It was one of the architect's first commissions, and herringbone-style vertically laid floor tiles in the garden were in part laid by the architect himself. Roedean Road itself opened between Arundel Road and the coast road at Roedean Farm in 1897 as an alternative to the cliff-top road which had become unusable to the east of Black Rock owing to cliff erosion; seventy-five feet of land had disappeared in fifty years. The new road to Rottingdean, Marine Drive, was opened on 22 July 1932 by Percy John Pybus, Minister of Transport, with the cliffs protected by the Undercliff Walk sea-wall. John Howard House at the western end of Roedean Road (which today would be considered part of the mid-late 20th century East Brighton estate of Whitehawk) was opened in 1914 at the expense of Sir John Howard as a convalescent home for gentlewomen, but it was almost immediately requisitioned for use as an officers' hospital in World War I. Since 1974 it has been a home of the Royal Hospital and Home for Incurables, which is based in Putney and run on a voluntary basis. Opposite is a large electrical substation built by the local authority in 1924, and the Bell Tower Industrial Estate, developed in 1983 on the site of St Mark's School; the school's bell-tower is preserved as the estate's distinctive feature.