Bevendean History Project
Ashurst Road Self-Build Newspaper Articles
They Learn As They Build
Forty members of the Brighton Self-Build Housing Association can now contemplate with satisfaction the efforts which they have been making half the night and at weekends since early this year.
On corporation land in Ashurst-road, East Moulsecombe, the first pair of semi-detached houses, built by these men are now complete and ready for occupation, and the houses on the right of the picture are expected to be ready in three weeks time. Altogether 40 houses will be built in two years. Three-quarters of the members of the Self-Build Housing Association are building trade operatives. The others have been learning as they go along. They started work in April.
On July 23 the Mayor of Brighton (Ald. J. A. Trevelyan Leak) will hand over the keys to the owners — Mr. E. Cremor and Mr. V. Wittke, who are both married with two children — of the first pair to be finished.
Their housing worries are over, but they will carry on to complete the rest of the homes. The houses cost £1,200 each.
Brighton Gazette – 16 July 1955
ONE ROOM NOW FIVE AFTER 8 - YEAR WAIT
Switching
from one crowded room to a five-room semi-detached house with its own
pink and black tiled bathroom proved almost too much for Mrs. Eddie
Cremor.Mrs. Cremor, with her two children. Edna, seven, and David, five, scampering excitedly at her heels, received the keys of her new home from the Mayor of Brighton (Ald. J. A. Trevelyan Leak) during the weekend.
It has been built in the shelter of the Downs at East Moulsecombe by an organisation of voluntary labour.
“Words fail me, I can't really believe it's true," said Mrs. Cremor.
“It’s our first real home and we have waited eight years for it."
Mrs. Cremor and her husband spent the weekend preparing their home before moving in today.
A crowd of members of Brighton Self-Build Association, who have spent their spare time building these houses (the first of 40 to go up at Ashurst-road), heard the Mayor congratulate all the workers on their efforts.
A short service was conducted by the Rev. R. R. Feilden and the Mayor unlocked the front door and ushered in Mrs. Cremor, her two children and members of the Housing Committee.
Mrs. Cremor declared gratefully: “We shall be able to bring up our family healthy and strong in surroundings like this."
Evening Argus 25 July 1955
Self-Build Men's First House Left Her Dazed
Transferring
her home from one crowded room, to a five-bedroomed, semidetached house
with its own pink-and-black tiled bathroom proved almost too much this
weekend for Mrs. Eddie Cremor.For on Saturday Mrs. Cremor, with her two children, Edna, seven, and David, five, scampering excitedly at her heels, received from the Mayor of Brighton (Ald. J. A. Trevelyan Leak) the keys of her new home.
It was built in the shelter of the Downs at East Moulsecombe by an organisation of voluntary labour.
“Words fail me, I can't really believe it's true,” she said.
"It's our first real home and we have waited eight years for it."
Mrs. Cremor and her husband spent the weekend preparing their home before they move, in today.
Cost A Lot?
A
crowd of members of Brighton Self-Build Association, who have spent
their spare time building these houses (the first of 40 to go up at
Ashurst Road), heard the mayor congratulate all the workers on their
efforts.If the cost of £1,200 seemed a lot because of the voluntary labour which had gone into building them, they were very good houses, he said.
Mr. H. Nettleton, chairman of Brighton Housing Committee, said the Association's progress had been excellent.
A short service was conducted by the Rev. R. R. Feilden and the mayor unlocked the front door and ushered in Mrs. Cremor, her two children and members or the Housing Committee.
Mrs. Cremor commented gratefully: "We shall be able to bring up our family healthy and strong in surroundings like this".
Sussex Daily News 26 July 1955
Focus on Self Help Builders
In
1954, a group of 40 men, frustrated by the hopelessness of their
position on Brighton Council’s housing list, formed themselves
into the Brighton Self-Build Association.They each subscribed £50, raised a 60 year loan for £62,000 and set themselves a two-year target to build £40.
A benevolent Corporation gave them a leasehold site in the sheltered East Moulscombe Valley which is now Ashurst road.
Building began in April. And the men put in a minimum of 22 hours a week. They are amateurs directed by a hard-core of craftsmen skilled in the building trade. They have pride in building, and hope soon to know pride of ownership.
1. – The scene on the site any evening, any day. Amateurs they may be, but their workmanship has a professional finish.
2. – Slater and Tyler, Mr Frank Coulson is the 29-year-old Foreman of the group. You went into the building trade when he left school, so army service in India, Burma and France.
3. – Mr and Mrs Vic Wittke are already living in the second of the completed houses with their 2 children. Mr Wittke, aged 30, served in the Free Polish Army during the war, settled down in Brighton and became a scaffolder.
4. – Fitting the joists is the group chairman, 36-year-old coachbuilder Mr Fred Gibbs, of Trafalgar Terrace. A Dunkirk veteran, married with out to children, he stands near the end of the queue. His “mate” is Mr Norman Brooker, an electrical tester at Allen West who does carpentry as a hobby.
5. – Self-help builders start clocking in – they sign a timesheet – from 5:30 p.m. onwards. If they rushed straight from the office or factory, they can have tea on the site. One of the duty wives, Mrs Edna Beswick pours out a cup of tea for Mr Alf Bridger, 35-year-old bricklayer, who lives in Powys Road.
6. – The keys of the semi-detached on the left were formally handed over on Saturday by the Mayor of Brighton (Ald J. A. Trevelyan Leak) to Mr and Mrs Eddy Cremor, who have 2 young children.
Brighton & Hove Gazette 30 July 1955
We Don’t Want Council Flats
By floodlight the men of the Brighton Self-Build Housing Association work on their own homes in Ashurst-road, Moulscombe. An idea for the speed-up of Brighton's housing programme? “I don't think the corporation could afford the overtime rates," says the association's chairman, Mr. Frederick Gibbs.
Brighton & Hove Gazette 26 November 1955
Do It Yourself Men Build 40 Houses
At
half-past two precisely this afternoon 40 well-satisfied men will crowd
into the little shack in Ashurst Road, East Moulscombe, which serves
them as an office — and receive £50 each.But to these men, all members of the Brighton Self Build Housing Association, the £50 will be relatively unimportant when compared with what today means. It means the end of two years of hard slogging by men so desperate for reasonable housing that they have built 40 three-bedroom two-storey houses with their own hands. The £50 is the money each man put into the association at the start.
One of the attractive, solid-looking houses which men of the Brighton Self Build Housing Association have built with their own hands.
This week everybody in the scheme has been so intent on getting the last house finished by today that secretary Mr. C. S. Vening admitted to a Gazette reporter that they had not got round to thinking up any suitable ceremony to commemorate the end of the line.
Each man has averaged 27 hours of spare-time work a week, bringing the total up to something like 3,000 hours. In terms of an eight-hour working day that adds up to exactly 370 days.
Although most of the men are tradesmen, some, like schoolteacher Mr. Vening, used not to consider themselves handymen. Yet Mr. Vening quickly learned how to put tiles on the roofs, and there was no sub-contracting at all.
After today the 40 will be able to relax for the first time for years, but just down the road the men of the Brighton Enterprise Housing Association are having an even greater struggle — they started later and so have no Government subsidy.
Brighton & Hove Gazette 8 June 1955
Smiles of happy men
The happy smiles are not just for the benefit of the cameraman – these men are really happy. After 2 years of hard slogging they have completed all 40 of the houses they set out to build with their own hands. The picture shows them – they’re all members of the Brighton Self Build Housing Association at Saturday’s share out, when each receive back the £50 but in at the start of the project.
Brighton & Hove Gazette 15 June 1957
