Hastings Forum

Hey I am tracing someone’s family tree but am stuck so looking at where they lived to see if it chucks up any more info. Does anyone know where Grove Farm cottages were? It says he was a dairy farmer. His Mums maiden name was possible Groves and I wondered if the land was a family business? However I am not from Hastings although I do live here and I can’t figure out where the farm and buildings were.

In the 1841 census there is an address called Grove Cottages at St Leonards. No
mention of 'Farm' though so don't know whether this is of any use.
The names of those living at these cottages are :
No 1 Noakes
2 Eldridge
3 King
3 Morris
4 Coleman
5 Spice
6 Dunstan
and unnumbered but also says Grove Cottages - Garrod
7 Smith
8 Thomas
No number 9 shown
10 Lamb
10 Harbour

Immediately after these cottages it is Vale Road . So IF this is of any use one of the locals will tell you where Vale Road is/was.

Leaving Slverhill on Sedlescombe Rd North towards the Welcome Stranger, Vale Rd is 2nd on right before the pub. It leads down to a track that reaches Buckshole reservoir & Alexandra Park.

No sign of Grove Farm or cottages on 1873-4 map, nor 1875.

Might they have been replaced by the pub? Other property names in that area might at least rule out other properties.

PS - gets a mention, but locations are alphabetical http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.u ... c2ad15f380

As I say this was on the 1881 census- Was it a new block? Was it a block which had been renamed? Was it an 'unofficial' name for the block which the enumerator was given? Who knows.

Tholught I had replied but I must have messed it up. I was saying that this info I gave was from the 1881 census.
Was it a new block?
Was it a renamed block?
Was it an unofficial name for the block which the enumerator wrote down in good faith?
Who knows.

This may be based on a completely false memory, but it seems to make sense. In Harley Shute Road, is this property.



It now appears to be a private residence named "Filsham Farmhouse", but when I was a boy attending the Grove School, and cycled past the place, it was a working farmhouse with fields behind (now a housing estate). I seem to recall that it was "Grove Farm", but as I say, that could well be a false memory. The Grove School (since demolished) was not very far away, and was built on the site of a manor house also named "Grove", so it's a possible candidate for your Grove Farm Cottages (there are several similar old buildings behind the house).

That makes sense Derek - think you might have cracked it.

Alas & alack, Filsham Farm is there on 1873 map as Felsham Farm

Hollington village would have been largely farmland and woods at one time, certainly a few farmers with dairy herds would have been working hard through until WWI.
There was a Grove Hall (Hollington Hall) from very early times, built by the Levett's in St. Leonards (a very long time before Decimus Burton eventually arrived on the scene), Grove Hall had outbuildings reaching across the 'border' into Hollington.
Later Sir Thomas Eversfield married into the Levett family and eventually the house fell into disrepair and Grove School was built on the site in more recent times.

This is all going back so far, to the 1500's, that history does not always relate a perfect picture.

There's also Hollington Lodge, that stood south of jct Queensway/Ridge West.

Pretty much where the current link from Queensway to A21 is being built