Clive Vale is the valley between Barley Lane and Old London Road, from the top of the High Street in the south to Fairlight Avenue in the north. It is easy to see on a street plan, as many of the roads are named after early English kings, including Harold, Athelstan, Canute and Alfred. This is because much of the ground was part of the 60 acres of the Clive Vale Farm estate at the north end of the valley bought in 1852 by the British Land Company.
In the 1860s the company purchased other adjoining property, including what was once the 90 acres of Totheigh Farm at the south and west side of the valley. They then laid out and named the roads after the Saxon kings, after which they auctioned off plots for development.
The 1873 map shows many plots ready to be built on, especially on the south side of Harold Road, but at that time few buildings had yet been constructed. This was to follow rapidly in the last Victorian years. Clive Vale Farm itself was at the top of the estate, where the modern Hamilton Gardens are today, on the north-east side of the junction of Harold Road and Saxon Road. The origin of the name ‘Clive Vale’ is uncertain, but it may have been a corruption of ‘clyffe’ meaning cliff, and ‘vale’ meaning valley – the valley beside the cliffs of today’s Country Park Nature Reserve.
The valley played an important role in the history of Hastings for hundreds of years, as it was the main source of water until the mid-19th century. The water was in the Bourne Stream that ran down the valley and into the Old Town, the two main roads of which – All Saints Street and the High Street – were laid out on either side of it. The stream was so valuable that the official boundary of the town was went as far north as the top of the valley to safeguard the springs of the Bourne.
By the 1820s the rapid expansion of Hastings as a seaside resort had brought so many outbreaks of waterborne diseases – cholera, typhoid, diarrhoea and gastro-enteritis – that Hastings Council decided to build a reservoir high up the Bourne Stream and to lay iron pipes through the Old Town for subscribers. An 800,000 gallon reservoir was built in 1833 just below several of the springs of water.
But many people in the Old Town could not afford to pay for the new service, so two free supply points were set up, although water was not always available. As the town grew through the 1830s, it soon became clear that the new reservoir was not big enough, so a second one, of two million gallons, was built in 1845 just below the first one. Both still exist, alongside Harold Road, opposite Edwin Road.
But within a few years it became clear that yet another supply was needed. The Countess Waldegrave, owner of much of the land which now forms Hastings Country Park Nature Reserve, leased three acres of Ecclesbourne Glen, and a six million gallon reservoir (now known as the Spoon) was built there in 1853. Amazingly, a small brick-lined tunnel 470 yards long was dug through the west side of Ecclesbourne Glen to the east side of Clive Vale, and a cast iron main was installed to drain the Spoon into the two reservoirs.
When the British Land Company starting laying out Clive Vale, it originally intended that its ‘main road’ – Harold Road – would run from the Old Town to Fairlight Road, joining it where the Fairlight Avenue is today. But the Sayer-Milward family refused to sell the land, so Saxon Road was laid out instead, giving a link into Ore Village. However, Harold Road continued as an unadopted section as far as the northern boundary of Clive Vale Farm’s land. There was also a problem with siting some other roads which had to follow field boundaries of land not yet acquired by the company. Athelstan Road had to have bends included in it as it ran alongside ground still part of Totheigh Farm.
Most of the houses in Clive Vale were built in the last quarter of the 19th century to relatively high standards. This was a time when the town was expanding and there was a big demand for good quality housing. There were also high moral standards under Queen Victoria, so only three pubs were built amongst the hundreds of houses: the Belmont, at 68-70 Harold Road (opposite Dudley Infants School), now a house; the Foresters Arms, in Pinders Road, also now a house; and the Ashburnham Arms, on the corner of Mount Road and Ashburnham Road.
Helping keep Clive Vale respectful were two churches. The Clive Vale Congregational Church built in 1887 on the corner of Edwin Road and Githa Road. It had a very tall spire, which added to the church’s high maintenance costs, and this, plus dwindling congregations, led to its closure in 1971 and its subsequent demolition. Still standing is the huge All Souls Church, in Athelstan Road. This was built in 1889-91 on land donated by the Sayer-Milward family, along with a Parish Room opposite. However it was declared redundant in 2007 and it still awaits a new occupant.
Clive Vale public services once included a fire station built in 1896 on the corner of Mount Road and Clive Avenue, alongside a police station. Both have now been replaced by housing.