Knoll Business Centre, Old Shoreham Road, Hove

Image: © Simon Carey Taken: 22 Dec 2016

Built in 1931 as the Knoll School, educating both senior girls and boys, and included an infants block on the northern side. The school was built as a large rectangle with a line of offices dividing the building into two quadrangles, the western side for boys and the eastern one for girls. The growth in population due to the construction of Hangleton estate after the war meant space became a premium with the infants moved to a new site in Stapley Road in 1956, see Image, and the girls to a new campus in 1967 that later became Hove Park School. A large reorganisation of educational establishments in 1979 resulted in Knoll being merged with the mixed Nevill County Secondary and Hove Grammar School for Boys to become Blatchington Mill School. With the other two schools located on adjacent sites, Knoll became superfluous to needs and was sold off. In 1980 it reopened as a business centre, which it remains to this day. The Knoll Estate is located in the former northern portion of the parish of Aldrington which was once three open fields called The Knowle East, The Knowle West and The Knowle North according to its 1840 tithe map. The area was developed by Hove council from 1926 and mostly completed by 1939, the remaining undeveloped part at the northern end of Stapley Road was finished in the late 1940s.

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