[CR]Dating an Ephgrave

Can any Ephgrave owners give me a hand dating a frame. It has no transfers or headbadge on it but I've been told it's an Ephgrave and it has the characters LE 1899 under the bottom bracket. I'm pretty sure Les Ephgrave wasn't building lightweights in the year before the 20th century so how do you interpret that number. The frame is very similar to this one on Dale's site: http://www.classicrendezvous.com/British/Ephgrave/Ephgrave_Green.htm but without the downtube shifter braze-ons and with normal pump pegs. As ever, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Bruce
Dundee
Scotland