Hove in the Past: Nizells Avenue, Hove.

Judy Middleton 2002 (revised 2024)

An Unusual Name
copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museum, Brighton & Hove
Brighton Herald 10 February 1908
An article critical of the 'Nizells Avenue' name

The road was named after a Jacobean mansion that was located near Somerhill, Kent. The Goldsmid family owned the house as well as the Goldsmid Estate in Hove, formerly known as the Wick Estate, which had been purchased by Isaac Lyon Goldsmid in 1830; it was on a piece of this land that Nizells Avenue was laid out.

It is amusing to note that some later residents did not like the name at all, and indeed in 1925 they went so far as to send a petition to Hove Council asking them to change it to St Ann’s Avenue. It was after all on a prime site opposite St Ann’s Well Gardens. But equally, there were other residents who were happy with the name and did not wish it to be changed. The council decided to keep the name Nizells Avenue.

Development

The development of Nizells Avenue came at a crucial time because Hove Council was negotiating to purchase the privately-owned St Ann’s Well Gardens to become a public park, and it opened in 1908.

It was in 1907 that Mr Tucker, on behalf of the Wick Estate, submitted plans for the new road, which were approved by Hove Council on 17 October 1907. The first house plans were approved in 1912.

Nizells Lane

copyright © J.Middleton
The pollarded tree in St Ann’s Well Gardens presents a startling sight viewed from Nizells Lane

Before the area was developed there was an old foot-path that ran diagonally from Somerhill Road, across St Ann’s Well, across where Nizells Avenue was to be, and continued in a north-easterly direction. It was for this reason that a foot-path known as Nizells Lane was kept between Nizells Avenue and Davigdor Road. Most probably it was a variation of a rights-of-way because the old foot-path was further to the west. Hove Council insisted that Nizells Lane should remain a foot-path only, and towards this end, decreed that posts must be erected at either end.

copyright © J.Middleton
A War Memorial is located on the eastern outside wall of the former Church of St Thomas the Apostle adjacent to Nizells Lane, which lists the names those of the Parish and the Old Boys of the local Belmont School who lost their lives in the First World War 1914-1918. (St Thomas is now the Coptic Orthodox Church of St Mary and St Abraam)

Street Works

In 1915 the road was widened at the corner of Nizells Avenue and York Avenue at a cost of £27.

In 1925 the contract for undertaking new street works at Nizells Avenue for £1,792 went to McKeller & Westerman.

Some Residents

Dr Rex Binning – He was born at Southampton, and came to Hove as a G. P. in the 1930s. He lived at 18 Brunswick Square from 1936 to around 1950, and then moved to Nizells Avenue. He once said that he never lived so well as he did in 1934 when he earned £1,000 a year. During the Second World War he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps, holding the rank of major, and he was Mentioned in Dispatches. His service took him to the Middle East and Italy. He specialised in anaesthetics both in his army career and in civilian life, and he published a number of papers on various topics in the medical journals.

He retired in 1973, and he became a Hove councillor for six years, representing Goldstone Ward. He was a founder member of Hove Civic Society of which he was president and a former chairman. The society stages a memorial lecture in his honour once a year. When there was a proposal to build a branch library on the tennis courts of St Ann’s Well Gardens, he formed the St Ann’s Well Preservation Society to fight the plans. But the building never materialised, and so he merged the society with Hove Civic Society. He had diverse interests including sailing and photography, and built up a collection of images of old iron coal-plate covers. He and his wife Geraldine had a family of four children, and were the proud grandparents of ten. He died aged 80 on 19 November 1988.

Captain Trenchard Duroure Pickard Cambridge M.C. lived at 19 Nizells Road from 1927 to 1929. He was born in Murree, Punjab, British India (now in Pakistan) in 1894, the son of Major Edward D. Pickard Cambridge and Winifred M. C. Pickard Cambridge. He was a graduate of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and came back to England for officer training at Sandhurst at the beginning of the Great War. He left Sandhurst to take a regular commission in the Suffolk Regiment.

On the 20 July 1915 Captain Pickard Cambridge with unit of his men crawled out into no-man’s land under the cover of darkness, carrying supplies and shovels to rescue a group of soldiers trapped in a bomb crater. Under heavy fire a trench was dug back to the British lines so the soldiers could crawl back in safety. For his leadership in this operation he was awarded the Military Cross. After the Great War he served for a while in Ireland before leaving the army to be a schoolmaster.

In 1939 he joined the Royal Sussex Regiment and commanded a detachment of soldiers in land mine laying along the coast of Sussex. Tragically, on 22 September 1940, while laying land mines in Cuckmere Haven, a premature explosion killed Captain Pickard Cambridge along with 2^nd Lieutenant Burns, Sergeant Lewis and Driver Ball.

Captain Trenchard Duroure Pickard Cambridge M.C. is buried in a Commonwealth War Grave in Seaford Cemetery and his name is listed on the Seaford War Memorial. Trenchard was the husband of Sybil Marion Pickard Cambridge of Hove.

Lord Alfred Douglas (1879-1945) – He was the youngest son of the 9^th Marquess of Queensberry, and became famous, or notorious, for his association with Oscar Wilde, but he was a fine poet in his own right. Lord Alfred Douglas had Hove connections, living in Fourth Avenue, and then moving to Nizells Avenue in 1935.

Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas by Howard Coster, 1940s, NPG x11377
This photograph was taken in his flat at St Ann's Court

Douglas occupied a spacious flat (number 1) on the ground floor of St Ann’s Court, which consisted of a sitting room, dining room, two bedrooms, a bathroom and kitchen. By this time he was too impoverished to be able to pay the rent himself, and so his nephew stepped into the breach and paid the £130 a year. Hove residents remembered Douglas sitting in St Ann’s Well Gardens enjoying the sunshine, or walking along Church Road, and pausing to look at the rack of sixpenny books outside Combridges Second-hand Bookshop at number 70. Douglas lived at St Ann’s Court from 1935 until around 1943.

A stream of distinguished visitors came to the St Ann’s Court flat including Hugh Kingsmill (biographer of Frank Harris) Hesketh Pearson (biographer of Oscar Wilde) Malcolm Muggeride, Marie Stopes, Alan Lennox-Boyd and Henry ‘Chips’ Channon. When Pearson, Kingsmill and Muggeridge once visited Douglas at the same time, they sat up at the table and enjoyed the sort of spread they had enjoyed as schoolboys including buttered toast, scones, cream cakes, tarts and jam puffs. Douglas’s estranged wife Olive also used to visit him, and the couple spent Christmas 1939 together at the flat.

In 1943 Douglas saw from his window the unnerving sight of German planes shimmering over the trees in St Ann’s Well Gardens and heading straight for the building. Douglas was obliged to leave the flat because he could not afford the rent, and neither could his nephew. Douglas sent off many possessions to be auctioned at Sotheby’s and was disappointed that they did not provide a better return. Unfortunately, he also destroyed a number of letters. Olive died in 1944, and Douglas was allowed to live in her flat at Viceroy Lodge in the Kingsway for a few months but in July of that year he moved to lodgings at 16 Silverdale Avenue, and died on 20 March 1945 at his friends’ house in Lancing.

A blue plaque to his memory was unveiled on 22 October 2004, it being the 134^th anniversary of his birth.

Other Douglas relatives also lived at St Ann’s Court too. They were his sister, Lady Edith Fox Pitt, and his mother, the Dowager Marchioness of Queensbury, who shared a flat.

copyright © D.Sharp
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas is buried with his Mother,
The Dowager Lady Queensbury
in the cemetery of the Franciscan Friary of
St Francis & St Anthony, Crawley

Janet Hewlett-Davies (1938-2023) – No doubt the name will be unfamiliar to most people – that is until there was a flurry of articles about her in the national press in April 2024. She was born in Shirley, Solihull as Janet Mary Hewlett – probably she was fond of her maiden name and decided not to abandon it when she married. She was described as a vivacious blonde but she was certainly astute because she worked in Whitehall and later on became Director at the Department of the Environment and then Director of Health and Social Security.

However, the reason for the sudden interest was because she had an affair with Prime Minister Harold Wilson from 1974 to 1976, while she was working in the Press Office and she was 22 years younger than Wilson. It was certainly a well-kept secret, and the facts have only just come to light because she is no longer with us. People are familiar with the name of Wilson’s other flame – Marcia Williams, later Baroness Falkender – who was said to shout a lot whereas Janet was a soothing influence and made Wilson happy. But spare a thought for Wilson’s poor wife Mary, a published poet whose work was admired by John Betjeman.

The news about the affair first appeared in the on-line Brighton and Hove News (11/4/24) which stated that she died at her home in Nizells Avenue in October 2023. The Daily Mail (12/4/24) embellished the story with photographs and stated that Janet and her husband lived at Sussex Square, Brighton. Her husband died in 2016. The Argus also reported on the story but did not mention either Sussex Square or Nizells Avenue.

Second World War

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museum, Brighton & Hove
A section of the map showing where bombs were dropped in Hove,
which was published on the front page of the Brighton Herald
on 7 October 1944

On 29 March 1943 one of the worst bombing raids on Hove took place. Three high-explosive bombs, and one unexploded bomb, fell on Nizells Avenue, Colbourne Road, Shirley Street and Clarendon Villas, and there were also bursts of machine-gun fire and cannon fire. Five women, two men, one serviceman and one child were killed, and there was severe damage.

Miscellaneous

St Ann’s Court – This block of eighteen flats was built in the 1930s.

Southern Vineyards – It was a business that ran for some years and by 1978 the firm was employing 32 people. In February 1978 it was stated that the firm’s DIY gin kit called Ginora had run into copyright issues with the owners of Gordon’s gin because the label bore too close a resemblance to theirs. Managing director Neville Instone was then stuck with 10,000 useless labels because a new label had to be designed.

The Vineries – This is the name of a block of flats built by Waylands on the site of Southern Vineyards and in August 1990 Francois Dupre, Mayor of Hove, laid the foundation stone. The development consisted of 51 one- and two-bedroom retirement flats. A competition was organised to choose an appropriate name for the flats and there were no less than 260 entrants from people hoping to win the first prize of £150, which went to the one who suggested The Vineries. The flats were finished to a high standard but unfortunately the property boom collapsed, and by October 1993 new owners had taken over. The scheme was re-launched with more than 50 per cent knocked off the original prices. One bed-units started at £39,900 while two-bedroom flats were going for £59,950.

The Waylands – This was the name of a new retirement development near The Vineries, and obviously built by the same firm. The grand opening was in August 1991 and Councillor Audrey Buttimer, Mayor of Hove, Admiral Sir Lindsay Bryson, Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex, and Tim Sainsbury, M.P. were present. Just over two years later, the property market had collapsed, and new owners took over the developments.

Vicarage – Number 18 Nizells Avenue was where the vicar of St Thomas the Apostle Church resided, and the first clergyman to occupy the building was Revd C. R. Clarke. The plans were drawn up by E. W. Long, approved by Hove Council in 1927, and built the following year.

New Flats

In 2017 there was the opportunity to buy a new home at One Nizells Avenue off-plan. It would be something of a long investment because completion was not scheduled until Spring 2002. On offer were seven stylish apartments and two town houses. The flats would have two bedrooms and two bathrooms, an Italian kitchen, and a south-facing balcony. The pent-house sounded tempting – covering the entire top floor with a spacious sun terrace and three bedrooms.

copyright © J.Middleton
Nizells Avenue photographed from St Ann’s Well Gardens in June 2001. In the background is the former St Thomas the Apostle with its roof covered with solar panels.

Hove Planning Approvals

1912 – J. W. Hawker for Mrs J. French, detached house

1913 – Goddard & Sons for F. Todhunter, detached house

1925 – A. C. Hodges for E. G. Jones, detached house

1926 – H. Allman for C. G. Wilson, detached house

1926 – W. H. Overton for S. W. Smee, detached house

1927 – E. W. Long for Parochial Council of St Thomas’s Church, detached house

1928 – E. W. Long for S. Carter, detached house

Sources

Argus

Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

Hove Council Minute Book

Royal Pavilion & Museum, Brighton & Hove

Hove in the Past

Pages

27 October 2021

Nizells Avenue, Hove.