Anyone for tennis? There would have been at Adelaide Crescent and Palmeira Square had ambitious plans ever been realised.

A picture about to be auctioned shows the landscaped gardens levelled and replaced with no fewer than nine tennis courts.

Tennis was all the rage in the 1890s and enthusiasts felt Hove would have been just the place for playing the game.

But residents were not keen and only ten of them were prepared to contribute towards the cost.

The fine houses were then occupied by rich families with their servants. Today most of them are divided into flats and bedsits.

But the reaction would be the same now, with people preferring to walk on the grass rather than see it cordoned off for sport.