On Court Yard with Annie Morris

I never tire of looking at this picture which takes me back to an Eltham I never knew.

We are standing on Court Road at the beginning of the last century and it comes from the collection published in Eltham Through Time by Kristina Bedford*

To our left in more recent times was the Grove Market, ahead of us the old Congregational Church and to the right a row of houses and shops which were already old by the time our photograph was taken.

Judging by the leaves on the trees we are in spring but never completely trust an postcard because companies were not averse to the odd “touching up” to enhance the image.

That said I have always been drawn to this bit of Eltham and not because of the palace and the posh buildings associated with it but because of that row in to our right.

I have written about walking past the properties already.**

And it was here that Annie Morris who lived when our photographer pitched up on Court Yard.***

In her time she had lived at  numbers 17 and 25 Court Yard and before that in Ram Alley behind the High Street.

She was born in 1848 at 4 Pound Place, and almost her whole life was spent in here Eltham.

She was a cook and may have worked for Captain North at Avery Hill and through her life we have a snap shot of what Eltham had been and what it was becoming.

Her grandfather had set up a farrier’s business in Eltham in 1803 on what is now the Library, and “attended the old Parish Church in his leather apron.”

All of which takes me back to Court Yard and that picture from Ms Bedford's book

Location; Eltham

Picture; courtesy of Kristina Bedford from Eltham Through Time

*Eltham Through Time, Kristina Bedford, 2013, http://www.amberleybooks.com/shop/article_9781445616001/Eltham-Through-Time%3CBR%3E%3CI%3EKristina-Bedford%3C_I%3E.html?sessid=QEZApJq34zSjKNVdmAQp3W3Qy2Osaq7D26IZyhCFhC916IZiIOjjz615AwKjvvXM&shop_param=cid%3D1%26aid%3D9781445616001%26

**Walking along Court Yard in the June of 1841, looking for John Martin and Hannah Simmons, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/walking-along-court-yard-in-june-of.html

***Annie Morris, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Annie%20Morris 

Ms Bedford also has an interesting web site, Ancestral Deeds, http://www.ancestraldeeds.co.uk/