Hove in the Past: The Droveway, Hove.

Judy Middleton 2003 (2022)

Background

As might be expected from the name, this was an ancient drove way going back into the mists of time along which people and animals would walk along a route from Portslade to Saltdean, or vice versa.

Today The Droveway starts at Nevill Road, slopes down to Goldstone Valley, crosses Hove Park and continues eastwards climbing the hill to connect to The Drove at Preston. It is worth recollecting that the area is supposed to be traversed by ley lines, not forgetting the stone circle with the Goldstone being the only survivor, and the fact the valley was selected as a source of valuable water in the 1850s. In the wall south of the old Goldstone Pumping Station, there is a nicely preserved fountain with the stern legend above it ‘Commit No Nuisance’.

It is because the droveway was an ancient right-of-way that it caused problems when Hove councillors began the creation of Hove Park. Obviously, the droveway could not be just blocked up, and the old route survives to this day, although vehicles are not allowed to use it, and it is tar-maced throughout. One solution envisaged was that the road might be carried through the park on a light, steel suspension bridge over the valley. But when councillors were told the costs of such a structure they decided it was a bridge expense too far.

The land adjacent to The Droveway could hardly be described as verdant pasture. The proprietors of Mowden School purchased four acres of rough grass or ploughland in 1912 from the Stanford Estate plus a further two acres in 1921. The land was so full of stones (probably flints) that the schoolboys used to pick off a hundred daily until eventually, the land could be turned into a sports field.

By 1912 The Droveway was little more than a country track, on the north side of which Preston Farm was to be found.

Today The Droveway could safely be described as a leafy environment. There are some substantial elm trees with a thick girth plus a delicate silver birch with its distinctive trunk that, from a distance, looks as though someone has applied white paint.

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
In this 1946 map, the original route of The Droveway can be seen crossing Hove Park

The Dairy

There is a long history of a dairy business being carried on in The Droveway. It started off as King’s Dairy, then it became the property of Sidney Hole in the 1920s who ran Preston Farm, as well as Withdean Farm, while over the other side of the Downs there was Yew Tree Farm, Inholmes, and Bishop’s Farm. Sidney Hole also ran Dyke Road Farm, and he came to the rescue of Hove Council in 1920 when the place in Southwick where the town’s rubbish was dumped, was full up. The council proposed utilising the disused Wish Brick Field instead but this caused an uproar from local people. Hole suggested they could have a site at Dyke Road Farm.

The dairy business became a family concern and by 1938 William Hole farmed The Mount. Sidney Hole first appeared in local Directories in 1907 when he had premises at 174 Church Road, Hove. By 1913 he lived at 56 Dyke Road, Hove, and by 1920 added further outlets in Brighton to his portfolio. He was proud of producing Sussex milk. In around 1930 he established a state-of-the-art model bottling plant in Davigdor Road and by then it was called Hole’s Hygienic Dairy.

The business went through a number of different names from Hole’s & Davigdor to Hole’s & Belgravia. On the way it lost its connection to adjacent Sussex farms, and after the Second World War, the site in Drove Road became merely a distribution centre. But there was still the link with milk and in 1960 South Coast Dairies took over the premises.

In 1987 Unigate Dairies applied to Hove Council for planning permission to alter the depot so that the number of milk rounds could be increased from 35 to 64. There would also be the bonus of creating an extra 41 jobs – the company already employed 51 people at the site. Hove planners passed the application by 5-3.

Dairy Crest owned the site until 2015. Naturally enough, developers became interested in such a site. But it was not without difficulties because the old buildings were on the Local List, which meant they needed to be converted to other uses rather than demolished – the latter being the cheaper option for a developer. In 2019 Sirus Tagham of Redbull Properties received planning consent from Brighton & Hove City Council for fourteen homes, and some commercial units.

But nothing happened, most probably because of the old buildings, and a downturn in the demand for commercial space. Two years later, the plans had been revised and the development company was Superstone Homes, the owners being Ardeshir and Tagham.

Their spokesman admitted that it was challenging to convert historic buildings, therefore the proposed commercial space had been reduced to 766-sq-metres from the 2019 suggestion of 1,445-sq-metres. However, the new plans were for nineteen homes, instead of the previous fourteen, and ten of the new homes would be a terrace at the back of the site. Dawn Bartlett, Hove councillor, said the development was out of character with the surrounding area, which had substantial properties. Nevertheless, in July 2021 the new plans were approved.

The Cottages

In December 1991 plans to demolish four cottages and erect three detached houses were rejected by the planning committee. The prospective developers appealed against the decision, but in August 1992 the Department of the Environment rejected it.

In January 1994 new plans were submitted to Hove Council to demolish the four cottages and replace them with four semi-detached houses. Despite strong objection from Hove Civic Society, this time the councillors decided to allow the demolition to go ahead.

The Evening Argus (8 October 1997) published a coloured artist’s impression of how the semi-detached houses, now under construction, would look when finished. All had a south-facing garden, and one had a garage. Prices ranged from £179,950 to £185,000. In addition, developers South Bank Homes would donate £2,500 towards the cost of carpets and other household essentials from Hannington’s.

Wistons Riding Stables

Wistons Riding School
(Advertisement from Hove booklet celebrating
the coronation in 1953)

This was located in The Droveway in the 1940s. The business was run by Barbara Phillips and Mary Williams. The name ‘Wistons’ was a nod to her mother’s enterprise because Barbara was the daughter of the redoubtable Mrs Baxter Phillips, headmistress of Wistons, a private school for girls on the corner of Dyke Road, Brighton, where the girls wore a uniform of brown gym-slips with a purple fabric sash-belt, white blouse and purple and white striped tie.

The riding school pupils wore jodhpurs and hacking jackets, and soft hats – no hard hats in those days. One pupil was severely reprimanded when she tried to give a horse a treat without keeping the palm of her hand flat. The exasperated riding mistress had to force the horse’s mouth open to extricate the fingers from being munched.

On another occasion, when the riding mistress was leading a string of young girls riding their horses on the Downs, the same girl began to wonder what it would feel like to fall off a horse. So she slipped her shoes out of the stirrups, and promptly rolled down the hill. A quite word was then had with the mother that perhaps riding was not this girl’s forte, and riding lessons ceased forthwith.

The riding pupils were sometimes taken to Hill Brow where they had the use of a field with small and suitable jumps. On the Downs they could experience the thrill of a gallop while clasping the front of the saddle firmly.

Tennis

By 1933 The Droveway Lawn Tennis Club had been established in the road.; in 1937 it changed its name to the Avenue Lawn Tennis Club. The Pavilion Lawn Tennis Club moved to The Droveway after their former site between the railway and Wilbury Avenue was sold to developers.

House Notes by Name

Casablanca – This house was built in the early 1930s, and was later considered to be one of the best examples in Sussex of Art Deco architecture.

The property contained the following: Five bedrooms, Two bathrooms, Dining room, Lounge, Study,

Kitchen, A 36-ft roof terrace, Two sun balconies, Rear sun terrace.

In August 1985 it was on sale for £115,000.

There is a fascinating legend/folk memory that the world famous artist Piet Mondrian once stayed there, and indeed he is supposed to have influenced the choice of decorative glass cladding in the bathroom. If Mondrian did stay here, it must have been between 1938 and 1940, the only time he ever visited England.

Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) – original name Pieter Cornelius Mondriaan – was a Dutch artist who is considered the leader of Neoplasticism – a style of abstract painting in which there are geometrical patterns in flat colours outlined with intersecting horizontal and vertical lines. Like so many artists he fell in love with Paris and enjoyed two stints there interrupted by two world wars. He retreated to London in 1938 but when Paris fell in 1940 he must have felt unsafe in England, and besides his London studio had just been bombed. On 23 September 1940 he set sail for New York aboard the RMS Samaria, and there he stayed.

In recent times the house has been undergoing extensive restoration and by the summer of 2022 the works had at last been completed – it remains a single residence.

The White House – This house was built in the mid-1930s and won an architectural design award. During the Second World War, the Bishop of Chichester was in residence. By the 1980s Claude Pascoe owned the property, and he was a director of the Theatre Royal. He was also a member of the Grasshoppers Tennis Club in The Drive, of which he was elected chairman in 1956. In those days it was a rather exclusive club and when a young man put in an application to become a member, Pascoe’s famous question was always ‘Do we know him?’ In other words, would the new member fit in socially? In the 1950s there was a bit of a to-do when a teenager from the Grammar School wished to join. He was turned down initially – after all it wasn’t exactly public school – but following a rumpus, the keen youngster was permitted to join the august ranks of posh tennis players.

Source

Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove

Hove in the Past

Pages

19 November 2021

The Droveway, Hove.