Notes and queries: very special houses
The following query was posted to the site by Pam, on 29/08/2002
‘I recently took my visiting parents for an afternoon in Rottingdean. Near Kippling’s house there is a little quad/enclosure of beautifully kept Tudor houses. The gate said Strictly Private, but we still had a good look through the gate’s porthole anyway. Does anyone know anything about the history of these houses and if they’re original? They certainly looked as if they’d fetch a fair price on today’s property scale.’
Response 1:
Posted by Jan Hill, My Brighton and Hove volunteer, on 29/08/02
If the “Tudor Houses” are Tudor Close in Court Farm Road, they date from 1929! They look very authentic though at first glance.
Response 2:
Posted by Paul Cracknell, on 31/08/2002
There is no great mystery here and all is not what it seems in Rottingdean. The cottages referred to comprise Tudor Close in Dean Court Road. Despite being remarkably authentic in appearance, they are in fact relatively modern. Further information is already available at the following URL: http://www.saltdean.info/saltdeanpastlbegtodayhtm.htm
Response 3:
Posted by Geoffrey Mead, on 10/09/02
The Rottingdean Tudor houses (if Tudor Close, In Dean Court Road) were the most elegant of all the south coast houses built by Charles Neville and a definite up-market devt after Peacehaven, He actually lived in one of them. for a while this was a famous hotel and housed in the Thirties a Hollywood actress (but I forget which one…Myrna Loy? Bette Davis?) The Rottingdean Museum at The Grange will know all this …and more.
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I live in Tudor Close and am currently researching a book about its history. If anyone has any information particularly about the original building of the place and of when it was a hotel, I’d be most interested.
See the book by P.A. Barron, ‘The House Desirable’ (1929) for more information on Tudor Close.
The Tudor Close Hotel was used as a location for an appalling film called the Adventures of Jane(1946) now available on DVD from Odeon Entertainment. Looked a great hotel.
The Adventures of Jane has a certain period charm despite it’s (many) weaknesses. The Tudor Close does look good in it – more isolated on Downland than today – although the interiors were almost certainly all studio sets.
Just a trifling comment: my father who was in London Scottish Territorials, so was ‘called up’ at outset of WWII and, from a photo, was a corporal & dispatch rider, who was billeted in Tudor Close/Court c.1939/40. Somewhere in family archives are photos of him there, including one I recall, on a military m/bike wearing a tin hat and greatcoat, outside the main gate of Roedean School. Our parents were married in 1941 at St Margaret’s Church but under a special license by a Church of Scotland chaplain and a few years later my youngest brother was also christened at nearby St Margaret’s.
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