I enjoyed your article very much. It gives a wealth of information and makes very interesting reading. Thank you. I didn't know it was called Cats' Creep I was told it was Jacobs Ladder, no wonder nobody has ever known where I meant!

Great to see a photo of the Cats' Creep, Len! When we lived in Richmond Road, my brother and I devised a fast route down to where my grandmother lived in Park Crescent. I know it started with the Cats' Creep and I think we got into Park Crescent by the bombed out gap at the back.

I lived in Upper Lewes Road and used this Cats' Creep, every day on the way to the then Ditchling Road School from 1938 to 1941. On the way home during the war an enemy plane came over low down over the race course and was heading for the steps. I was down from the top about 20 steps and he was machine gunning. I was the fastest person to run back up the steps .

Great story, Cyril. 'Jacob's Ladder' is a nickname popularly applied to any public thoroughfare comprising a long flight of steps. (There's one in Cheddar Gorge.) Elsewhere in MyB&H are mentions of various other stairways in the Brighton area known locally by that name, but the consensus is that *the* Jacob's Ladder is that which led from Jevington Drive near Bevendean Hospital down to The Avenue, Bevendean - one I'm not familiar with. (Must go and have a look on my next visit.) I have to say that I never ever heard the Cats' Creep called by this alternative name during my nineteen years in the immediate neighbourhood. Everybody called it the Cats' Creep, and it was certainly crept by a lot of cats. I wonder who coined the name, and when?

Len: The 'Cats' Creep' is marked as 'Lennox Road' on my old Brighton Street plan c1956.

Thanks for that, Tim - official confirmation at last. I seem to remember my father telling me when I was very young that originally Lennox Road wasn't a stairway but a really steep, narrow hill. Of course, he might have been having me on - it would have been pretty damn steep. Can anyone confirm?

Looking at the old flint wall on the left and the angle the flints are laid, it could have very easily followed an original old pathway up that kind of slope. It does look like the upper steps were added at a later date and the lower steps are original when the walls were built. There again I could be completely wrong, but that’s the beauty of looking and trying to work out architectural history of roads and buildings.

There is also a 'Cat's Creep' between Mafeking Road and Kimberly Road.

The land behind Wakefield and Richmond Roads was once used as market gardens I was told, and when the area got too built up for that to be practical it was sold off piecemeal to anyone in the area who wanted a chunk. I heard about it because I bought 6 Richmond Road in 1979, mainly because it had an enormous "second garden" about 25 yards down the road, behind one of those Cat's Creep doors. It was the first door on the right as you went down the steps of Cat's Creep from Richmond Road. It was a massive space where we had a shed and grew veg. We eventually sold it to the owners of a house down the hill in Wakefield Road which backed directly onto it - our house was on the opposite side of the steps, and actually backed onto an even bigger plot of land which ran along the backs of about 10 houses and was owned by an eccentric gent called Mr West. I think that is now a community nature reserve. As for our old allotment, last time I peeked over the wall it had turned into a young forest with amazingly tall trees. I don't know who enjoys the use of it now.

I bought No.10 Richmond Road as a family house in February 2010, the main reason for wanting this house was because it came with the large plot on the north side of Cats' Creep. It's an interesting site with much history. It was owned for many years by a very eccentric (not in a nice way) chap who would have considered Thatcher a bit of a lefty, apparently he painted a large swastika on the back of the house at one point. He seems to have grubbed up what was left of the orchard, divided the plot into three terraces and planted an enormous number of sycamores. He also erected many sheds and walls made of whatever happened to be on hand; concrete, brick, breeze block, glazed tiles, butlers sinks, old doors, you name it. I'm not sure when he died but the house and land were sold at auction around 1998 (he had pretty much ruined the house too). The next owner of the house cleared out all the sheds and cut down a fair number of sycamores (judging by the stumps) but ran out of steam until the ill-conceived development proposal that has been mentioned elsewhere. We are now in the process of restoring the land into more of a "wild" family garden. With the approval of the tree officer we've taken out most of the smaller and diseased sycamores and also a row that were dangerously over-leaning the houses below. Now we are starting replanting with a good variety of indigenous trees and bushes. The terrace walls all need rebuilding so we will also do some re-landscaping / removal of most visible brickwork. It has always been a private plot of land and we have raised a wooden fence along the wall of Cats' Creep to provide more privacy and to stem the flow of rubbish that was sadly being dumped from the alley. I'm very pleased to say that so far we have received nothing but support and encouragement from the many neighbours.