 |
| © Chrissie Rose |
It was where I spent many happy hours in the reference room and later where our Stella worked.
And it is also a pretty impressive building.
It was built “with funds from the Carnegie Trust to a design by Maurice Adams. The classical frontispiece is recessed and on either side are oriel windows and tile hung gables flanked by urns.”*
Next door at nos 183-5 “is the old electricity showroom which was built in the early 1930s by the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich; upstairs at that time was the office of the Council’s Registrar [and] behind it was a building used from the early 1900s as the electricity works, Woolwich being the electricity supply authority at the time.”*
Now the electricity offices may have gone but the Library remains and looks no different from the building I can see in pictures from 1910 and 1971.
So some things remain the same although since I left they have sneaked in the new swimming baths just behind the place but that is for another story.
Picture, the library in 2014 courtesy of Chrissie Rose
*Discover Eltham and its Environs, Darrell Spurgeon, 2000
I have been trying for years, to find out what happened to the large stone that was in the wall on the right side of the library, it held details of whena nd who opened it, and other local interesting information. I believe eltham was listed as kent in those days.i have contacted everyone I can think of seeking information. even the lady who runs the library was going to look for me, of course she never did.
ReplyDeleteWell that's intriguing. I think by the time the Library was opened we were in the London Borough of Woolwich and so now no longer in Kent.
ReplyDelete