Moulsecoomb () is a suburb 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 ...

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the Englis ...

, England, on the northeast side around Lewes Road, between

Coldean Coldean is a suburb of the English city of Brighton and Hove. 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 housin ...

and Bevendean, north of the seafront. The eastern edge adjoins Falmer Hill on the

South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the eas ...

. It is often divided into smaller sections on maps: North Moulsecoomb, East Moulsecoomb and South Moulsecoomb. The name is sometimes pronounced as if spelt ''Mools-coomb'', though more often the first part is pronounced like the animal "mole". It derives from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

for ''Muls Valley'': Mul was a

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

nobleman. Moulsecoomb suffers from high social deprivation and crime rates, along with neighbouring

Whitehawk Whitehawk is a suburb in the east of Brighton, England, south of Bevendean and north of Brighton Marina. The area is a large, modern housing estate built in a downland dry valley historically known as Whitehawk Bottom. The estate was original ...

. In 2001, it was in the top 5% of socially deprived areas in England.

History and development

Before and during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, the land around the Lewes Road was open downland, sloping towards the valley bottom through which the road and

railway line Rail terminology is a form of technical terminology. The difference between the American term ''railroad'' and the international term ''railway'' (used by the International Union of Railways and English-speaking countries outside the United Sta ...

ran. The land reached a height of 508 feet (155m) at Falmer Hill, approximately 0.9 miles (1½ km) east of the point where the railway crossed the road on a viaduct. In the valley bottom, some

market gardens A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. The diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically from under to som ...

and small nurseries were maintained. Moulsecoomb 02

The South Moulsecoomb area was developed first: the Borough Council acquired land at the existing edge of the built-up area, close to the former Preston Barracks on the Lewes Road, in November 1920 and constructed 478

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 with large gardens and three bedrooms each.Winter, page 4. The "Homes fit for Heroes" campaign, started after the War in response to the poor housing conditions faced by returning soldiers, helped to drive this, but the houses were generally too expensive for the families at whom they were aimed. The Borough Council responded by acquiring more land, including some from the south end of the neighbouring

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 ...

parish, in 1922; housing areas began to be developed in this area from 1925 onwards. This was the original North Moulsecoomb area, which at this early stage consisted of four roads named after East Sussex villages (Barcombe, Chailey, Newick and Ringmer) situated between the Lewes Road – then an insubstantial, narrow route between the market gardens – and the railway line. By 1929, 390 houses – smaller and closer together than those of South Moulsecoomb – had been built on the North Moulsecoomb site. The South Moulsecoomb part of the estate was extended to the east in the early 1930s using land acquired from Lower Bevendean Farm. It is around this area that modern-day Moulsecoomb merges into the Lower Bevendean estate. After this, more land was acquired in December 1935 to extend development at the northern end to the eastern side of the railway. This area is now known as East Moulsecoomb. At first, housing spread northwards from the Higher Bevendean infill estate (an area of private housing developed at the same time as the South Moulsecoomb extension, immediately north of it), with Shortgate Road being the northern limit before the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

; after the War, the last few roads were developed, mostly with small blocks of flats. The main purpose of such large-scale residential development was to rehouse residents who lived in

slums A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily in ...

in central Brighton; at that time, much of the residential accommodation in the inner-city area was of poor quality, 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; ...

would allow

redevelopment Redevelopment is any new construction on a site that has pre-existing uses. It represents a process of land development uses to revitalize the physical, economic and social fabric of urban space. Description Variations on redevelopment include: ...

to start as well as taking people out of inadequate, substandard and sometimes dangerous houses. Moulsecoomb's road network, especially that built later in the East and North Moulsecoomb areas, generally follow the contours of the land rather than being in, for example, a grid pattern, and is characterised by large grass verges and a large land area for each house – many have both front and back gardens. While Moulsecoomb originally consisted exclusively 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 ...

, owned and operated by the council on behalf of the residents, the

right to buy scheme The Right to Buy scheme is a policy in the United Kingdom, with the exception of Scotland since 1 August 2016 and Wales from 26 January 2019, which gives secure tenants of councils and some housing associations the legal right to buy, at a large ...

, first implemented in the 1980s, has seen many houses pass into private ownership. Two girls from the estate, 10-year-old Karen Hadaway and nine-year-old Nicola Fellows, went missing on 9 October 1986 and were found murdered in nearby

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 ...

the following day. This case, which attracted national media attention, became known as the 'Babes in the wood' murders.

Today

The Moulsecoomb campus of the

University of Brighton The University of Brighton is a public university based on four campuses in Brighton and Eastbourne on the south coast of England. Its roots can be traced back to 1858 when the Brighton School of Art was opened in the Royal Pavilion. It achi ...

is one of the university's three main sites. The 10-storey Cockcroft Building dominates most views in the area. As well as teaching facilities, the majority of the university's administration departments are located here, along with some student halls of residence.

Moulsecoomb Place Moulsecoomb Place is a large 18th-century house in the Moulsecoomb area of the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. Originally a farmhouse based in an agricultural area in the parish of Patcham, north of Brighton, it was bought and extensiv ...

, the oldest non-religious building in Brighton, is currently used by the accommodation and counselling services of the university. Before the university was founded in 1992, the various buildings were part of Brighton Polytechnic and before 1970 the Cockcroft Building was the main building of Brighton College of Technology. Moulsecoomb is also the location of the Home Farm Business Park, where the United Kingdom subsidiary of United States arms manufacturer

EDO Corporation EDO Corporation was an American company which was acquired by ITT Corporation in 2007. EDO designed and manufactured products for defense, intelligence, and commercial markets, and provided related engineering and professional services. It emp ...

is based. This factory has been the site of regular anti-war demonstrations since 2004. Moulsecoomb Wild Park is a large downland valley which has been preserved in its undeveloped state. It lies immediately to the west of the railway line and the Lewes Road, and merges into the Hollingbury Camp

hill fort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

to the west and the edge of Coldean to the north. There are areas of chalk grassland and woodland and a nature trail. The "Moulsecoomb Family Fun Day" has been held in the park on the third Saturday in May every year since 1978. Moulsecoomb Primary School have built a chalk house, the first one built in Britain for 5,000 years to complement their Saxon, Mesolithic and Iron Age Roundhouse. The Bevendean Pub (The Bevy) in Moulsecoomb opened in December 2014 and became the first co-op pub on a housing estate in the UK. Moulsecoomb is home to St Andrew's Church, opened in 1934 to be the Church of England presence on the estate.

Transport

Moulsecoomb railway station is on the East Coastway Line. Direct destinations include central

and another major campus of Brighton University at

. The main access road runs uphill from the Lewes Road alongside the Cockcroft Building. East Moulsecoomb is the eastern terminus for Brighton & Hove Bus Company route 49, which runs from Portslade station via the city centre. This is one of the five METRO-branded routes. At peak times buses run every 10 minutes. The terminus of the route is the junction of Moulsecoomb Way and Bolney Road (the photograph in the first paragraph was taken from a bus at this stop). Many other bus routes serve various stops on the Lewes Road – notably route 25, another METRO route, which runs to the Falmer campus of the University of Brighton.

References

{{Brighton and Hove Areas of Brighton and Hove