The Garden Estates

Brighton & Hove Herald 29 June 1918
Brighton is to have a model garden suburb - but not, of course, until after the war. Definite progress, however, is being made with the scheme to build 1,000 houses near Brighton, and it is possible that something more may be heard of the project at the next meeting of the Town Council.

The proposal, as far as can be gathered at present, is to build about ten houses to the acre. It is the intention of the Corporation to engage the highest expert advice they can get in order to ensure that the estate on which the houses are to be built shall be laid out on the most attractive lines. There is to be no dead uniformity of what might be called "modern prettiness" about the modern garden suburb.

All the houses are to be of an individual character. All are to be fitted with electric light and baths and are to have a reasonable amount of garden. What is most important of all, they are to be let at a rent which makes them self-supporting. But at the prices to which building materials are soaring - and no one anticipates that house prices will fall for many years to come - it does not seem clear how the rent can be a moderate one.
Blighty Brighton

The Bishop of Chichester wrote in 1939 in the preface to a pamphlet Rents in Moulsecoomb, "Everybody who goes along the Lewes Road must admire the appearance of the three Moulsecoomb housing estates; the layout and the style of building. Externally they do credit to Brighton Corporation and to the architects, surveyors and builders who brought it into being." In the same pamphlet Marion Fitzgerald wrote of the "Pleasing aspect and sound construction of the houses."
Blighty Brighton

Because of his age, Jack had a late call-up for Army Service in 1916. The years following the War were a distressing time, and he had his share of problems to face. He returned to Civvy Street in 1919, to find a noisy and violent family billeted on his wife, and poor prospects of work in the town. After being forced to take his wife and two children to Reading temporarily, in order to find work, he finally secured a job with the Southern Publishing Company in Robert Street, Brighton in 1920, as a master printer.

I was born in the following February. Mum already had two daughters, Irene (10) and Kathleen (6), and needed room for her expanding family. Dad, in desperation, went to the Housing Department, to see if anything could be done about re-housing the unruly family upstairs.

We were then living near Five Ways, in Stanmer Park Road. My parents were told that nothing could be done for them, since the father, although an ex-soldier, was out of work and had no references. They were then asked by the Housing Manager if they had heard anything about the new "Garden Suburb", which was being built out on the road to Lewes. Would they perhaps consider renting one of those new houses themselves?

Dad thought it was worth investigating and Mum liked what she saw. The semi-detached houses were set in a valley, looking more like country cottages. Mum was a countrywoman at heart, having spent her childhood in a village. Dad thought the rent was very high, but there were three nice bedrooms, and a big garden, and lighting and cooking was by electricity, which was the very latest fashion. So Mum tried a little persuasion, offering to help with expenses by earning money at home, if he would agree to take them away from the terrible family upstairs. Their name was added to the waiting list, and they moved into 8 The Avenue in the summer of 1922.
Ruby Dunn - Mouslecoomb Memories