Lansdowne

My Father was born in Cornwallis Gardens in 1923 and moved to Lansdowne with his parents in about 1925. The house belonged to my Great Grand Father Francis Gildersleeve who was involved in building many of the houses in St Helen's Park Rd. during the 1880s and 90s He owned a number of them and let them out initially as houses but during the 1920s many of them were divided in a rudimentary fashion into Flats.

My Great Grand Father gave Lansdowne to my Grandmother as an Easter Present in 1926 and the family lived there until about 1930,they then moved to Bexhill. The house was then let out as flats and sold I believe in the 1930s.

I have a number of snaps taken in the garden of the house, my Father remembers there being a well-established orchard in the garden which was tended by his Grand Father Charles Peckham, in return for which the harvest of fruit was then sold in his Grocers shop on Manor Rd. He also thinks there was a stream running along the back of the garden.

Another little anecdote Dad remembers from the house in the 1920s was that there was a one armed window cleaner operating in the area, he likely lost his arm in the first world war. Dad remembers watching as he lifted a large rocking horse away from the bay window in the front with his one arm prior to washing the windows.