Victorian workshops linked to the Hastings Workhouse are housed in this building, along with an upholstery repair business.

Heritage protest over Tower Road development

Residents in the Tower Road area have formed a protest group to contest an application by local charity Magdalen & Lasher to build a block of flats in the road, arguing that it will mean the demolition of Victorian workshops which are likely to have been known to Robert Tressell. Nick Terdre reports.

Magdalen & Lasher’s application is for a four-storey block of 14 flats, a mixture of one, two and three-bedroom units,  on a triangle of land at the junction of Tower Road, St Peter’s Road and Cornfield Terrace. These are intended to be offered as affordable dwellings, probably in a mix of tenure, including shared ownership. Lodged in late 2014, the application drew 42 letters of objection and a petition with 172 signatures.

The planning department recommended granting permission, but when it went to the planning committee in October, it was deferred pending a parking report. According to the planning department, it has not yet been rescheduled to come back to the committee.

Aerial view of the site of the proposed block of flats, at the junction of Tower Road (top), Cornfield Terrace (right) and St Peter’s Road (photo: David Bowie).

A group of local residents including Vivienne Fox, William Third and John Humphries have formed the 35 Tower Road Protest Group to fight the plan. “While researching the history of this site, we have discovered evidence of a unique historical and social heritage with likely links to Robert Tressell and definite links to the Hastings Workhouse,” they say.

“Records show that the site was known as ‘The St Peter’s Labour Yard’. From 1860s onward, labour yards came into existence and were either in the workhouse or on separate premises. Able-bodied unemployed applicants (preference given to married men with families) became semi-inmates of the workhouse, subject to workhouse rules, but lived in their own homes. These were opened and closed as needed.

“Hastings suffered years of deprivation during the years 1902-1910. There had been a building boom in the 1800s and many of the local men were labourers or building workers. This all changed with the recession, with no work – families were starving, cold and many homeless, their only food from the soup kitchen in six locations, including St Peter’s.

“The St Peter’s Labour Yard was run by the Hastings Charity Organisation and in January 1904, the local newspaper reports that the yard was providing 29 men with employment, sawing and chopping up railway sleepers for firewood. Sadly, this was only for three days per fortnight. People were suffering extreme hardship. There were over 2,000 requests for help in 1904 alone.

“It was during this recession that the writer of the first working-class novel, Robert Tressell, was living in Hastings, having previously been employed by Adams and Jarrett and other local firms. In 1907, he moved with his daughter to 241 London Road – no longer able to work due to ill health (tuberculosis).

“Over the next few years he produced the book that was to become a world-wide success, The Ragged-trousered Philanthropists, which is accepted as describing real events in Hastings (‘Mugsborough’), at the time. This address was less than 100 yards from the labour yard. From the rear window of his top-floor flat, Tressell would have looked out directly onto the labour yard.

Tower Road, back in Tressell’s day.

“In his writing Tressell speaks of the ‘Rev Mr Bosher’, talking of ‘re-opening the Labour Yard’. With his strongly socialist out-spoken views, and deep empathy for working men and their conditions at that time, there seems little doubt that he would have had an intimate knowledge of the yard and been acutely aware of the conditions of those who worked there, in fact, referring to it in his book.

“This historic yard which has been on our doorstep has taken on a new meaning. The quaint, mews-like buildings, in danger of being demolished, have a story to tell. They have been sadly neglected of late but are structurally sound with character providing employment still for hard-working people.

“Rather than destroying them and their social history, we would love to see them refurbished and providing affordable, much needed, workshop space for their present occupants and maybe some of the gifted/artistic/young people of this town – maybe even renamed.”

There are also two long-standing businesses on the site, a car repair business and an upholstery repair workshop. According to the planning department’s report, the developer has offered to help these businesses relocate.

Founded in the late 13^th century, Magdalen & Lasher has as its primary objective the “prevention and relief of poverty and the relief of old age among persons living in or near the Borough of Hastings.” Attempts by the protest group to meet or talk to the trustees have been turned down. HOT’s request for a statement about the matter was also declined by the trustees.

Also in: Campaigns