Hove in the Past: Lorna Road, Hove.

Judy Middleton 2002 (revised 2023)

Background

It is not known why the road was thus called, but since the road began to be developed in the late 1870s, and R. D. Blackmore’s famous Lorna Doone was published in 1869, it is possible that someone had a fondness for the book. Kelly’s Street Directories of this period show there was already a Lorna House and a Doone House in the road before the north side of the road was developed in Victorian times.

The Building News of the 3 September 1880 published a drawing and review of the newly completed Doone Terrace, a block of eight substantial terraced houses (near the junction with Selborne Place) designed by W. Galsworthy Davie. Davie was a noted architect, photographer and writer of local history books, locally he also designed Kingsworthy House at 4 Third Avenue.

Doone Terrace in Lorna Road was featured in The Building News on 3 September 1880

In 1896 the Hove Surveyor reported that all the land on the north side had been built upon with the exception of 110ft (enough for six houses). At that stage there were no houses on the south side. Seven houses on the north side at the junction of Cromwell Road went under the name of Kemp’s Terrace, but in May 1897 it was decided they should be included in Lorna Road. The road was declared a public highway in 1898.

House Number Confusion

In the early 1900s with the incorporation of Kemp’s Terrace into Lorna Road, there was a situation where both the west and east ends of Lorna Road had sequential numbering of houses.

In the case of Kemp’s Terrace, 1 to 7 at the Cromwell Road junction and at the Selborne Place junction, including the shops, Doone House and Doone Terrace, which numbered from 1 to 12.

In 1906 plans were passed to extend the road on the west side. The western extension, plus two flights of steps up to Wilbury Villas, were declared a public highway in 1914.

In 1920 alterations were carried out on the steps when it was decided to have an intermediate landing in the flight of the north steps.

In the late 1920s the south side of Lorna Road underwent house building on a large scale. By the 1930s the whole road was re-numbered in the conventional odd-even numbering system starting from the former Kemp’s Terrace and finishing near the junction with Selborne Place at numbers 88 and 101 respectively.

Cinema History

Hodder’s Stores were located at 2 Lorna Road, and in 1904 the shop-front was immortalised by appearing in the background of an early film shot by James Williamson entitled Our New Errand Boy.

H. J. Green & Company

In 1907 Hove grocer Horace John Green had the inspiration of creating his famous sponge mix after watching his wife bake a cake. But it took two years of experiments to before he came up with the winning formula. The sponge mix was followed by a ginger cake mix, a blancmange mix, jelly crystals, and a custard mix. An old advertisement for Green’s Chocolate Mould proclaimed it was ‘chocolate in its most delicious form. The children simply love it’.

Green’s first factory was located in Lorna Road. In March 1911 the Borough Surveyor came along to inspect it and make sure the place complied with fire precaution regulations. He stated that it was a three-storey building around 86-ft in length, and 26-ft in width; there was an office at the entrance – a single-storey building around 23-ft by 8-ft. The factory employed 129 people (12 males and 116 females) and they worked chiefly on the first and second floors. The only access between the ground and first floor, and the first and second floor was a wooden staircase around 2-ft in width. The Borough Surveyor thought this altogether inadequate, considering the number of people working inside the building. He recommended new stairs should be constructed of fireproof material at least 3-ft wide, and there should be an external emergency iron staircase.

These recommendations must have been followed because the factory continued to be in use even after a new Green’s Factory was constructed in what was later called Portland Road. Indeed, in 1923 W. H. Overton designed a new chimney-stack for the Lorna Road factory. It was the same Mr Overton who prepared the plans for the new factory, which were approved by Hove Council on 16 November 1911, and construction went ahead in 1914.

From 1920 until 1936 the Green’s Lorna Road factory produced jams and custard powder, the main sponge making business was transferred to the Portland Road factory

In 1962, Green’s was acquired by the Pillsbury Co, a US milling and food group, maker of pre-packed baking mixes, was later owned Grand Metropolitan and Dalgety.

A Ballet Star – Sir Anton Dolin (1904-1983)
(lived at number 81, formerly number 11 Doone Terrace)

Sir Anton Dolin in the 1920s

by Unknown photographer, NPG x135834

Bequeathed by Patrick O'Connor, 2010

He was a famous English dancer and choreographer, and he had links with Sussex and Hove. His mother, Helen Maude Chippindall Healey, was born in Dublin, while his father, Henry George Kay, came from Hampshire, and was a proficient amateur cricketer and an excellent horseman. Unlike his wife, who was an only child, Henry George Kay had seven siblings. Obviously the Kays were well able to afford such a large brood, the family wealth having been accrued from the Lancashire, cotton industry. They lived in a large house called The Elms, Bedhampton, with six servants to look after them.

Anton Dolin’s parents were married on 7 January 1899 at St Saviour’s Church, St Helier, Jersey. Nobody seems to know quite what they were doing in the Channel Islands, and their first child, Philip, was born the same year. Anton was the middle son, and he was born at Decoy Cottage, Slinfold, while his youngest brother, Anthony, arrived when the family was living in Shamrock Cottage, Felpham.

Dolin’s first passport bore the names Sydney Francis Chippendall Patrick Healey Kay, and so it was not surprising that his professional name was somewhat shorter and was chosen in 1923, to be adopted as his real name in 1945. He chose Anton because he happened to be reading Chekov at the time, while Dolin was the choice of a Russian impresario.

In 1914 Dolin’s grandfather (see below) asked his only daughter to move closer to him, and thus Dolin’s family moved into 11 (81) Lorna Road while grandfather Healey continued to live at 25 (53) Lorna Road. Mr Healey was virtually house-bound by then, but when the weather was fine he did enjoy an excursion in his bath chair along Hove sea-front, looking something like a double of Edward VII. At home he had a plenty of company in his many birds – canaries, chaffinches, and bullfinches – whose cages always had an open door during the daytime. At a special whistle, the birds would fly over to him and eat out of his hand. Every Saturday morning he would give his grandsons 2d each and a shortbread biscuit. Since there was plenty of space in the house, four soldiers were billeted there during the First World War.

Dolin attended a secondary school at Hove that cost 6d a week. It seems probable that this establishment was the Holland Road Schools, built in 1891, known variously as the East Hove Schools or Davigdor Schools, and long since demolished. The clue lies in the fact that it was the only local school to have its own swimming bath, and although he was a good pupil Dolin was keener on winning prizes for swimming.

It is an interesting co-incidence that Dolin must have been at the school at the same time as another famous person, namely Mercedes Gleitze (1900-1981) who was there from January 1913 to March 1915. She also excelled at swimming to such an extent that she became the first Englishwoman to swim across the English Channel on 7 October 1927.

In his autobiography, Dolin wrote ‘Hove was the beginning for me of the theatre, the ballet, and my career’. His mother had taken him to see the Danish ballet dancer Karina Janssen at the Pier Theatre, Bognor. It inspired him, and he begged his parents to allow him to have dancing classes.

After many tears, they finally relented, and he was enrolled in Miss Clarice James’s Dancing Academy where lessons were held in a house on Hove sea-front although she actually lived at 119 Church Road. She also held classes at Hove Town Hall. Dolin attended every Friday night, and soon it was twice a week. He learned the basic five positions, wrongly it seemed, and the waltz and polka. He prided himself in being able to hold his position for longer than the girls. Dolin’s first public performance took place at Hove Town Hall in one of the Academy’s Displays when he danced the sailor’s hornpipe.

Dolin’s next step was to go to the Oddfellows Hall in Brighton where he had his first real taste of dancing under the jurisdiction of the Misses Lillie and Grace Cone who started to come down from London to take dancing classes in Brighton. Another pupil was also to become famous, and she was Evelyn Laye with flaxen hair, and Dolin always made sure he stood next to her at the barre.

A Dancing Display put on by the Cone sisters at the Brighton Hippodrome changed the course of Dolin’s life because the manager, Mr Boardman, told Mrs Kay that her boy had real talent and ought to go to London to be properly trained. Grandpa Healey died on 4 November 1915, leaving everything to his daughter, but Dolin’s family stayed at Hove until his affairs were settled up. Probate was granted on 6 January 1916, and there was nothing to keep them at Hove, so to London they went.

It is interesting to note that Dolin’s first dance creation was arranged in a room at Belsize Crescent, London, while listening to a recording of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Hymn to the Sun played by the talented Isolde Menges, who was of course born at Hove.

Between 1916 and 1921, Anton Dolin appeared in Bluebell in Fairyland, Peter Pan, The Hundredth Chance, Betty at Brighton’s Theatre Royal and The Man Who Knew the Future at Brighton’s Palace Pier.

At a comparatively youthful age Dolin became principal dancer in Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, and in following his career abroad he soon became fluent in French and Russian. Dolin later became the first artistic director of the London Festival Ballet. He had an enthusiastic following in Brighton and Hove and when the company was at the Hippodrome for a week, he appeared after the final curtain on 2 March 1957 to make a speech. Later on in the same year he even danced at Brighton, although he was 53 by then, and the special performance was in honour of his mother’s birthday. The audience clapped and clapped.

Coincidently also in 1957, on the 9^th October the world-famous ballerina Alicia Markova (1910-2004) was just a few miles away in Portslade to officially opened the new Kayser Bondor factory. (Her stage partnership with Anton Dolin lasted 30 years, she along with Anton co-founded Markova-Dolin Ballet in 1935, London's Festival Ballet in 1950, which eventually became the English National Ballet).

Dolin was very close to his mother who understood him so well and always encouraged him. She died at Brighton in 1960 and was buried there, and when Dolin died, his ashes were laid to rest in her grave.

copyright © J.Middleton
Anton Dolin, artistic director and star perfomer, at Brighton's Hippodrome, February/March 1957.

Dolin’s honours include the following:

copyright © Brighton & Hove Bus Company
The 'Sir Anton Dolin bus' in 2004
(this bus was removed from service in 2014)

1954 – Royal Academy of Dancing Queen Elizabeth II award

1959 – The Order of the Sun (from Peru)

1981 – He was awarded a knighthood

An extract from an obituary printed in the New York Times, 27 November 1987, by Anna Kisselgoff; 'Sir Anton Dolin, whose early career in Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes led him to become the first internationally acclaimed British male ballet star and who was a founding member of major ballet companies in Britain and the United States, died Friday in Paris. Sir Anton became known as an excellent partner in the many companies in which he was a guest artist. A witty raconteur, he was the author of six books, including several memoirs'.

House Notes

Number 35 (formerly number 34)

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
Brighton Herald 16 September 1916, Anton Dolin
would have known this ballet teacher living in his road

Number 51 (formerly number 26)

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
Brighton Herald 12 December 1914,
Anton Dolin's Grandfather's next door neighbour, the
organist at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Hove

Number 53 (formerly number 25) – John Henry Chippindall Healey lived in this house from 1894 until his death in 1915. Today his main claim to fame might be that he was the grandfather of the celebrated Anton Dolin, who, sensibly decided to cast aside the complicated family names he inherited for his more simple stage name.

But his grandfather was a fascinating man in his own right, with varied interests, and wide experiences. He was born in 1842 at Brocklesby, Lincolnshire, being an only child. He decided on a military career, and joined the 11^th Regiment of Foot, the year 1861 finding him stationed at Portsmouth, while in 1863 he was in Dublin and by then held the rank of lieutenant. While he was stationed at the Royal Barracks, Dublin, he fell in love with Fanny from County Kildare, and married her. Their daughter, Helen Maude Chippindall Healey, was born in 1869 at Dublin; she was to become the mother of Anton Dolin.

It seems that Healey became fond of Ireland, or perhaps his wife did not wish to leave the Emerald Isle, but at any rate after retiring from the Army with the rank of Captain, he decided to stay put. He joined the Irish Prison Service, serving as Governor of Maryborough Prison, Leinster, from April 1869 to June 1871, and as Governor of Ennis Prison from 1871 to 1877. It is possible that he might have stayed longer at Maryborough where he had enjoyed playing cricket with his own Captain Healey’s Eleven, but when the penny-pinching Board decided to reduce his annual wage from £200 to £150, he decided it was time to move on.

It is not known why Captain Healey came to Hove, while also having another home at Old Mill House, Bedhampton, near Havant. It is a remarkable coincidence that he came to live in Lorna Road where Richard Jefferies once lived – Jefferies died in 1877. But Healey must have known all about Jefferies because he was honorary secretary of the Richard Jefferies (Worthing Branch) of the Selborne Society, which was an early conservation society – in fact the oldest one in Britain. He was also honorary secretary of the Havant branch, and later Hove branch, of the RSPB, as well as being a member of the Sussex Archaeological Society. It is pleasant to record that during his declining years, his only daughter and her family came to live in Lorna Road to keep him company. He died on 4 November 1915.

Numbers 69 & 67 (formerly numbers 16 & 17) – From 1905 until 1914, Augustin Albert von Metz ran a private school from these two premises, which he named Pembroke, after the College at the University of Cambridge where studied for his degree. Augustin von Metz was born in London in 1887 to a Prussian father and English mother and had lived in Brighton & Hove since the 1890s. Locally he was involved in amateur dramatics with Brighton's Green Room Club and appeared on stage in various productions at Hove Town Hall and Brighton’s Theatre Royal, he was also a keen tennis player and took part in Sussex County Championships.

The 1911 Census gave his occupation as an Army and University Tutor, his wife was Lillyan and they had two servants. The census shows von Metz had three students from Spain, two from England and one each from France, Canada and the USA. By the autumn of 1914 von Metz had disappeared from Lorna Road and the ‘school’ was taken over by John Lees Armit. It is probable, because of his German heritage von Metz was interned on the Isle of Man for the duration of the First World War.
(On 5 August 1914, the Aliens Restriction Act was passed by Parliament the day after war was declared on Germany requiring foreign nationals (aliens) to register with the police, and where necessary they could be interned or deported).

Number 77 – Mrs B. S. Greensmith lived in this house for some years and in May 1936 she died at the age of 69. She had moved to Hove for health reasons some 26 years previously. She had a son and two daughters – one daughter died aged twelve, and the other went to Ontario, becoming the first female barrister to qualify in Canada. Her son, Laurence Cuthbert Greensmith served during the Irish Rebellion and the First World War. He was seriously injured in France, and when he recovered he was sent to Palestine where he became the first man to enter Jerusalem with a heliograph. He received a personal letter from Lord Allenby congratulating him on his courage. But his health was permanently undermined by his war experiences and he spent the rest of his life as an invalid.

copyright © J.Middleton
Scaffolding covers the house where Richard Jefferies once lived. The plaque is a stone rectangle under the window

Number 87 (formerly number 8) – The house has a plaque to commemorate the fact that the naturalist and prose poet Richard Jefferies (1848-1887) once lived here. He gave the name Savernake to the house (Savernake is a forest south of Marlborough).

Number 91 (formerly number 6) – The West Brighton Estate Company owned this house when in 1928 they applied to Hove Council for permission to convert the premises into flats.

Miscellaneous

Lorna House – In June 1991 it was stated that Lorna House was the latest office building to be completed at Hove. It was a five-storey air-conditioned building with a total of 16,500 sq-ft of office space. It was on offer for around £2.5 million. In April 1995 the freehold interest in the property was sold by Quistheads Ltd for around £700,000 to Brightacre, part of the Bellerby College Group. Lorna House offices was built on the site of the former Morgan & Smith organ factory.

Morgan & Smith – was an organ factory situated in Lorna Road, the company had moved from Brighton to Hove in 1910. The organ factory was built at the western end of Lorna Road, although its address was also known as Wilbury Bridge (telephone Hove 4524).

The firm manufactured organs for churches and chapels all over the UK and many countries abroad, in Brighton alone in the 1920s there were nineteen churches and chapels with Morgan & Smith built organs.

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
From the Brighton Herald 3 August 1912 (the organ is still in use at St Barnabas Church)

Morgan & Smith was still listed in the Directories until 1940 but by 1947 it was located at 1A Steine Street, Brighton. By the 1950s it had returned to Hove once more, and was to be found first at 2 Livingstone Road, and by 1956 it was at 37 Payne Avenue where it was still in existence in the 1970s.

Mr ‘Railway’ Ralph Stent – He lived in the road, and was a leading authority on steam trains, and he was also a nephew of the William Stroudley, the great locomotive engineer. Ralph Stent died aged 87 in July 1972.

Rayner Optical Factory – It was situated on a site fronting both Lorna Road and Holland Road, operating from 1939 until closure in March 1991.

Hove Planning Approvals

1882 – Charles E. Kemp for Mr Nash, houses, stables and workshops in Lorna Road and Holland Road.

1890 – Charles Nye for C. E. Kemp. 12 houses.

1894 – T. H. Scutt for Messrs C. E. Kemp & Son, 8 houses.

1896 – H. Crump for M. J. Grau, 4 houses.

1897 – C. H. Blackman for the West Brighton Estate Company, 4 houses, north side.

1906 – Messrs Overton & Scott for Caxton Jay, 10 houses, south side.

1906 – Messrs Overton & Scott, extension of road westwards.

1908 – W. H. Overton for Messrs Morgan & Smith, organ factory and offices in Lorna Road and Wilbury Road.

1909 – W. H. Overton for J. C. E. Glover, 2 houses, south side.

1910 – W. H. Overton for J. C. E. Glover, 2 houses, south side.

1914 – W. H. Overton for R. J. Young, house and garage.

1928 – Messrs Parsons & Cresswell, 3 pairs semi-detached houses, south side.

1928 – A. Matthews, 3 houses, south side

Sources

Special thanks are due to D. Sharp for his exhaustive research into the Healey and Kay families.

Brighton Graphic

Brighton Herald

Brighton & Hove Bus and Coach Company Ltd

Building News (3 September 1880)

Dolin, Anton Last Words (1985)

Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History

Hove Council Minute Books

Keenan, Matthew Queen's County Gaols; The People and Their Crimes, (2017) - (University College Cork, Ireland)

Middleton, Judy Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

National Portrait Gallery, London

New York Times

Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove

Street Directories

29 May 2021

Lorna Road, Hove.