The History of 23 Sussex Square

​One of the first on the estate to be occupied. From 1828 the house was home to Mrs Ann Sober, sister of Thomas Read Kemp. Mrs Sober had previously been living in what is now Sillwood Road, where from 1824 to 1828 she had been the landlady of the artist John Constable on his regular visits to Brighton. This is now commemorated by a Blue Plaque at 11 Sillwood Road, known then as Mrs Sober’s Gardens.

Ann Sober owned a number of properties around Brighton and in 1828 she bought 23 Sussex Square from her brother for 3,000 guineas. She lived in the house until 1844; Kemp himself owned the house next door at number 22. Following Kemp’s death in Paris in 1844, Ann Sober was involved in long-running legal disputes with his widow, Frances, over ownership of number 23 culminating in an injunction in 1851 preventing Mrs Sober and her tenants from using the house as a school. Ann had left Brighton by this time and died in 1855 in the village of Much Marcle in Herefordshire.

The house then became a Ladies School run by the Misses Dodd until 1886. From 1889 the house was home to Major General Dixon Edward Hoste, who served in the Royal Artillery and was a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB). His son, also Dixon Edward Hoste, was a prominent Protestant Christian missionary to China and director of the China Inland Mission. Major General Hoste died in the house in 1905.

From 1932 the house was divided into five separate flats.