Bentcliffe

An architect's impression of what £3.5 million, plus building costs, would buy in 2019

This is the Allix family who lived at Bentcliffe in 1899. Ann Grimble, great-granddaughter of Albert Joseph Allix (1865-1940), tells us that he lived there from about 1888-1899. She told us: "His five children were born there, and his first wife died there in 1899. The 1891 census labels it as Laundry Place, High Street, St Aubins, as it served as the laundry for the nearby hotel. He was a gardener at most of the big houses on the sea front, and also at La Haule Manor. It was there that he met his third wife, when he broke the news to her that her husband had died, falling from a roof. He used to tend the grape vine at the back of Mrs Falle’s shop. While living at Bentcliffe he tended his own lovely terraced garden, that went down to the coast road. It had fruit trees. There was a little shop at the bottom of the garden, on the road, where he sold his garden produce. After the war, this became a hairdressers." Ann is not certain that this photograph was taken at Bentcliffe, but it could easily have been a cottage at the back of the main house