Hilly Laine to Hanover : a Brighton Neighbourhood : 2008 edition
extract : street life : chate's farm
Chate’s Farm was built on Tarner’s land and the farmers were all tenant farmers, as were the Chate family, who were dairy farmers who also sold eggs and rhubarb. Before the 1914–18 war, George, the son, had a milk business in Hamilton Road. He had to get rid of it in the war as he was called up, but after the war he bought a shop in Windmill Terrace selling milk, eggs, butter and cheese. George sold his business when the Co-op came into the area to deliver milk.
Our parents became tenants of the Chates in the 1930s. When we moved into the farm house as children, the farm buildings were being used as workshops and garages and were surrounded by the farm which backed onto Liverpool Street. Milk was still being sold, served from the ‘Can House’, reached by a little path along which people would come with their jugs. We now use this building for our washing.
Mr Chate retired from work at the age of 40 to look after his ill wife. He moved with his wife and daughter into a bungalow which he built in the garden. It was bought by the Council after their death. We would have liked to move in, but the Council decided to put a family with many children in it. When they left it was so badly damaged it had to be demolished.
We could sit at the side of the house in the evenings and look across Brighton; it was a marvellous view. All that changed in the 1960s when the demolished much of the area and they built an enormous block of flats which blocked our view.
The Tarners sold their land bit by bit. A planning application was submitted to build a block of flats, now called ‘Chate’s Farm Court’, where the old farm buildings were. We objected to the original plan because the spur of the flats would have been right in front of us. Fortunately they changed the plan so we still have some of our view left. When they came to build the flats the slight camber on the farm land made a big drop into Liverpool Street and to save putting a lift in the flats they built them on two levels with access from both sides.
Ralph and Daphne Howard
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