The Sylvan Hall Estate on Round Hill was the site of four large houses with attendant staff cottages. In 1850 the Colbatch-Clark family bought the land and developed it, as Round Hill Park, which also included the semi-detached villas that today are numbers 68 to 80 on the east side of Ditchling Road.
Our estate takes its name from Sylvan Hall (pictured above), which was on the site now occupied by Holt Lodge and The Pines, whilst the other houses were Hill Lodge, Woodfield Lodge and Rose Hill Cottage. At the beginning of the 20th century Sylvan Hall was home to Henry John Infield who owned the Southern Publishing Company, proprietors of the Sussex Daily News and The Argus.
In the early 1930s the land was sold to the Diocese of Chichester who used the big houses as dormitories for their students from the college (the large building on Viaduct Road). By 1938 the church wished to close the college and sell the buildings that they owned but war intervened and the college was taken over by the army as the Pay Office for the Royal Engineers and the big houses were also rented out to the army.
After the war Brighton Corporation compulsorily purchased the land and buildings for £16,500 and in 1948 started to build the estate as it now appears. As there was an urgent need for housing the council immediately converted Sylvan Hall itself into nine flats, whilst starting building the rest of the estate, starting with Elm Lodge. When all the original flats had been completed Sylvan Hall itself was demolished and Holt Lodge and The Pines built on the site and at the same time The Laurels was built on the site of 31, 32 & 33 Wakefield Road which had been cottages for the gardeners of Woodfield Lodge. The estate as we see it today was completed in 1976.
Sylvan Voice 