I have to thank Steve Bardrick for the collection of pictures of Woolwich he kindly agreed to share with me.
Part of the pleasure of looking at them is that they remind me of the Woolwich I remember which has now pretty much vanished but also because each of them has set me off on a detective trail.
So here I am in Beresford Square flanked by the Ordinance Arms on one side with Draper’s the butchers directly ahead.
I can’t be sure of the date but I am guessing we must be in the late 1940s into 1950s judging by the clothes, and the presence of the tram lines.
Now the last tram clanked into the history books in 1952 and while the tram lines took a bit of time to vanish they will not have lasted the decade.
So the key will be that butcher’s shop and a trawl of the directories will give us a beginning and end date for the business which might not offer up an exact moment but will be close enough.
That said I don’t have access to the directories for that period but they are located in the Greenwich Heritage Centre and my olf friend Tricia might come up with something when she next visits.
The Draper Brothers have long gone, the Ordinace Arms trades under a new name and the square has lost much of the hurly burly activity all of which Brings me back to Steve's picture.
Like some of his other images it captures a busy day.
And just perhaps there will be people who remember Draper's or sat in the Ordinance Arms watching the trams rattle past.
We shall see.
Picture; Beresford Square, date unknown courtesy of Steve Bardrick
So here I am in Beresford Square flanked by the Ordinance Arms on one side with Draper’s the butchers directly ahead.
I can’t be sure of the date but I am guessing we must be in the late 1940s into 1950s judging by the clothes, and the presence of the tram lines.
So the key will be that butcher’s shop and a trawl of the directories will give us a beginning and end date for the business which might not offer up an exact moment but will be close enough.
That said I don’t have access to the directories for that period but they are located in the Greenwich Heritage Centre and my olf friend Tricia might come up with something when she next visits.
The Draper Brothers have long gone, the Ordinace Arms trades under a new name and the square has lost much of the hurly burly activity all of which Brings me back to Steve's picture.
And just perhaps there will be people who remember Draper's or sat in the Ordinance Arms watching the trams rattle past.
We shall see.
Picture; Beresford Square, date unknown courtesy of Steve Bardrick
Yes that would have been the few years that i as a child, was in Beresford Square every late Saturday collecting wooden crates to break up and sell for fire starting wood. One Saturday when we got home, taking the crates off our barrows we found one was half full of tomatoes. WOW ... our eyes nearly popped out of our heads. My mum was thrilled. Yes.. I was eldest of 4 kids then (later 8) and we were quite poor. I remember now I would take the jam jars I collected to Menzies the eel and pie shop just around the corner from the square. The 1950’s were definitely my childhood days of the markets.
ReplyDeleteYes that would have been the few years that i as a child, was in Beresford Square every late Saturday collecting wooden crates to break up and sell for fire starting wood. One Saturday when we got home, taking the crates off our barrows we found one was half full of tomatoes. WOW ... our eyes nearly popped out of our heads. My mum was thrilled. Yes.. I was eldest of 4 kids then (later 8) and we were quite poor. I remember now I would take the jam jars I collected to Menzies the eel and pie shop just around the corner from the square. The 1950’s were definitely my childhood days of the markets.
ReplyDeleteThank you Marina
ReplyDeleteThe tram lines were embedded into the cobblestones well into the 1960s.
ReplyDelete