Revealing the history of Eltham High Street behind its buildings in the summer of 1977

I like this picture which was taken in 1977 of the northern side of the High Street looking down to the parish church.

And the reason why I like it is that it is a good starting point to learning a little of the history of this bit of Eltham.

Of course you have to look and be aware that some of what you see in not what it seems.

So the building which is occupied by the Market, Frisby’s and Granada was built around 1720 with a later addition on its eastern side dating from the mid 19th century.

This was Cliefden House and has been variously a home, a school and now a mix of shops and offices.

According to that wonderful guide, Discover Eltham* “The original upper floor windows remain, apart from the first floor window above the entrance which is modern.  The interior incorporates some 17th century structure, including a fine carved wooden staircase.  Next door at no 103 is the mid 19th century extension”

Until the 1920s it was set back from the High Street behind a wall and front garden, but these vanished I think when the road was widened.

As did the two fine houses which stood a little to the west where the low bungalow shops and the Nat West Bank now stand.

Here were Sherard and Merlewood Houses which in the case of Sherard House dated back to 1634.


Now I am not someone who will defend the retention of every old building which through a combination of age, neglect and size is no longer viable, but the loss of these two seems criminal.

Of the two I suspect Sherard House was the more interesting. It retained many of the original features including “the handsome mantelpieces of carved oak, oak panelling which surrounded the library and the quaint old open fire places. ** 

I would have loved to walk through its 20 rooms and sat in the garden which extended north to the footpath known as the Slip.

But its demolition and replacement by the shops and the bank says much about how Eltham was changing in the early decades of the 20th century which for me was characterized by that big building on the corner of the High Street and Well Hall Road.

Today it is a McDonalds but it was built as a Burtons, dispensing good affordable clothes for men, from readymade jackets and trousers to the “made to measure suit.”

It was opened in 1937 and was about that new style of consumerism which was beginning to make what we now take for granted affordable to a whole new group of people.

And just beyond the shop is the spire of the parish church, pointing us back to Eltham’s rural past.

Picture; Eltham High Street, courtesy of Jean Gammons, detail of Eltham High Street,  1844 from the Tithe map for Eltham courtesy of Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone, 
http://www.kent.gov.uk/leisure_and_culture/kent_history/kent_history__library_centre.aspx

*Spurgeon, Darrell, Discover Eltham, 2000
** Gregory, R.R.C., The Story of Royal Eltham, 1909