This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*
Now I like the way that what seem to be totally random bits of the past come together to tell a story which in this case brings together our family home on Well Hall Road an old chair and a promise.
What connects them is this chair which I am guessing must be at least a century old and in its time has travelled from Peckham to Eltham and on to Manchester and now resides in our dining room.
As far as I know it began life in the Evelina Mission Hall on Evelina Road close to where dad had worked for forty years.
I have yet to discover when the mission hall was built but I know it will be sometime between 1874 and 1914 which I grant is a big dollop of history but it’s a start.
I know it was there by 1914 because the hall is listed in the Post Office Directory for that year.
There were plenty of similar halls in the area but by the mid 1960s if not earlier it was struggling for a congregation and closed.
And Dad always scenting a bargain came away with the chair which from 1964 sat in my bedroom in 294 before eventually coming north.
It is a beautiful chair which always reminds me of my father and as happens has already been promised to one of my sons who got in before the others.
But that is not quite the end of the story because it neatly cements the history of the family home in Eltham with my own house in Chorlton in Manchester.
Both houses were built in 1915 and although they differ in their layout and appearance both have been happy places to live.
I can’t claim that the chair has anything to do with that but it remains a little bit of my history uniting me with Peckham, Eltham and Manchester, and in time will continue to do where ever our Joshua finally settles.
Not bad for one chair.
Location;Well Hall, Eltham, London
Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall
What connects them is this chair which I am guessing must be at least a century old and in its time has travelled from Peckham to Eltham and on to Manchester and now resides in our dining room.
As far as I know it began life in the Evelina Mission Hall on Evelina Road close to where dad had worked for forty years.
I have yet to discover when the mission hall was built but I know it will be sometime between 1874 and 1914 which I grant is a big dollop of history but it’s a start.
I know it was there by 1914 because the hall is listed in the Post Office Directory for that year.
There were plenty of similar halls in the area but by the mid 1960s if not earlier it was struggling for a congregation and closed.
And Dad always scenting a bargain came away with the chair which from 1964 sat in my bedroom in 294 before eventually coming north.
It is a beautiful chair which always reminds me of my father and as happens has already been promised to one of my sons who got in before the others.
But that is not quite the end of the story because it neatly cements the history of the family home in Eltham with my own house in Chorlton in Manchester.
Both houses were built in 1915 and although they differ in their layout and appearance both have been happy places to live.
I can’t claim that the chair has anything to do with that but it remains a little bit of my history uniting me with Peckham, Eltham and Manchester, and in time will continue to do where ever our Joshua finally settles.
Not bad for one chair.
Location;Well Hall, Eltham, London
Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall
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