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"DAKOTA" 97 ENYS ROAD, EASTBOURNE

"Dakota", 97 Enys Road, Eastbourne. Picture origin unknown.
That lamp-post in the foreground is surely from the Morris ironfoundry.

Caleb Luther Adams (usually known as "Luther") was born in Worthing in 1848, son of Isaac Adams (1819-1892) and Ruth Anne Hassell. Ruth was a sister of Charlotte Hassell who married David Gilbert (1825-1916). Therefore Luther was a cousin of the younger David Gilbert (1861-1902).

Old Isaac Adams had founded a fishmongers and poulterers shop in 1856 in Worthing, later moving to Brighton, and finally (around 1860) to Terminus Road, Eastbourne. His sons Calvin, Luther and Isaac were all brought up in the business, taking over the firm when their father died in 1892. It was then renamed Adams Brothers.

To more details of the Adams family

Calvin and Luther went to a boarding school in Lewes - Lewes Grammar School, opposite St.Anne's Church, where Sussex expert Mark Anthony Lower was the master. Luther founded the Eastbourne Bicycle Club in 1877, and his cousin David Gilbert (1861-1902) was also a member. In 1877 Luther and David, and another member of the club, made a fortnight's cycling expedition to France, embarking at Newhaven on 25 May, and riding on 'penny-farthings' from Dieppe to Rouen, Nantes, Paris and Amiens, only making use of the railway twice. Luther kept a diary of the trip (as did David) and his account was published in the June Eastbourne Standard. A copy of this article is held in H.R.Gilbert's records.

Luther Adams wearing his Eastbourne Bicycle Club cap.

In 1895 Luther retired from the family business, but his brothers Calvin and Isaac remained for about about another 10 years (still as Adams Brothers), eventually moving to Grove Road, Eastbourne. It was then sold to Mr C J Matthews. Ancestor Gary Adams wrote to H R Gilbert from Canada in 2002 and said "The Adams Brothers fishmonger and poulterers business applied for a royal patent as purveyors to the Prince of Wales. The Prince died before the grant was given but they did have the patent. Our family still has the letter from the Prince's Secretary, edged in black."

Meanwhile Luther was clearly getting involved with Eastbourne local affairs. Robert Morris's diary for 25 November 1898 records "Luther Adams was again defeated for East Ward bye-election." Around this time Luther married Edith Skinner, daughter of a farmer from Petworth, Sussex. There is no evidence that they had any children of their own, but they are reputed to have adopted a daughter Iris in 1900. Note Robert Morris's diary entry for 5 June 1899; "Hear that Luther Adams has arranged to adopt the posthumous(?) daughter of the Captain of the ill-fated 'Stella'" (Charlotte Gilbert has written against this entry "This was not so. C.J.G. 1973")

But Luther clearly did realise his ambition in this field as a report in an Eastbourne newspaper (when his brother Isaac died in August 1925 aged 80 in a nursing home in Hyde Gardens) refers to "... Mr. Luther Adams, "Dakota", 97 Enys Road, who has a seat on the Town Council for some years..." This also indicates that by 1925 Luther was certainly resident at "Dakota", a semi-detached house at the lower (northern) end of Enys Road.

Luther died in 1932 aged 85. The Eastbourne 'Blue Book' for 1933-34 shows for Enys Road "97 (Dakota) Adams, Mrs.", suggesting that his widow Edith was still living at "Dakota". The house remains largely unchanged today, although a garage has replaced the greenhouse/conservatory seen in the picture above.

101 ENYS ROAD, EASTBOURNE

Two doors further down Enys Road (towards Lewes Road) stands No.101, which was to become home to four members of the Gilbert family after the second world war - long after the Adams family had left No.97. Photo by H R Gilbert, March 1994.

Ellen Isabel Gilbert (1857-1951) and her three daughters, Ellen, Charlotte and Mary, moved into 101 Enys Road in 1946, from the house in Bourne Street where they had been living during the last years of the second world war - their previous house (22 Upper Avenue) having been rendered uninhabitable by bomb damage. The property was rented, and stands on the north side of the road, on the bend near the junction with Lewes Road.

To more details of Ellen and her family

In Mary Gilbert's diary for 20 May 1948 she says they moved there in March 1946. "We had tea indoors in our newly ??? dining room, really a kitchen, but since we have been here (in 1946, March) we had it for a work room, it looks out on the back garden. Since Mother's bedroom was moved to the ground floor, where our dining room was, in the front, we moved the dining room furniture into the back room, and turned Mother's room upstairs into a workroom. It has a sofa which can be used as a bed for David when he stays with us." /p>

Ellen Isabel Gilbert (1857-1951) flanked by her son William and his wife Kathleen, at the front porch of 101 Enys Road around 1950.

From my memory, the room on the left inside the front door was a bedroom for Ellen Isabel. After her death it became a second reception room in which could be found a glass-fronted cabinet containing Nehemiah Wimble's fine Worcester china dinner service of 1830, later moved to Anne of Cleve's House, Lewes. On the right of the front door was the main living room. The staircase ran from right to left at the back of the hall (in which stood the 'Weston' grandfather clock, later at Sherborne with David Gilbert and then to David's flat at Millington Court, Uckfield), and a stained-glass window was at the top.

Five bedrooms (two overlooking the back garden, and three facing the road) and a somewhat 'Victorian' bathroom led off the upper landing, on which also stood the other grandfather clock - made by Kemp and Holman, later kept at Well Cottage and Ryderswell, Heathfield. At the back of the house on the ground floor were a dining room overlooking the back garden (as mentioned by Mary, above), and an old-fashioned kitchen. An outside toilet stood in the garden, but had largely fallen into disuse. The garden was 'mature' and rather 'cottagey' but, although kept up by the three sisters, became somewhat overgrown in some areas.

Ellen Isabel died there in 1951, but the house continued to be a holiday home for the Gilbert family throughout the 1950s, the large number of bedrooms suiting its use as such. When Richard and Elsie Gilbert and their family moved back to Eastbourne from Croydon in 1959 (and with his brother William having died some years previously) the extra size of the property became unnecessary for visitors, and the three sisters purchased a smaller house at 56 Milton Road, Eastbourne in September 1960.

From Mary Gilbert's diary;
18 August 1960; "Sent some of our stuff, fenders, old carpet, stools(?) etc. to a jumble sale for the Lifeboat, which they called for."
19 August 1960; "Katherine Ade came to sort her things out which we have housed for her for some time. We are keeping a suite of mahogany chairs and a mirror that she has lent me for my bedroom."
22 August 1960; "Mr.& Mrs.Bristow came to look over this house. They may make an offer to Mrs.Leach. They belong to All Soul's Church."
24 August 1960; "Went up to 56 Milton to secure the keys of our new house"
31 August 1960; "Two people to look at this house from Edgar Horn's (101 Enys Rd.)."

The house was sold in September 1960. It was still standing in 2022, but the front garden had been paved to provide parking for two cars, and an extension had been built into the roof.