The estate 80 years on
The show house
The show house for the estate was in Vale Avenue, and there were numerous other full scale advertising schemes in Brighton, and in the newspapers. When the building was under way, a special party came from America to inspect the estate, and take back some of the ideas to incorporate in their project.
Mackie Avenue
The chalk pit (now the park and children’s playground behind Mackie Avenue, was dug out to provide the hardcore for the road bases, and the company used Bedford vans to move the chalk. Mackie Avenue must have been especially challenging, as it had been marshy and sometimes difficult to walk on. This accounts for the subsequent subsidence plaguing some of the houses, and it ultimately sealed the fate of the Mackie Hall.
A happy place to live
The actual building materials were Sussex Stock brick facing, and other bricks and tiles came from Belgium. The doors and windows came from West Ham Joinery, and Cox and Barnard of Hove supplied the stained glass for doors and hall windows.A by-pass now runs at the back of Braeside Avenue, but due to the foresight of the developers, lack of a through road means we enjoy a peaceful life, with good connections to the rest of the town. Over 80 years later, the estate continues to be a happy and popular place to live.
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I recall 2 small rows of old cottages in Patcham. One was at the junction of Greenfield Ave and Braybon Avenue. I had piano lessons in one with a Miss Pinder.
The other row was near the junction of Ladies Mile Road and Winfield Road just below the allotments and opposite a parade of shops. I presume both still exist.
I studied interwar Patcham as part of my doctorate and my mum lived in Ladies Mile Road for many years, my dad went to the old Patcham school. I would like to clarify a comment made in the introduction above[not by me!] Mackie Avenue could not be ‘marshy’ as it is constructed in the chalk dry valley, where the valley floor is formed in Coombe Deposits, the chalky rubble and flint debris that ran down slope after the last cold period or Ice Age[no ice in Patcham though!] The material is not stable and is slowly but relentlessly moving westward along the valley, it is this that has caused the houses, mainly on the south side, to need underpinning, but as stated, above too late for Mackie Hall.
John, the cottages you recall are all still there plus the other short terrace at the west end of Ladies Mile Road.
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