Pictures from an Eltham Walk ......no. 1 ...... goodbye after 87 years

If you are going out for a walk, always take a picture.  

Looking for a Police Station, 2023

My friend Larissa does and it follows on from her very succesful project of capturing scenes of Eltham from a bus.*

And the first of the new series is that empty space at the top of Well Hall Road, close to the High Street.

Most of us will know it as the former Police Station which I took for granted while I was growing up in Well Hall.

At the time I never gave it much thought and if I did I guess I thought it was rather ugly.

But the passage of time has made me think it was a fine example of late 1930s architecture, where purpose took precedence over style, although I do think it does have style.

Passing the Police Station, 2015

Or I should say did, because for all of us who no longer live in Eltham I can report it has gone.

It was closed some years ago, recently  demolished and is the site is waiting for something to happen.

And as you do I went looking for a planning application for its redevelopment on Greenwich's planning portal.

So far there is no reference for what is to happen, although I did  stumble across the two applications to knock it down, the first in September 2022 and the second in the November of the same year.

That said someone may know.

Knocking on the door, 2015

Leaving me just to reflect that I have wondered about when it was built***

The search ended up with the Greenwich Heritage Centre who came up with a date between 1936-39.

"The only clues as to the date of the station I’ve found come from the electoral register and the ordnance survey map. The ordnance survey as revised in 1936 shows the site on which the station would come to be built as empty. 

Fortunately, it appears that when built there were three flats incorporated into the station - for married members of the force or possibly caretakers, I would imagine – which means that the police station, with its residents, was included in the electoral register. 

The first time it appears is in October 1939. So 1936-39 is as close as I can come to a date."

Although there is a picture of the station just before it opened with a suggested date of 1936/7.

So, that may be when it was built and 87 years later it has gone.

Apologies to anyone who knew it is no more and a thank you to Larissa for the pictures and the start of a new Eltham series.

A space, 2023

Picture; Eltham Police Station, Well Hall Road, 2015, from the collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick and the space that was Eltham Police Station, courtesy of Larissa Hamment

Tomorrow; the sad end of our Police Station

*Picture; from an Eltham Bus; https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Pictures%20from%20an%20Eltham%20Bus

** Greenwich Planning Portal, https://planning.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/online-applications/searchResultsBack.do?action=back

***Eltham Police Station .............. one of those buildings I have always taken for granted, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2019/06/eltham-police-station-one-of-those.html

****Greenwich Heritage Centre, http://www.greenwichheritage.org/site/index.php