On Westmount Road with ST TIO PARADE in Janaury 2014

© Chrissie Rose

I wonder how long we will still have this parade of shops at numbers 92-98 Westmount Road.

According to Discover Eltham* this was the original station building for what was Shooters Hill and Eltham Park “having between the wars become a parade of shops; no 96 with its distinctive upper floor was the original entrance to the booking hall.”

The station’s name was changed to Eltham Park in 1927 and was closed in 1985.

And I just don’t remember it.

The station in happier times, © This is Eltham

But then my stop was Well Hall and in all the years I lived in Eltham I never travelled beyond it.

Now I rather wish I had, if only to be able to claim that I knew all the stations on the line from Charing Cross to Bexleyheath.

As it is there will be plenty of people who will have fond memories of using the station and for all those who never knew it in its hey day here amongst our modern pictures is one from the past.

The old Eltham Park station and its neighbouring shops have clearly seen better times.

© Chrissie Rose

The half hearted attempt to cover the glazed tiles with blue paint was clearly not a success, no one has replaced the missing letters in Station Parade, and  the faded Thresher signage is evidence that no one has bought anything at number 92 for a long time.

And if any more proof were needed that this once smart row of shops was sliding into oblivion it is that that in the second edition of Discover Eltham the parade fails even to get a mention.

So it is too the good that Chrissie was on hand to record them and it is another reminder of the need to snap away and capture what may soon no longer be with us.

Of course the parade may have a new lease of life after all there should be a demand for vacant shops along Westmount Road but as with so many properties there is every chance that they will be redeveloped as something new.

We shall see.

*Discover Eltham and its Environs, Darrell Spurgeon, 1992, revised edition 2000

Pictures; of the parade today courtesy of Chrissie Rose, January 2014 and at an earlier time, courtesy of Thisiseltham, http://www.thisiseltham.co.uk/index.php