Saltdean

Construction of present estate began in 1916

Reproduced with permission from the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder, 1990

Please note that this text is an extract from a reference work written in 1990.  As a result, some of the content may not reflect recent research, changes and events.

a) HISTORY: Saltdean is now a large housing estate, but for centuries it was an open area of downland and furze with a few isolated farm buildings and cottages, the oldest remaining being the mid-eighteenth-century Lower Bannings Farmhouse and barn still standing at 38-42 Bannings Vale. The area was probably named from the salty sea-spray that covered the grass after storms, and Saltdean was mentioned by name in a survey of about 1667. Saltdean Gap gave relatively easy access to the beach and was often used by smugglers, so in 1834 a row of coastguard cottages was erected near the cliff top. The cottages were demolished in 1937 but one, the post-office and store, was demolished a little later than the others and Teynham House may be seen to have been erected around it.
The history of the present estate began in 1916 when the Beard estate was acquired by speculator Charles Neville as part of his dream to develop all the land between Rottingdean and Newhaven. The area was requisitioned for agricultural use during the First World War, but in 1919 Neville sold plots in what is now Peacehaven, and he started development at Rottingdean Heights in 1923. The purchase of the Saltdean area was completed in 1922 and 1925, and in 1924 Neville established the Saltdean Estate Company in an office by the coastguard cottages. Miles of new roads were pegged out and surfaced with chalk quarried from a pit in Greenbank Avenue. A small railway was used to convey the materials along the length of Saltdean Vale.
Fortunately much stricter planning control was exercised than at nearby Peacehaven and no shacks or wooden buildings were allowed. In 1928 that part of the estate to the west of Longridge Avenue, as part of the parish of Rottingdean, was incorporated into the county borough of Brighton and development naturally proceeded more rapidly with the services now offered by the corporation. By the Second World War the Saltdean Park area and the Mount estate were largely complete, and the Estate Company had built the Lido, the Ocean Hotel, several blocks of flats, and the Smuggler's Haunt tea-rooms at the gap. Development of the Saltdean estate continued after the war until the 1970s, the Estate Company having been acquired by Homemakers Ltd. In 1981 the population of the Brighton part of Saltdean was just under 5,000 {277}.

Any numerical cross-references in the text above refer to resources in the Sources and Bibliography section of the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder.

The following resource(s) is quoted as a general source for the information above: 44,201,202