old Charles. In 1871 Charles Burleigh, senior, was aged 36, and was described as a mathematics professor BA. He and his wife also had three daughters – Cecilia, 5, Ada, 4, and one-year old Julia.

Charles H. H. Burleigh did not follow in his father’s mathematical footsteps, and chose to study at Brighton College of Art, with later studies in Paris. Back home he earned money running his own school of painting, besides acting as art master at St Aubyns School, Rottingdean, and Parkfield School, Haywards Heath – he taught at the former school for 57 years and at the latter school for 56 years, resigning from both posts in 1954.

He married a fellow artist, Averil, and their daughter Veronica also became an artist. The family lived at 7 Wilbury Crescent where a special studio was added to the house. Charles Burleigh was known as a landscape and flower artist, but he also excelled in portraiture. He was a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, and he was more inclined to look upon his fine watercolours as more of a hobby.

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museum, Brighton & Hove
Oil painting by Charles Henry Harrison Burleigh.
Shows Indian Soldiers in rows of beds inside the Dome
during its use as a Military Hospital, 1915.

It is pleasant to record that he also painted pictures of local scenes, which of course have since become of historic importance. For example, during the First World War he executed two paintings of the Royal Pavilion when it was in use as a military hospital for Indian soldiers. One canvas shows the interior of the Dome filled with beds, and the other one depicts the Music Room with Indian patients. These two paintings were on display in the India in England exhibition held in 1997. Burleigh also painted the scene inside the hall of the Brighton, Hove, and Sussex Grammar School when it too was in use as a military hospital. Later on the school purchased the painting.

Burleigh painted a portrait of Alderman A. R. Sargeant, Mayor of Hove 1914-1919, which used to hang in the Council Chamber. In around 1920 Burleigh painted Brighton Front, which concentrated on the scene at the foot of Regency Square looking towards the Metropole Hotel. This painting was included in an exhibition entitled Brighton Revealed, that was staged in 1995-96. Burleigh’s principal works include the following:

Morning

The Pink Tights

The Chinese Robe

Burleigh was the last surviving founder member of the Brighton Arts Club. He died aged 87 in January 1956; his funeral was held at St John the Baptist’s Church and he was buried in Hove Cemetery.

copyright © Brighton and Hove Museums and Art Galleries
Averil Burleigh painting at 7, Wilbury Crescent by Charles H. H. Burleigh

Averil Burleigh (1883-1949)

She was born near Burgess Hill, and she also studied at Brighton College of Art with Charles Knight, the landscape painter, being one of her tutors. In around 1903 she married Charles H. H. Burleigh. Living at 7 Wilbury Crsecent, she used to spend every morning painting in her studio there. For a period of twenty years every exhibition at the Royal Academy included paintings by her, sometimes as many as three at the same time. For example, in 1920 her two paintings at the exhibition were Cup and Bell (a girl playing) and Caerulea (three girls at play). She was well known as a book illustrator, particularly for an edition of poems by Keats, but she also illustrated some of Shakespeare’s poems. She was a founder member of the Sussex Women’s Art Club.

Averil Burleigh enjoyed painting in watercolour and tempera – the latter option involved mixing a pigment with egg yolk. It was just as well that she began to use oil paints in around 1938 because eggs became such a scarce commodity during the Second World War that it would have been wasteful not to use a rationed egg as food.

Scottish-born Sir William Russell Flint (1880-1969) described her work as ‘clear, luminous, well-designed and competent’. But later critics were not so kind. In the catalogue that accompanied a special exhibition at Hove Museum entitled Sussex Scene it was stated that she took to oils ‘to add weight to her compositions of hearty Alpine life, which reflect, dimly the more robust trends in contemporary European Realism.’ At this exhibition there was a painting of hers entitled The Troubador, which in fact was a self-portrait and is now in a private collection.

Averil Burleigh died in March 1949, and her funeral was held at St John the Baptist’s Church, Hove.

Veronica Burleigh (1909-1999)

copyright © Brighton and Hove Museums
and Art Galleries
Self Portrait with the Artist's Parents
Veronica Burleigh (1909–1998)

She was born at Hove on 17 April 1909, the daughter of artists Charles H. H. Burleigh and Averil Burleigh. She was educated at Hoove Lea, a private girls’ school at Hove. Her artistic skills were such that she won a scholarship to the Slade School of Fine Art, where from 1927 to 1930 she studied under the redoubtable Henry Tonks (1862-1937) who has been described as ‘the most renowned and formidable teacher of his generation’. She was only aged eighteen when she first exhibited at the Royal Academy.

One of her paintings was a charming portrait of her family entitled The Burleigh Family Painting 1937; it shows her father (with pipe clenched between his teeth) and her mother both hard at work on their separate canvasses, while Veronica (wearing dark glasses) stands behind them, with one hand on her hip and the other holding a canvas or portfolio. It was painted at the Cotswold village of Churchill, near Burford. Veronica Burleigh was the Honorary Secretary of the Sussex Watercolour Society.

During the Second World War she served for eight years in the WAAF, being promoted to Flight Officer in 1946. She saw service in the Middle East and Italy, and earned five campaign medals in the process. She was Mentioned in Dispatches, and also spent time as an RAF cypher officer and code-breaker.

She returned to her painting in more peaceful times, and continued to work mainly on portraits until 1971. She moved from Hove in 1970 and went to live at 2 Corner Cottages, Blackstone, Henfield. She also had a close association with Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and visited the country every year for a period of some twenty years. Her work was highly regarded there, and she staged no less that 23 one-woman shows in the country.

Like another Hove-born artist, Juliet Pannett, she too suffered from poor eyesight in her final years, and in fact was registered blind in the 1990s. She died in 1999.

Albert Williams (1922-2010)

It is pleasant to record that another artist went on to occupy 7 Wilbury Crescent, and he was well aware of the Burleigh connection, although he was more inclined to mention Charles Burleigh rather than the two talented females.

Sussex-born Albert Williams was following in his family footsteps because both his father and grandfather were artists too. He studied at Brighton College of Art, and continued his studies at London and Paris. He was particularly well-known for his beautiful flower paintings painted in a traditional manner, and his work was much in demand by companies such as Royal Albert bone china and Franklin where the images appeared on collectors’ commemorative items; his designs also graced greetings cards. He exhibited his paintings at the following venues:

Paris Salon

Royal Academy

Royal Society of British Artists

Royal Society of Oil Painters

Royal Watercolour Societty

Maud Stewart-Baxter

She was of Scottish descent and became a well known composer and performer of her time, although almost forgotten now. She once appeared at the Dome as the Duchesse de Maine in a production of Fete de France. She must have been proud of her role and there was a postcard of her in costume to prove it. It was in 1921 while living at 6 Eastern Terrace, Brighton, that she suffered from what she called ‘blood poisoning’ but we would probably describe as sepsis. Whatever it was, it upset her system, leading to a nervous breakdown.

Later she lived in Hove at a variety of addresses, thus:

Flat 2, 35 Adelaide Crescent (1951)

49 Wilbury Crescent (1954)

Flat 5, 4 Eaton Gardens

The frequent moving must have been something of a chore for her because she liked to collect old china and glass, as well as seals, and they all had to be carefully packed up each time. She also loved reading, but her interests were not all sedentary because she enjoyed swimming, fishing and shooting as well.

She composed her first song at the age of eight, and when she was fourteen she won the Associated Board of Music’s open scholarship for violin players out of 300 contestants. She considered her best song to be Loveliness More Fair. Her advice to aspiring composers was that they should never waste time on poor lyrics because fine words inspired fine music. Her favourite composers were Bach, Beethoven and Brahms.

P. N. E. U. School

This establishment was located at 24 Wilbury Crescent, but only lasted from 1913 to 1916. (For further details, please see under separate page ‘Hove’s Old Schools’).

Hove Planning Approvals

1903 – Denman & Mathews for H. H. Burleigh, one house

1905 – Overton & Scott for G. P. Kerridge, 2 pairs of semi-detached houses, north-east side

1905 – Overton & Scott, for G. P. Kerridge, 2 pairs of semi-detached houses, north side

1905 – Overton & Scott for J. Hayler, 3 shops and dwelling house, north-east corner

1906 – Overton & Scott G. P. Kerridge, 5 pairs of semi-detached houses, south side

1907 – Clayton & Black for T. W. Bassett, 3 houses, east side

1908 – Overton & Scott for Miss A. Clarke, detached house, south side

1908 – Overton & Scott for T. W. Bassett, 6 terraced houses, north-east end

1908 – Clayton & Black for F. E. Cobb, detached house, south-east side

1908 – Overton & Scott for A. Chilton, one pair of semi-detached houses, north side

1908 – Hawker & Clover for M. Cohen, one pair of semi-detached villas,

1908 – Overton & Scott for Mr Chilton, one pair of semi-detached houses, north side

1909 – F. Parsons, house and shop, north-east corner

1909 – W. H. Overton for T. W. Bassett, 3 terraced houses, east end

1909 – W. H. Overton for J. Edgeland, two detached houses, south-east side

1909 – A. B. Packham for G. H. Gregory, 4 houses and shops

1909 – W. H. Overton for T. W. Bassett, one house

1909 – W. H. Overton for Mr Bassett, 2 pairs of semi-detached houses

1910 – W. H. Overton for Mr Edgeland, one pair of semi-detached houses, north side

1910 – W. H. Overton for T. W. Bassett, 2 pairs of semi-detached houses, north side

1911 – W. H. Overton for T. W. Bassett, 2 pairs of semi-detached houses, south side

1911 – W. H. Overton for T. W. Bassett, one pair of semi-detached houses, south side

1913 – W. H. Overton for T. W. Bassett, one pair of semi-detached houses, east side

1913 – T. W. Bassett, 8 terraced houses, west side

1913 – W. H. Overton for T. H. Elliott, one pair of semi-detached houses, east corner Bigwood Ave

1914 – T. W. Bassett, one pair of semi-detached houses, corner of Bigwood Avenue

1915 – T. W. Bassett, one detached house, north-west corner

1915 – T. W. Bassett, one detached house, number 2

1915 – T. W. Bassett, one pair of semi-detached houses, south-west corner

1928 – W. C. Thorpe for E. T. Thorpe, one house, north side

Sources

Argus (29/1/09 / 21/4/11 / 20/7/13)

Brighton Herald

Brighton and Hove Museums and Art Galleries

Brighton Season Magazine

Census returns

Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

Hove Council Minute Books

Internet searches

Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove

03 December 2020

Wilbury Crescent, Hove.