Coldean is a suburb of the English city of
Brighton and Hove
Brighton and Hove () is a city and unitary authority in East Sussex, England. It consists primarily of the settlements of Brighton and Hove, alongside neighbouring villages.
Often referred to synonymously as Brighton, the City of Brighton and ...
. Located in the northeast corner of the urban area, it was developed by Brighton Corporation in the 1950s as one of several postwar council estates necessitated by the acute housing shortage in the area after
World War II.
The estate occupies a deep valley on the historic boundary of
Falmer
Falmer is a small village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England, lying between Brighton and Lewes, approximately five miles (8 km) north-east of the former. It is also the site of Brighton & Hove Albion's Falmer ...
and
Stanmer
Stanmer is a small village on the eastern outskirts of Brighton, in East Sussex, England.
History
The etymological root of the name is "Stony Mere", Old English for "stone pond", referring to the sarsen stones around Stanmer village pond. The ...
parishes. The few farm buildings and cottages in existence from the 18th century were supplemented in the 1930s by a pub and a few privately built houses; but it was only from 1950, and especially after the area's incorporation into the Borough of Brighton two years later, that the construction of houses and other facilities began in earnest. Churches, a school, a library and shops were all provided; regular bus services were started; and the development of the nearby universities of
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
and
Sussex later in the 20th century prompted other changes, including the construction of a large area of student accommodation.
Coldean is characterised by low-density housing, much of it
semi-detached
A semi-detached house (often abbreviated to semi) is a single family duplex dwelling house that shares one common wall with the next house. The name distinguishes this style of house from detached houses, with no shared walls, and terraced hous ...
and most now owner-occupied, with roads following the contours of the landscape. The deep valley, its steep sides mainly wooded and unsuitable for development, "
ivethe impression of an area isolated from the rest of Brighton"; and the area has the character of "a quiet
garden suburb".
History
Coldean was originally a deep, steep-sided, undeveloped valley split between the
parishes of
Falmer
Falmer is a small village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England, lying between Brighton and Lewes, approximately five miles (8 km) north-east of the former. It is also the site of Brighton & Hove Albion's Falmer ...
and
Stanmer
Stanmer is a small village on the eastern outskirts of Brighton, in East Sussex, England.
History
The etymological root of the name is "Stony Mere", Old English for "stone pond", referring to the sarsen stones around Stanmer village pond. The ...
,
with
Hollingbury
Hollingbury is an area of the city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex. The area sits high on a hillside across the north of the city, east of Patcham which lies in a valley to the west, Coldean in a valley to the east, and the A27 bypass formin ...
to the west,
Wild Park
Wild Park is a Local Nature Reserve in Brighton in East Sussex. It is owned and managed by Brighton and Hove City Council. It includes Hollingbury Castle, an Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehis ...
and the Hollingbury Hill
to the southwest,
Stanmer Park
Stanmer Park is a large public park immediately to the west of the University of Sussex, and to the north-east of the city of Brighton in the county of East Sussex, England, UK. It is a Local Nature Reserve and English Heritage, under the Na ...
and Stanmer village to the northeast and Falmer village to the east.
Lewes Road, formerly part of the
A27 trunk road, ran along the southern edge of the valley, and some cottages and farm buildings associated with Coldean Farm were clustered near it. Prior to its development as a housing estate, it was known as "Cold Dean" or "Colddean";
the 1938
Ordnance Survey map shows "Colddean Lane" extending a short distance northwards from Lewes Road then continuing as a track, and "Colddean Wood" to the east on the side of the valley.
To cater for increasing traffic between Brighton,
Lewes and the village of
Ditchling
Ditchling is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The village is contained within the boundaries of the South Downs National Park; the order confirming the establishment of the park was signed in Ditchling ...
, which could be reached via Coldean Lane and
Ditchling Beacon
Ditchling Beacon is the highest point in East Sussex, England, with an elevation of . It is south of Ditchling and to the north-east of Brighton. It is a large chalk hill with a particularly steep northern face, covered with open grassland a ...
, a pub called the Hiker's Rest was built near the junction of Coldean Lane and Lewes Road in 1937.
Residential development began in 1934, when the Parkside estate was laid out by private developers in the southwest corner of the valley. The housing, centred on Park Road, was finished in 1948. The area was beyond the Brighton Corporation borough boundary in Falmer parish.
In 1950, the Corporation bought the rest of the land; and the whole valley was brought within the Borough of Brighton on 1 April 1952
when, under the terms of the 1951 Brighton Extension Act, most of the territory covered by Falmer and Stanmer parishes was annexed.
Brighton experienced a severe housing shortage after World War II. Over 1,000 houses were destroyed or seriously damaged by bombs during the
Brighton Blitz
The Brighton Blitz was the bombing of Brighton by the Nazi German ''Luftwaffe'' during the Second World War. Brighton was attacked from the air on 56 recorded occasions between July 1940 and February 1944. Casualties in the area were 198 killed an ...
and other wartime raids, and nearly 11,000 others suffered some damage; and
slum clearance
Slum clearance, slum eviction or slum removal is an urban renewal strategy used to transform low income settlements with poor reputation into another type of development or housing. This has long been a strategy for redeveloping urban communities; ...
programmes started in the 1930s resumed in the 1950s.
"The serious … shortage was tackled with vigour" by Brighton Corporation, which developed several estates of
council housing
Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council estates, council housing, or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011 when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in so ...
in the 1950s: as well as Coldean, extensive building work took place at
Bevendean
Bevendean is a district of the city of Brighton and Hove, in East Sussex, England.
The estate lies to the north-east of central Brighton, and was largely developed after World War II with a mixture of council housing and private development. A ...
, Hollingbury,
Hollingdean
Hollingdean is a district in the city of Brighton & Hove. The Ward is called Hollingdean and Stanmer with a population of 15,681 at the 2011 Census. Hollingdean is in effect the older part of Hollingbury. It is bounded by Ditchling Road to the w ...
and
Woodingdean.
About 500
prefab houses were put up throughout the town, including in Coldean;
but permanent houses were preferred, and the Corporation started to develop Coldean from 1950—mostly with
semi-detached
A semi-detached house (often abbreviated to semi) is a single family duplex dwelling house that shares one common wall with the next house. The name distinguishes this style of house from detached houses, with no shared walls, and terraced hous ...
houses, which make up more than half of the housing stock. One old building from Coldean Farm was retained: a flint-built barn of late 18th-century vintage,
which was "sensitively converted" into St Mary Magdalene's
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...
church and community centre in 1955 by local architect
John Leopold Denman.
Development of the estate continued throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. A junior school was built on Selham Drive; a second church opened 1954
on Park Road to serve local adherents of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and in 1975 a branch library opened on Beatty Avenue.
The Latter-day Saint church was only used until 1993,
when a much larger meetinghouse was registered on a new site on Lewes Road;
the building on Park Road was converted into a house,
which was proposed for demolition in 2020.
A children's playground opened in April 1989; it was named after George Humphrey,
a long-serving local councillor who represented the Stanmer
ward
Ward may refer to:
Division or unit
* Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward
* Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...
.
A year later, work began on the Brighton and Hove Bypass, which diverted the A27 trunk road away from the urban area. The easternmost section, from the Old Boat Corner interchange at Ditchling Road to the junction with Lewes Road, was close to the northern edge of Coldean; Coldean Lane was crossed on a bridge, and the Downsview Special School was demolished in 1990 as the route was prepared.
The school moved to Woodingdean; a second site has since been established in Hollingdean.
In the late 20th century, an area of woodland east of Coldean Lane was developed to form Varley Halls, an area of
student housing for the
University of Brighton.
The facilities were expanded in 2012, by which point the 500-room development was the university's largest halls of residence,
and 2016–17, providing more accommodation and a new social and community building called "Student Hub".
In the main part of the Coldean estate, a new library, twice the size of its mid-1970s predecessor, opened in June 2008. It occupies the ground floor of a three-storey block of
housing association flats for elderly people. The new development cost £700,000.
The Hiker's Rest pub later closed but was sold and refurbished; it reopened in 2018 as Ruby Brighton, a pub, sports bar, restaurant and 10-bedroom hotel.
Transport
For many years, Coldean has been connected to central Brighton by buses running the length of Lewes Road, operated by the
Brighton & Hove
Brighton and Hove () is a city and unitary authority in East Sussex, England. It consists primarily of the settlements of Brighton and Hove, alongside neighbouring villages.
Often referred to synonymously as Brighton, the City of Brighton a ...
bus company.
Typical journey times by bus as of 2009 were 5 minutes to the ASDA superstore at Hollingbury; about 15 minutes to the Sainsbury's superstore and local shopping area on Lewes Road; 20 minutes to the local shopping area on London Road; and 30 minutes to the centre of Brighton.
At the time of
deregulation in 1986, three buses per hour served the estate in each direction—towards
Churchill Square shopping centre, and to the
Hollingbury
Hollingbury is an area of the city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex. The area sits high on a hillside across the north of the city, east of Patcham which lies in a valley to the west, Coldean in a valley to the east, and the A27 bypass formin ...
estate.
Buses terminated in Coldean between 1990 and 1995 instead of continuing to Hollingbury, and services were cut to half-hourly in 1993—although these were extended beyond Brighton to central
Hove, with alternate services continuing to the Goldstone Valley estate and to
Portslade and
Southwick. These extensions ceased in 1995, when the route (numbered 25A) was curtailed at Churchill Square shopping centre again.
The service pattern in operation as of
was established in 1996, when route 25A was renumbered 24 and began to be interworked with route 26 (Hollingbury–Ditchling Road–Churchill Square shopping centre). Buses travelling from Brighton via Lewes Road to Coldean would continue to the ASDA supermarket in Hollingbury, where they would change route number and return to Brighton via Ditchling Road; and the same would happen in reverse. "The link-up ... gave more travel opportunities for Coldean people, including an improved 10-minute frequency" to the centre of Brighton.
In 2007, night bus N25—introduced a year earlier to serve the
University of Sussex campus—was diverted via Coldean, operating the full length of Coldean Lane via Varley Halls then doubling back.
Since 2010, some rush-hour services on route 5B (
Hangleton
Hangleton is a residential suburb of Hove, part of the English city and coastal resort of Brighton and Hove. The area was developed in the 1930s after it was incorporated into the borough of Hove, but has ancient origins: its parish church was ...
–Hollingbury) have been extended from Hollingbury to the
University of Sussex campus via Coldean.
For students living at the Varley Halls complex on Coldean Lane, the
University of Brighton operates its own buses (route UB1) on weekdays. Eleven services operate per day towards the university's Falmer campus (northbound) and
Old Steine
The Old Steine () is a thoroughfare in central Brighton, East Sussex, and is the southern terminus of the A23. The southern end leads to Marine Parade, the Brighton seafront and the Palace Pier. The Old Steine is also the site of a number of Ci ...
in central Brighton (southbound). Only students with a university identity card are allowed to use these buses.
The Coldean estate is approximately equidistant from
Moulsecoomb
Moulsecoomb () is a suburb of Brighton, Sussex, England, on the northeast side around Lewes Road, between Coldean and Bevendean, north of the seafront. The eastern edge adjoins Falmer Hill on the South Downs. It is often divided into smaller ...
and
Falmer
Falmer is a small village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England, lying between Brighton and Lewes, approximately five miles (8 km) north-east of the former. It is also the site of Brighton & Hove Albion's Falmer ...
railway stations on the
East Coastway line.
Access to the main road network is available via Lewes Road (the A270) at the south end of the estate; Ditchling Road at the north end; and the A27 Brighton and Hove Bypass at the Old Boat Corner interchange just beyond Ditchling Road.
Cultural references
Coldean is referenced in the chapter "The Concluding Chaotic Conundrum of the Coldean Cat" of the fantasy novel ''
The Brightonomicon
''The Brightonomicon'' is a novel by British fantasy author Robert Rankin. The title parodies that of the fictional grimoire ''Necronomicon'' from the Cthulhu Mythos. The author lives in Brighton, England, and the book is set in an accurate fi ...
''.
Notes
References
Bibliography
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External links
*
www.coldean.org.uk
{{Brighton and Hove
Areas of Brighton and Hove