Moulsecoomb - History and Development

History and Development

Before and during the First World War, the land around the Lewes Road was open downland, sloping towards the valley bottom through which the road and railway line 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 and small nurseries were maintained.

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 houses with large gardens and three bedrooms each. 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 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 46-acre (190,000 m2) 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; 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 in central Brighton; at that time, much of the residential accommodation in the inner-city area was of poor quality, and slum clearance would allow redevelopment 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, owned and operated by the council on behalf of the residents, the right to buy scheme, first implemented in the 1980s, has seen many houses pass into private ownership.