Levetleigh

General information
Address	1890-1913 Dane Road
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Located in Dane Road, this house was the residence of Conservative M.P. Arthur Du Cros who leased the property between 1906-1913. Du Cros was reportedly staunchly opposed to the principle of giving votes to women. The following year - April 1913, the house was burned down with suffragettes being believed to be the culprits.

The above is a photograph of a postcard found adjacent to the window through which entry to Levetleigh was made.

This in part was due to papers supporting votes for women being found among the wreckage. The police eventually had to leave the investigation of the Levetleigh fire as being unsolved with no known suspects, the culprits being believed by some members of the press to have travelled some distance by car (possibly from London) to carry out the attack; Levetleigh being quite secluded at the time and shielded from view by trees and shrubs

Levetleigh itself was constructed by the local builder A.H White in 1890. The first tenant would appear to have been a Mrs Rucker, mother of Dr Arthur William Rucker, a distinguished scientist.

The Du Cros family (first William - Arthur's father, then Arthur) leased the building from the Eversfield Estate in around 1906 until its destruction in 1913.

Andrew Mackintosh, a 68-year-old retired "dry goods importer" originally from the Black Isle, Ross-shire, but who spent most of his adult life in Argentina, died at Levetleigh on 12 December 1912 of ptomaine poisoning. There is no record of how long his wife Elizabeth Boddington Mackintosh stayed after his death. It could have been any time from then until Du Cros’s tenancy expired on 25th March 1913. She died at Cooden in 1929 and is buried with him in Hastings Cemetery.

Following the fire, the remains were made safe by the removal of the chimneys and top floor and remained in that condition for 8 years until they were lowered to the first floor level and thus converted into three seperate bungalows.

One of these bungalows was then demolished in 1980 to build the block of flats called 'Nevill Court', the other two were demolished in around 2005 to build the block of flats called DuCros House.

Images

• Images
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  Levetleigh 1913

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  Levetleigh during firefighting efforts

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  The-sad-remains-of-Levetleigh-after-the-fire.-1913.

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  Levetleigh-27-Dane-Road.-1980