Portslade in the Past: Gardener Street, Portslade.

05 July 2019

Gardener Street, Portslade.

Judy Middleton 2002 (revised 2019)

copyright © G. Osborne
Gardener Street at the junction with Abinger Road in the early 1900s
With thanks to Mr G. Osborne for granting permission for the reproduction of the above photograph from his private collection.

Background

The land on which the houses were later built was once agricultural land called Great Shelldale – the eastern boundary being where Abinger Road is today. In the 19^th century the land belonged to the Bridger family.

Land Sales

In 1864 Abraham Peters, market gardener, purchased 12 acres from the Bridger’s. On 31 December 1864 Abraham Peters sold a portion of the land to John Sharp, Southwick ship-owner, for £900.

On 24 May 1885 John Sharp sold the land to William Gardner, Southwick farmer, and Frederick Peters, Portslade market gardener.

Abraham Peters wrote his will on 4 March 1876, and he left his real estate in trust to Zechariah James Batterbee and H. Peters. (Batterbee also owned land in Wolseley Road). The land in question measured as follows:

From north to south on the east side 195-ft

On the west side 201-ft

From the east to the west on the south side 431-ft

In 1895 plans for nine cottages with cesspool drainage were approved, while in 1896 plans for twelve cottages to be built by D. Barnard & Son were also approved.

The houses as built followed a villa-style on the north side, but there was terraced housing on the south side. The original numbers 2 and 4 Gardener Street (since demolished) were incredibly cramped, only allowing for the tiniest of halls behind the front door, while upstairs there were two doors in one bedroom to allow access to the second bedroom.

By 1926 four of the houses were numbered 9, 11, 13, 15 Gardener Street, but they were formerly known as 5, 6, 7, 8 Arlesford Terrace. (The houses on the south side were sometimes called Gardener Terrace.)

In 1927 these four houses, plus 4 Barnes Road, were sold for £690 to Edward Jesse Salvage.

In 1966 number 9 Gardener Street was purchased by Charles Edward Salvage for £650.

copyright © G. Osborne
No 95, the Abinger Road Bakery on the south-east corner of Gardner Street in the early 1900s
With thanks to Mr G. Osborne for granting permission for the reproduction of the above photograph from his private collection.

Numbers 1 and 3 Gardener Street, and number 83 Abinger Road were owned by Frederick Peters, and after he died, the properties passed to his wife Mary and their children. (It was Frederick’s brother, Abraham Peters who had made the original land purchase.)

In 1901 Kate Bristow, one of the daughters of Frederick Peters, purchased for £545 these three houses from William Hudson Dudeney, executor, in agreement with her sisters.

In 1907 Kate Bristow sold number 1 Gardener Street to her sister Susan Webber, and in 1910 Kate Bristow sold number 3 Gardener Street to Thomas Barnard French.

Thomas Barnard French left a legacy in his Will to St Andrew's Church, Portslade from which any interest that accrued each year was to be given to the poor of Portslade. In January 2019 the Parish of Portslade & Mile Oak decided to close the Barnard French Legacy down and donate the whole of the legacy, which amounted to about a £1000 to the Purple People Kitchen Food Bank to help fund their work at Portslade Town Hall.

In the 1930s number 4 Gardener Street was owned by Braybon’s, the builder’s.

copyright © D. Sharp
Gardener Street looking east from the East Sussex/West Sussex boundary path, showing terraced houses on the south side of the road.

Sources

Middleton J, Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

The Keep

ACC 2499/18 – relating to the Bridger / Cattley families

page layout by D. Sharp