IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Balcombe Road, PEACEHAVEN, BN10 7RD

This part of the road would have been developed during the late 1960s on previously vacant plots, the uniformity suggesting that very little but fields existed here. Hoddern Avenue is named after the local farm and stretches from the cliff tops to Firle Road.

The road was originally planned to begin at the cliff, cross the South Coast Road then head north to Firle Road. However, the failure to sell many plots meant the road was undeveloped north of Arundel Road until the 1960s when this northern section was built but not connected to Arundel Road, the likelihood decreasing further when Hoddern Juniour School occupied the site. Subsequently, Rowe Avenue is now a road in four distinct parts, beginning from the cliff top to South Coast Road, the A259; the section between the latter and Arundel Road which had its opening onto the main closed in 1961; a small unmade section north of Arundel Road; and this part between Balcombe and Firle Road. Giving visitors directions to a house on this section would near enough always result in them getting lost.

Constructed around 1977-78 on previously waste ground. Looking from the garages towards the flats that line the east side of Rowe Avenue.

Looking west from the junction with Hoddern Avenue near the school. Peacehaven was one of the reasons tough planning laws were introduced in 1947. Prior to 1919 this view would have been pasture farming on downland, then a mixture of World War One, cheap competition from abroad (particularly sheep farming) and rising death duties put many farmers out of business. The usual salvation was to sell to property developers, one being G.W.Neville who bought all the land now called Peacehaven and began selling plots particularly to returning soldiers. Neville made his money from building towns in America and this shows in the grid layout of Peacehaven. Originally called New Anzac on Sea the name was thought to be in bad taste and was renamed Peacehaven after a national competition.

The northern part of the road which until the 1977-78 petered out into a rough track at the point where the road surfaces change. The building of the Balcombe Road flats and the road itself meant this section now had a southern junction. Beyond that Sutton Avenue begins at the roundabout on the A259 and is the main access route to the Meridian Centre.

The lake in the foreground is a pond formed from the excavation of clay for brickmaking and is marked on an 1879 map near to a cottage called Upper Hoddon. The development of Peacehaven from 1916 meant this section was gradually surrounded by plots of land though remained undeveloped into the 1980s before the eastern part of Balcombe Road was developed. The former overgrown pond, known to the local kids as 'The Swamp', was landscaped and a small housing estate developed around it. Newts still breed in the pond.

This picture was taken from Balcombe rd standing on the Bradley Greenwich Meridian looking North. The meridian passes straight through the middle, see this http://www.riddlerworld.co.uk/meridian/PG0168.htm for an alternate image with the meridian superimposed as a green line. The line crosses Sutton avenue N, goes through the front garden of no 116 and through the structure of nos 118, 120 and 122.

Great Crested Newts can be seen in the picture