A little patch of magic
The View from Highcroft Villas looking north
The view from Highcroft Villas is very special to me. Just on the bend is an allotment area surrounded by a chain-link fence, and peering between its rusty wires you see Preston Village, Withdean and Westdene set out before you. I especially love this view at night when the areas of green parkland and playing field are inky black and houses along Preston Drove look like little lanterns raised along the hillside. It’s a little patch of magic for me.
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I recognise that view! I used to live in the first house after the allotments with magnificent trees in the back garden.
My friend lives near there and I go there a lot. I recognise the veiw too!
I am about to buy a flat in Park View, is there much of a sense of community in Highcroft Villas?
One night, sleeping on a mattress in Robin’s living room with views overlooking the garden and this railway line, I was woken by a noise and watched a fox crossing the garden in the moonlight.
One of the loveliest views in Brighton of the vast expanse of the Downs.
I have lived here since 1976 (and in Bevendean before that). Does anyone remember that goat that used to be in front of the lodge flats? What was there before? And where did he (she?) go? And whats happening to the former allotments?
From my grandmother’s kitchen on the first floor of 71 Springfield Rd (north side of the street), I could see right across to Highcroft Villas and Stanford Rd – as far south as Stanford Rd School. The huge old Victorian houses were amazing places.
My piano teacher lived in this road, about half way up in a semi-basement flat. His name was Ray Fox, specialising in jazz and swing. I wonder if anyone is old enough to remember him, around the mid 1950s? He had two little boys who, many years later became the joint owners of SNA Photographic in Portland Road, Hove. They kindly gave me a 10% discount when they learned I was an ex-pupil of their father!
I remember painting the ceiling in a flat in Highcroft Villas for a couple of young teachers in the seventies. My son later lived in that flat, his first time away from home. I did a little plastering job in his loo. The landlord, if I remember correctly, was a sort of cheer leader for Kate Bush fans.
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