Pike (Sidney)

, , 1919.
looking southwards through the arch of James Burton’s North Lodge, the view continues over the top of St Leonards Gardens, out to the English Channel beyond. Burton began construction of his new resort town in 1828, building the first villas around these landscaped gardens to form the core of this model community, with this lodge marking the original northern boundary added in 1830. Adopting a variety of architectural styles fashionable in Regency England, Burton designed the North Lodge in a Gothic castellated style, in contrast to the Neo-classical form of the South Lodge, the latter being sited adjacent to the formal grandeur of the two most important buildings of the project, the Assembly Rooms and the St Leonards Hotel (later renamed the Royal Victoria).
James Burton’s daughter, Jane, first lived in North Lodge, and later two of his granddaughters occupied it into the early 20th century. At the time this watercolour was executed, it was the winter residence of the famous author, Henry Rider Haggard, who resided there between 1918 and 1923.
The artist, Sidney Pike (1858-1923), was born in Camberwell, South London. He was a moderately successful artist favouring rather sweet, picturesque, subjects, often country houses for their wealthy owners, and being one of the first to paint christmas cards for Collins, which belied his otherwise more itinerant, bohemian lifestyle. He eloped with the daughter of the Evening Standard’s publisher, and raised a family of six children. He settled in Hastings where he ended his days.
The watercolour comes with a typed letter of early provenance, from its original ownership by a resident of St Leonards, Mr Tarrant, who gifted it to his servant, Miss Frances Yielding, through whose family it passed by descent until at least the 1990s..
255 by 370mm (10 by 14½ inches).