Compton Place, Eastbourne, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.  

A garden with elements surviving from the 18th century with which Charles Bridgeman and Lancelot Brown are associated, and for which Humphry Repton prepared apparently unexecuted proposals in a Red Book, and with additional 19th century formal features.

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Compton Place is situated on the western fringe of Eastbourne, just to the south of the Old Town and the A259, and about 1 kilometre inland from the coast. To the north and west, its boundaries open immediately onto the Royal Eastbourne Golf Club course and are defined by a flint-walled ha-ha, probably of early 18th century origin and possibly part of Bridgeman's work. To the south, a concrete and pebble-faced wall marks the 20th century boundary with the housing development of Saffrons Park, begun on land sold in 1983. A block of flats, Saffrons Court, separates the registered site from Compton Place Road which runs the length of the eastern boundary. In 1782, the road which then formed the site's eastern boundary, known as the Way to the Bourne, was diverted eastwards to the course of the present Compton Place Road to unite the detached walled garden with the remainder of the grounds (estate survey dated 1739).

The site occupies about 9.9 hectares at the east end of a shallow, north-east-facing valley, which is enclosed by the lowest slopes of the South Downs where they drop steeply towards the south-west side of the town from Beachy Head. The house occupies the level valley floor with the land rising gently to the near horizon on its north side but much more steeply and quickly on its south-west side.

REFERENCES

H Pechell, A Complete History of Sussex (vol 5 of the Magna Britannia and Hibernica, 1730, with notes and additions by Sir William Burrell between 1730 and 1796)

E M and E Hopkins, The Guide to Eastbourne (c 1845), p 22

G F Chambers, Eastbourne Memories (1864), pp 16-18, 36

W Budgen, Old Eastbourne (1912), appendix A, p 339

Country Life, 40 (2 September 1916), pp 266-273; (9 September 1916), pp 294-303; 77 (9 February 1935), pp 144-150; 113 (13 March 1953), pp 734-737; (20 March 1953), pp 818-821

C Hussey, English Country Houses: Early Georgian (1955), pp 87-96

I Nairn and N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Sussex (1965), p 485

P Willis, Charles Bridgeman and the English Landscape Garden (1977), pp 61-62

D Robert Ellaray, Eastbourne, a Pictorial History (1978), entries 29, 30

Garden History 17, no 2 (1989), p 171

Maps

Eastbourne Hundred ... in the Year 1552 (Eastbourne Borough Library)

A survey of the Compton Estate, 1739 (Compton Place Archives, Chatsworth)

Plan of the Hundred and Parish of Eastbourne ... based on Yeakell and Gardner's Map of 1783 and other Surveys, c 1783 (Eastbourne Borough Library)

Estate plan, c 1803 (Compton Place Archives, Chatsworth)

William Figg, A map of the Parish of East-bourn in the County of Sussex, 1":352", 1816 (East Sussex Record Office)

William Figg, Plan of the Parish of Eastbourne in the County of Sussex, 1":396', 1845 (East Sussex Record Office)

Tithe map of Eastbourne, c 1841 (East Sussex Record Office)

OS 1st edition Old Series, 1" to 1 mile, surveyed 1793-1796

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1873-1875, published 1879

    2nd edition published 1900

    3rd edition published 1910

    4th edition published 1930

    5th edition published 1938

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1876

    2nd edition published 1899

    3rd edition published 1910

    4th edition published 1925

Description written: December 1996

Amended: July 1997

Edited: March 2000