History of the House prior to conversion
The House was originally built in 1921 it was occupied as a boys Preparatory School, Collington Rise, until 1940 when the school was evacuated to Cornwall, never to return.
Post war the Co-Operative Youth took on the building as a holiday guest house, hosting young people from co-operative organisations in the UK and worldwide. Some still call to visit the house about which they have many happy memories.
It was also the base during this time for the Sussex Association of Boys’ Clubs.
In 1962 it was taken over by the Workers Travel Association, an offshoot of the Workers Education Association and carried on in this role up to 1970 when it was sold to Reg Larkin a local developer.
Modern History Collington House, Manor Housing
In and around 1970 Gwen Emslie was a small private developer in Bexhill, generally converting houses into flats, revamping dwellings and selling them off. She was very public spirited,a local councillor and leading light in the Ratepayers Association.
She was anxious to promote a scheme to provide cheap housing for all but in particular for the elderly of Bexhill. She hit on the Loan Stock idea and negotiated to buy Collington House from Reg Larkin of R.A. Larkin & Sons, the biggest private developer in Bexhill. He was buying Collington House, an empty private boarding school, together with its playing fields and grounds,including its private chapel,still in Birk Dale, now a children’s nursery.
Larkin was also buying the farm land, beyond the House, stretching down to Little Common to be developed chiefly with bungalows.
Gwen persuded him to sell the House to her for her Loan Stock idea at a considerable discount and she gathered a group of local useful people,bank managers, accountants, fellow developers, architect etc to form the Association, named Manor for that was where Gwen lived in Bexhill. Reg Larkin was also on
board and he agreed to do the building work to convert the House, at cost.
Gwen “sold” the scheme to them on the basis that the flats would be cheap but no owner would make a profit as when they sold they would simply get back what they paid . Loan Stock was borne.
The House was divided up into mostly bed-sitters, that were popular at the time, but that enabled Gwen to get as many units as possible out of the House and all of the “group” applauded it.
The local Bulding Soceity, whose chairman was part of the group, agreed to arrange mortgages if required and the local banks put
up the money for the conversion, again the local managers were part of the group.
The conversion went ahead and Manor Housing Association was borne, Gwen went round all the local estate agents, who advertised the flats and introduced buyers to the association, all without payment and slowly the flats sold and the loan from the banks was paid off.
Manor Housing was registered with the Housing Corporation who approved the loan stock system and the Rules of the Association.
It was all due to Gwen Emslie, her hard work and foresight and total dedication got the scheme off the ground and made it work. The House is still very much as designed with modern alterations and with the bed-sitters changed into one bed flats to suit the modern changing views, but the original conception is still as good as originally conceived.