History
A brief history of the Park Gate site
The land on which Park Gate stands was originally part of the Wick estate, later known as the Goldsmid estate. On part of the footprint of the rear block stood Wick House, a large eighteenth century house with numerous associated outbuildings and cottages. A medieval manor, dating from the late 13th century, probably stood on the same site before this, which would make Park Gate one the earliest sites of human habitation in Hove. Wick House – known at various times as The Wick, Wick Hill and Furze Hill – was demolished in the mid-1930s.
Just to the south of Park Gate lay Wick Farm; in about 1890 this was used for stables and in the 1920s as a dairy farm. Farm buildings occupied part of the Park Gate plot; these became very dilapidated and were demolished in the mid 1930s. The ground was left as wasteland and was an unofficial car park until 1947, when the first plans for housing – a high-density proposal that was never built – were drawn up.
It was not until 1955 that Eric Lyons was given permission for his company SPAN to build one of their trademark low-density developments. SPAN embodied a new idea of housing that emphasised community and landscape in an urban setting. The individual flats were conceived as family accommodation and the open areas were designed to function as a social space for both adults and children.A longer history of Park Gate environs will be available shortly from a sub-page attached to this tab.
EAST HOVE, WICK HOUSE – 1931
Demolition of Wick House in 1936. This is without doubt one of the oldest houses in Hove. It was built on Wick Farm on land, which had been in the possession of the Scutt family for five generations. Thomas Scutt (1746-1794) probably built it. The photograph was taken in Somerhill Road and thus looks east to the rear of the building with the garden hidden from the view behind the high wall. The entrance to the house was in Furze Hill. Out of the pictures away to the left could have been seen some of the farm buildings still standing. Early this century Somerhill road was known colloquially as “Haystack Road”. In the far distance can be seen the girder framework of Wick Hall flats. Furze Croft flats now cover the site of the old house.
Image reproduced with permission from the James Gray collections / The Regency Society
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SOMERHILL ROAD – 1956
Waste land, off Somerhill Road, at the rear of Furze Croft, looking north east towards St Anns Well Gardens. At one time part of Wick farm, it used to be crossed by a track known as Haystacks Road, which led to what is now Nizells Avenue. Allotments during the War, it was later used of unofficial parking, until it was sold for building. Photographed in 1956, shortly before the Park Gate flats were built on the site.
Image reproduced with permission from the James Gray collections / The Regency Society
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ST ANNS WELL GARDENS, HOVE
– 1920’s
These gardens were originally part of Wick farm, owned during the 18th Century by the Scutt family. The present Farm Road led to it hence its name. Wick House, built as the farmhouse, dated from about 1780. Later Sir Isaac Goldsmid who converted the farmhouse into a mansion and laid out the ornamental grounds acquired the estate. In the grounds was the Chalybeate spring, formerly much resorted to by visitors from Brighton. The private laundry of Wick House, shown in the photograph above, was built over the spring to protect it. The grounds and Well House were purchased by the Hove Corporation and opened to the public in May 1908. The farm buildings which lay behind Wick House, facing Somerhill Road were next removed, and finally Wick House, for many years occupied by a preparatory school, was demolished in 1936 to make way for Furze Croft. The Well House was removed at the same time.
Image reproduced with permission from the James Gray collections / The Regency Society
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