Discovering Eastbourne's Heritage
Ten Town Walks

Eastbourne is an interesting town whose early history is largely obscured by the burgeoning development of a Victorian seaside resort and a 20th century conference town. These walks have been devised to explore the less obvious facets of Eastbourne's historic heritage and should appeal to both the visitor and resident.

Unlike its neighbours of Brighton and Hastings, Eastbourne was not primarily a fishing village but a large agricultural parish with its main settlement in what is now Old Town, some 4 kilometres from the coast. This settlement had its origins in the Saxon period and over the years there grew up three hamlets, namely Meads, Southbourne and Seahouses. Much of the character of the older buildings is derived from the local geology.

Eastbourne spreads from the western chalk downland flat ends in the dramatic cliffs of Beachy Head and over the old marshland with its gault clay outcrops and the Eastbourne greensand which peculiarly outcrops along the coast. Much of Eastbourne's vernacular charm derives from the numerous ways in which the local building materials are used. The upper chalk provides a copious source of
flint that can be used as nodular flints from the fields or as wave-washed and eroded boulders. Flint con be knapped and broken to reveal its darker interior and more sophisticatedly, squared as in 15th century chequer work to be found in the ancient parish church of St. Mary in Old Town or the 20th century parapet of the church of Our Lady of Ransom opposite the Town Hall, Grove Road.

Similarly the Eastbourne greensand is an important local stone having been used for building since Roman times. Eastbourne is the only place in south east England where it outcrops on the coast and for centuries it has been used to dress the corners of buildings made of flint and the construction of massive buildings such as St. Mary's Church tower.

Gault clay on the edge of the marsh was used extensively for the manufacture of bricks and tiles, an industry that increased during the mid to late 19th century. As you walk round Eastbourne, the use of these materials soon becomes apparent, particularly in Old Town and surviving farm houses and buildings in the old hamlets.


It is in Old Town that the greatest concentration of old buildings survive and exhibit the use of these early materials. The old settlement of Bourne clustered at the head of the valley of the Bourne Stream which rises in Motcombe Pond to the north of the church and flowed eastwards to the sea. The parish church, now dedicated to St. Mary stands on the south side of the steep valley and has 12th century arcading and chancel arch of Caen stone. In the 14th century the nave was enlarged and the tower added using local greensand. Inside, there are the remains of a rood loft and piscina a 14th century Easter sepulchre, aumbrey and sedila. There is an interesting monument in the south aisle to Henry Lushington, one of the few to survive the hell of the black hole of Calcutta. In the church yard there are the remains of both an ancient sundial and the churchyard cross, not to be confused with the 'Celtic' cross in the southeastern corner of the churchyard brought from Cornwall by Davies Giddy in 1817.


Opposite the cross is the half-timbered upper floor of the Lamb Inn, whose lower chamber has a vaulted and ribbed ceiling and unique example of 14th century ball-flower decoration. To the north of the church, there survives the Old Parsonage, once the Rectory Manor House and now used as a church room.
Here greensand and flint have been used randomly and dressed with green sand quoins and window frames. This would have been the farmhouse of the holding and further evidence of Eastbourne's agricultural past can be seen in Bradford Street and by Motcombe Gardens where stables and barns have been converted to dwellings.

Borough Lane is reputed to be the moot site of Saxon Eastbourne and certainly its eminence would support this theory. Also in Borough lane there are some fine old buildings including 'Pilgrims' with a possible association with a medieval religious Gild called the 'Brotherhood of Jesus' whose main building was opposite the south porch of the church.

What we see in Old Town today are fragments of an old farming settlement that was largely fossilised until the 1920s, due to the 19th century development of the seaside resort.

The unique character of Eastbourne's 19th century aristocratic seaside development is largely due to one factor the land was not owned by numerous individuals, but largely held by two great landowners - the chief of whom was William Cavendish and the second Carew DaviesGilbert. This state of affairs is largely due to the way in which the Great Manor devolved. In 1555 it was divided up and sold in 22 equal parts. These parts where purchased by James Burton, Thomas Gildredge and John Selwyn - names all commemorated in modern road names.

In 1830, the former holdings of John Selwyn were sold to the descendants of the other two landowners. The Burton manor devolved to Lady Elizabeth Compton, who in 1782 married lord George Cavendish, third son of the 4th Duke of Devonshire. In 1834 the Compton Estates were inherited by the 2nd Earl of Burlington, William Cavendish, who later became the 7th Duke of Devonshire and who was largely responsible for the development of Eastbourne as a Victorian seaside town.

The other holding of Eastbourne. Mr Gildredge, passed into the Gilbert family and by the 1830s had passed to Carew Davies Gilbert. Gilbert held a little less than a quarter of the parish and William Cavendish owned about two thirds. William Cavendish has been described as one of the 'finest flowers' of Victorian nobility. His first inclination to develop Eastbourne was planned by the famous architect, Decimus Burton who designed 'Burlingtonville' complete with a church. William's beloved wife Blanche died prematurely in 1840 and the plan was shelved with the
exception of the church which was built in 1838 as a chapel-of-ease to the parish church and became Holy Trinity Church, Trinity Trees.

In 1847, James Berry, a local surveyor was appointed to set out and survey the first part of New Eastbourne and this design included the building of the first part of the sea wall of Eastbourne greensand in 1848 at 'Splash Point' near the pier.

The London to Brighton and South Coast Railway completed their line to Hastings via Polegate in 1846 thus bypassing Eastboume. After some intervention by William Cavendish, the line was extended from Polegate to Eastbourne and the first railway train arrived at Eastbourne on 14th May 1849.

The effect of the newfangled steam railway on Eastbourne's development was slow. So slow, that what is now the Burlington Hotel, a name commemorating its founder and built in 1851, and terraces in Cavendish Place, Victoria Place (now the upper part of Terminus Road) were so unpopular that the builders became bankrupt and William Cavendish bailed them out. A year or so earlier, Cornfield Terrace was begun by an independent developer, John Gosden, who successfully developed an independently owned plot surrounded by the Ear[ of Burlington's lands.

As the 2nd Earl of Burlington, William Cavendish not only inherited the Eastbourne Estates, but a Lancashire Estate with Holker Hall. His primary interest was in steel production and the allied lucrative industries of railways and shipbuilding. However, more was to come.

In 1858, on the death of the sixth 'bachelor' Duke, his second cousin, William Cavendish became an even more wealthy man, inheriting estates including Lismore Castle in Ireland, Chatsworth House and the Derbyshire Estates, and Chiswick House and Devonshire House in London. Thus enriched and emboldened, William Cavendish once again returned to developing Eastbourne as a modern seaside resort.

A year later in 1859, Henry Curry was appointed to produce a new building design for Eastbourne. Curry's genius included not only a Romanish grid pattern for the roads but, with such spaciousness as to provide wide tree-lined boulevards, the grandest of which was Devonshire Place and he also created the promenade for which Eastbourne is famous. Curry, who had been apprenticed to Decimus Burton, created a town centre of formal ltalianate buildings, stucco finished and embellished with ornamental cast-iron work and roof furniture, much of which still survives.

Another man who played an important part in the development of the town was the Duke's greatest appointee in 1864 of George Ambrose Wallis, who with his brother William Lumb Wallis, carried out all the major contracts for drainage, water supply and roadworks. George Ambrose became Eastbourne's first Mayor in 1883 and built two huge mansions, Holywell Mount and Fairfield Court, both of which have been demolished.

Carew Davies Gilbert's smaller development was at Upperton and consists of a grid pattern of roads and formal gardens and terraces leading off a grand boulevard, The Avenue, which was to end at a castellated eminence, but in the event terminated with a school building - now Roborough. In spite of having been extensively bombed during the war, the Gilbert development survives as a whole, more than the Ducal development which also suffered from bombing, and even more so from postwar redevelopment.

Also playing an important part in expanding Eastbourne was the Rev. Canon Thomas Pitman, Vicar of Eastbourne from 1828 - 1890. During his period as vicar, the population expanded by over 30,000 which necessitated the building of seven new churches.

We have already noted the erection of Trinity Chapel-of-Ease in 1838 and this was followed at the east end by Christ Church in 1859. It was designed by Benjamin Ferrey and built of flint of poor construction on unstable ground. Ferrey's churches have been described as "all timid, orthodox and harmless" and Christ Church is no exception. Many of the churches were built on land donated by either the Duke of Devonshire or Carew Davies Gilbert as was the impressive red brick church of St. Saviour, designed by the famous architect of the Law Courts in the Strand, George Edmund Street. St. Saviour's was built at private expense in 1869 and Street's Victorian Gothic was echoed by the erection of All Saint's Hospital and Chapel by Henry Woodyer whose ltalianate ceramic polychrome work has to be seen.

It is hoped that these walks will bring a greater understanding of Eastbourne's past and a sense of discovering features so easily passed by. The memorial relating to the sinking of the Titanic, a buried dog in Manor Gardens, the room in the Grand Hotel where Debussy may have worked on 'La Mer', the striking ltalianate design of All Soul's Church, the Napoleonic Martello Tower and the Redoubt Fortress. The list is endless and it is hoped, will overwhelm and excite the visitor and resident alike and leave the reader with a taste for more.

Lawrence Stevens
May 2009