One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 16 ........... a revolution on wash day

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Now this was Dad's welcoming present to 294 when we moved in in 1964.

I say Dad's but the reality will be that it will have been mum who insisted on this piece of cutting edge technology.

And with that "keyplate" which "automatically selects the right water temperature, the right washing action, the right number of rinses and the right spin-drying time for what ever wash you are doing" we could really feel the future had arrived.

And on top of all that here was a front loading machine which was already plumbed in and needed no endless filling of water buckets to put into the machine.

I could also comment on the rather sexist headline but won't.

Location; Well Hall

Picture; advert for the Hoover Keymatic, The Observer Magazine January 30 1966 from the collection of Andrew Simpson







*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, 

The class of ’68 part 7 ……. Ranger's House and a folk concert

Now, a little bit of my past has bounced back into my life in the form pf a program and a folk concert ticket.

'....... all that life can afford', 1967

And what follows is less a bit of vanity and more just a comment on how exciting it was to be at one of our big three comprehensives in the late 1960s.

The three were Crown Woods, Eltham Green and Kidbrook, and I went to Crown Woods.

And in the December of 1967 along with some close friends and lots of other people, I took part in two performances of “all that life can afford” at the Ranger’s House in Blackheath.

The house dates from the 1720s and was a fitting venue for a performance of selected verse, prose and music from the 18th century.

The show lasted for two nights, and drew on the writings of Daniel Defoe, James Boswell, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and John Wesley, along with Voltaire, Bernard de Mandeville and the duc de Liancourt.

From the program, cast, writers and researcher, 1967

And dominating the evening was Samuel Johnson, whose throwaway comment that “He that is tired of London is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford”, provided the title for the show.

The sequence was in two parts, the first offering up “pictures of the streets [with] gin drinking, poverty and crime and punishment”, and the second exploring “the intellectual and religious life, as well as entertaining in high society, the military and naval activities of Blackheath and Greenwich and the famous Greenwich Fair.” *

The night concluded with the sonnet Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 by William Wordsworth, which is near you will get to the perfect piece of praise for the city of London.

I remember I had been less than willing to participate and had a long conversation with Mr. Marland who was Head of English and put forward a series of reasons why I couldn’t take part, each of which was more desperate and unconvincing than the one before.

When finally, I gave in, and agreed, Mr. Marland gave me the script with my name at the top and the part I was to play already identified.

Some of the class of '68, 1968

The two nights were a great success but were only one of a number of different performances which the school had offered up.

These included, The Causian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht, An Enemy of the People by Ibsen, Billy Liar, Antigone, The Peterloo Massacre, and the sixteenth century play Gammer Gurton’s Needle along with other dramatic and musical anthologies.

All of which sat beside regular evenings of poetry, prose and music performed by the staff and students of the English Department.

Ranger's House and Samuel Johnson, 1967

Now I fully accept that similar events went on at Eltham Green and Kidbrook, and I do remember the annual Sixth Form Conferences attended by schools from across the capital which featured some of the best figures from the sciences and the arts who were invited to speak.

The point is that these were put on by comprehensive schools, and not grammar or public schools and in doing so were proudly asserting that they were the equal and perhaps superior to the older and established “places of education”.

Nor did it stop there, because Crown Woods gave us the opportunity to act independently.


In the winter of 1967 Dave Hatch and I were allowed to do our own radio show, featuring folk music, which went out on the internal radio system.

And a little later, when I asked if I could run a series of folk concerts with local singers in the school library, the answer was yes.

Folk at Crown Woods, 1968

I long ago forgot the details and had just a vague memory of who performed, but here Dave came to my rescue again, by telling me “you said that you couldn't remember many details. 

The names of two performers stuck in my mind; Gordon Giltrap, who you recruited one Friday night at the Tigers Head, and Terry Yarnell, who worked with Anne's father in Silvertown at International Paints”.

All these opportunities could be replicated by countless others, but I think there was something special in being at one of the “big three” in Eltham and Kidbrook back then.

Pictures; Crown Woods School in “……. all that life can afford”, the folk concert ticket, and the picture of some of the class of ’68, program courtesy of Anne Davey who kept them in her scrap book and Dave hatch for sending them up to me

*Crown Woods School in “……. all that life can afford”. 

Don't look back ... thoughts after finding Looking at Eltham, 1970

Front cover showing the High Street

Now Eltham is a long way from Chorlton but it was where I grew up and occasionally I am drawn back.

It is in south east London and was once in Kent.

It has an old Tudor barn long since converted into a restaurant, a medieval palace and a lot of my own personal history.

And I am back here again because of a tiny booklet dating from 1970 which I had entirely forgotten I had.*

I guess I must have picked it up on one of those trips to see the family and brought it back with me.

It was produced by the Eltham Society and was designed as a mix of history and current descriptions of the place.

But it is now 56 years old and so the contemporary accounts have themselves become old and dated which in its way makes it as much of a then and now publication as any which set out to mark the passage of time.

The High Street in 1910

And that is why I have come back to it, because here is a perfect time capsule, continuing old pictures of the High Street with what were once contemporary but are now also a record of an old Eltham long gone.

All of which is interesting enough to the historian but what is really fascinating is the section on  THE FUTURE for here the writers have taken the present and with a backward glance at past developments have speculated on how Eltham will change.

The High Street in 1970

What struck me was the preoccupation with the impact of the motor car both in the form of parking and congestion and of the coming motor ways.

"The motorways are not yet with us but the process of land acquisition is well advanced and corrugated hoardings and partly wrecked houses are already blighting our streets.  

It remains to be seen whether a town can survive the devastating experience of enormous engineering works which, when completed will draw a tight noose around its heart.”**

Of course the area did survive and remains a popular place to live and for many people they will not know any different.  And those like my sisters and friends who stayed have embraced the changes and still enjoy living there.

But when you are just a visitor it is different because although I missed most of the blight and certainly all of the building work when I do return I find the transition a bit odd and more than a little disconcerting.

It is a bit like someone has taken your best toy or better still your best memory and altered them.  Not enough to totally eliminate them but just enough to make them seem out of kilter with what was.

Advert for H.C.Payne

All of which is perhaps the best reason for not going back.

As they say nostalgia is a cruel thing which messes up the present and spoils the future.

H.C.Payne at 116 Eltham High Street was where I bought my first sports jacket, skinny knitted ties.  It was a place I loved and it is now a restauraunt.

So I will stick with the Eltham of 1970, after all I know what it was like I still have the book.

Location; Eltham, London

Pictures; from Looking at Eltham, Eltham Society 1970.  I haven’t asked them for permission to use the images and quote from the book but I hope they won’t mind.

* Looking at Eltham, Eltham Society 1970.  

** ibib page 55

Missing that old bridge

My old bridge circa 1940s

I cannot even begin to count the number of times I walked under the railway bridge which spanned Well Hall Road.

But then why should I?

It had carried trains across the road from 1895 and continued to do so for 90 years and I just took it for granted.

And then in 1985 as part of the construction of the relief road and the new station it was replaced by a new bridge which is a functional no nonsense bit of railway architecture and it lacks the style of the one I remember with those columns that adorn the upper part of the bridge and the brackets with their detailed wheels.

Detail of that bridge

Perhaps after those 90 years it had had its day but it is one of those little examples of how function can have style.

The picture dates to sometime after the last war but is pretty much as I remember it.

Go back a couple of decades and there were large hoardings underneath the bridge along with more on the embankment and a poster which ran right across the upper section.

And then it all changed again and now it has gone completely.

A new bridge 2015

I don’t suppose it matters over much but points to that simple observation that we take things for granted.

All of the shops beyond the bridge have changed since that tram trundled past although some further up by the Pleasaunce were operated by the same families when I walked up Well Hall Road.

So not an earth shattering bit of our history but still a bit of it.

Pictures; Well Hall bridge, circa 1940s, from the collection of A J Watkins, reproduced from Eltham and Woolwich Tramways and the new bridge 2014, from the collection of Chrissy Rose

*Eltham and Woolwich Tramways, Robert J Harley, Middleton Press, 1996, https://www.middletonpress.co.uk/

Buying a book at Wilcox's on Well Hall Road and a thank you

Well Hall Odeon, circa 1960s

It is pretty much one of those things that when you live somewhere you take it for granted.

Growing up in Eltham in the 1960s I don’t think I ever took a photograph of the place and most of the changes that occurred just passed me by.

That said I am not sure that there were many dramatic developments to Eltham during that decade.

The cinemas were all still there when I left as was the old station, and the shops on Well Hall Road just down from the Odeon were the same when I returned in the early 70s.

They included the radio shop where mum bought our first stereogram, the barber's shop next to the cinema where you always came out with a short back and sides no matter what you had asked for and Wells the Chemist and the cafe.

Some places have faded from my memory and others while still vivid have challenged me to remember their name.

Wilcox, Well Hall Road circa 1960s

So here I am with that shop at the top of Well Hall Road hard by Burton’s.

It sold everything from papers and sweets to books and on a Saturday morning it was one of the first ports of call before heading up the High Street to meet friends, or visit the library.

And only yesterday our Saul started reading the copy of Canterbury Tales which I bought from Wilcox’s sometime in the summer of 1967.

The book is much battered and is in danger of falling apart but it is a nice reminder of the continuity which binds me to the place where I grew up and still feel a pull for.

So I was pleased that I have come across a fresh collection of photographs from the community website This is Eltham and particularly pleased that they have given me permission to raid the archive.*

Some are very much part of my childhood while others look back to an earlier period of Eltham’s history.

But it is the one of Wilcox’s that has triggered off a rich cascade of memories and underlines for me the power of an image to reawaken the past.

And as these things go just as I finished the story, Lesley of This is Eltham, told me that Wilcox's  
"was my father's shop Andrew,  he had 5 shops in Eltham, 32 High Street, and there's a photo of my mother in that shop in 1938/9, then a haberdashery's in Well Hall Parade opposite the Pleasaunce, one with a Post Office in Westhrone Avenue and and a tiny, tiny one at the High Street end of Archery Road but that was probably gone by the time you came to Eltham."

Now that I think is just a perfect ending.

Pictures; Well Hall Odeon and Wilcox’s circa 1960 courtesy of This is Eltham


*This is Eltham, http://www.thisiseltham.co.uk/index.php

A wopping big bit of Eltham’s past ........... and the historian who wrote it

Now every place deserves a historian and a good history book and Eltham had R.R.C.Gregory who wrote the Story of Royal Eltham in 1909 which remains a fine account of the area’s history.*

Mr Gregory was a teacher and later the headmaster at Eltham National School from 1901-1920 and the book began as a series of lessons for his students.

He had found the Admission Register for the school for 1814 which formed the inspiration of his teaching of local history, which drew praise from the Inspectors.

"The Headmaster directs the work with sympathy and he has striven to maintain the more helpful characteristics of a village school, more especially in regard to the old customs and associations."

It is available on the internet.

Now this all this I knew, but yesterday my friend Tricia alerted me to a smashing little account of Mr Gregory by Margaret E Taylor which appears in Eltham Records.**

The book was published by the Eltham Society which I would recommend.***

I joined nearly 50 years after it was founded.   In my defence I was 16 when it was established and by 19 was living in Manchester all of which rather negated a membership.  But happily I am now fully paid up and fined their publications very useful.

That said the book doesn’t appear in the present publication list so I shall have to go off and ask if they have a battered old copy.****

Sadly unlike many I have yet to buy Mr Gregory’s book which is now a collector’s item, but who  knows Christmas is coming up.

In the meantime a thank you to Tricia Leslie for sharing Ms Taylor's book with me.

Location; Eltham, London

Picture; of R.R.C Gregory, from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 

*The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909

**The story of Mr Gregory by Margaret E Taylor from Eltham Records, 1977, Eltham Society

***The Eltham Society, http://theelthamsociety.org.uk/

****Eltham Society Publications, http://theelthamsociety.org.uk/publications.html

Discovering Eltham

Cover of the new edition 2000

I am back in Eltham where I grew up in the 1960s on the Progress Estate.

They say you should never go back to the places of your childhood and there is something in that.

Either they look smaller and are just that bit different or whole landscapes have so altered that you begin to question if your memory is serving you well.

Now my bit of Well Hall looks much the same but they have moved the station built a motorway and many of my favourite haunts in the High Street have changed.

All of which is a lead in to Discover Eltham by Darrell Sprugeon.*

It is a “comprehensive guide to Eltham, New Eltham, Mottingham, Kidbrooke and Shooters Hill.”  So it pretty much covers everywhere I went as a child and certainly everywhere I would want to take my own grown children who while they are all Mancunians have a soft spot for where dad lived.

Mr Spurgeon sets out to offer his reader a mix of history, and places to see which are all wrapped up in a series of walks “but only where places of interest are concentrated within an area which makes walking practicable and interesting.”

Tudor Barn, Well Hall, 16th century

So “beside the famous buildings of royal Eltham, the area covered includes Wren’ great almshouse of Morden College, the extraordinary Sevendroog Castle, set amongst the ancient woodland of Shooters Hill, the Tudor remains of Well Hall, many interesting Victorian churches and two striking churches of the 1930s, two remarkable housing estates of the 20th century; sites of industrial archaeology, interesting pubs; many of which remain rural in character, and much more.”

And there is much I didn’t know. So despite living close to the church of St Barnabas on Rochester Way, I had no idea that this red brick Victorian church was originally the chapel of the Royal Naval Dockyard at Woolwich.  It was “built in 1859 and dismantled and re-erected brick by brick on its present site in 1933.”

Nor did I know of the existence of three streams which flow through Kidbrook and feed into  the Quaggy River.  Of course the clue is in the name Kidbrook, which is clearly derived from the Upper, Mid and Lower Kidbrooks.

Now water courses are a particular interest of mine.  Most today are buried underground all but forgotten but they were vital to our rural communities providing water and acting as boundary markers.

Progress Estate, Ross Way, 1915

I have to own up that it is the Eltham walks which fascinate me most.

And here there is plenty to read and see because Mr Spurgeon includes a selection of photographs along with the text and maps.

The first edition came out in 1992 and a second much revised eight years later.  I have both in front of me.  

The earlier version I bought on Amazon and the later one has come courtesy of the author.

And as a historian what I finds particularly interesting are the changes to the area in that eight years. All of which makes the book a fascinating chronicle of how Eltham has developed.

I rather think that I shall take both with me on some of the walks, thereby getting an insight into the Eltham of 1992, 2000 and of course today.

Pictures; courtesy of Darrell Spurgeon

 *Spurgeon, Darrell, Discover Eltham and its Environ, Greenwich Guide Books, 1992, revised and updated  2000

In the kitchen ……………. in 1959

Now I had all but forgotten this metal food processor.

Long before the swish big electric models, most homes had one of these.

Ours was used to mince the meat from the Sunday roast, and I suspect everything else.

It was made of metal, was operated by hand, and sat on the kitchen table.

Unlike this one, ours had a clamp, which meant that when it was not in use it would be stored away, freeing the table for other uses.

And like so many objects from the family home, I have no idea what happened to it.

I do know that in the fullness of time the basic gas cooker on the left of the picture was replaced by a similar model on the right.

Mum and Dad, I recall bought into a Cannon cooker around 1963, which survived the move from Peckham to Well Hall and lasted well into the 1980s.  Its novel feature was that it had the grill above the hob, which at the time we thought was quite neat.

All of which leaves the source for the picture, which comes from Manchester and was one of three featuring the food processor.

I am not sure why they were taken but I suspect they were part of a series focusing on modern kitchens.

In these energy conscious days, I rather think I would like a hand operated model, if only because they were so easy to use.

At which point I am sure someone will provide advice.

And they have, Barbarello pointed out that a modern version is now being sold, and more than a few have pointed out that we called them a "mincer" which I thought was just a name unique to our family.

Then to finish off Chris Payne sent over a picture of his family mincer, which I instantly recognised as the model we had in or house.

Location; Manchester

Picture; the food processor or mincer, 1959,"Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR0t6qAJ0-XOmfUDDqk9DJlgkcNbMlxN38CZUlHeYY4Uc45EsSMmy9C1YCk 

 , and the more humble one, from Chris Payne, 2020

Round About A Pound A Week ......... London life and London Poor ..... 1913

“Take a tram from Victoria to Vauxhall Station.  

Get out under the railway arch which faces Vauxhall Bridge, and there you will find Kennington Lane.  

The railway arch roofs in a din which reduces the roar of the trains continually passing overhead to a vibrating muffled rumble.”

And with those opening lines Mrs Maud Pember Reeves plunged into a detailed account of the lives of families struggling to make ends meet in the Lambeth of 1913.*

She was a social reformer and feminist who served on the Executive Committees of the Women’s Trade Union League, the National Anti Sweating League, and the Central Committee for Women’s Suffrage along with the Committee of the Fabian Society.

And it was after a lecture given to the Fabian Women’s’ Group on the Economic Disintegration of the Family in 1908 that she and other members of the group set about recording the daily budgets and lives of working class families in Lambeth.

The book details everything from the area where they lived to the daily battle to bring up a family in damp and lousy properties, while balancing a household budget and the ever present threat of unemployment.

It is a book which compliments that of Robert Roberts’s description of life in Salford at much the same time. **

So given that I will no doubt be returning to the book I shall conclude with a little more from the opening chapter

Lambeth, 1874

“From either end of the arch comes a close procession of trams, motor-buses, brewers’ drays, coal lorries, carts filled with unspeakable material for glue factory and tannery, motor cars, coster-barrows, and people. 

It is a stopping-place for tramcars and motorbuses; therefore little knots of agitated persons continually collect on both pathways, and dive between the vehicles and descending passengers in order to board the particular bus or tram they desire.

At rhythmic intervals all traffic through the arch is suspended to allow a flood of trams, buses, drays and vans, to surge and rattle and bang across the opening of the archway which faces the river.

At the opposite end there is the cross current.  The trams slide away to the right towards the Oval. In front is Kennington Lane and to the left at right angles, a narrow street connects with Vauxhall Walk leading further on into Lambeth Walk, both locally known as the Walk.

Such is the western gateway to the districts stretching north to Lambeth Road, south to Lansdowne Road, east to Walworth Road, where live the people whose lives this book is about.

They are not the poorest people of the district.  Far from it!  

They are, putting aside the tradesmen, whose shops line the big thoroughfares such as Kennington Road, or Kennington Park Road, some of the most enviable and settled inhabitants of this part of the world.  

The poorest people- the river-side casual, the workhouse in-and-out, the bar room loafer – anxiously ignored by these respectable persons whose work is permanent, as permanency goes in Lambeth and whose wages range from 18s. to 30s a week.

Picture; cover Round About A Pound A Week, , Virago ed 1979 featuring an image from the Greater London Council Photograph Library and detail of the area in the 1870s from the 1874 OS for London, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

* Round About A Pound A Week, Maud Pember Reeves, 1913, Virago ed 1979

**The Classic Slum, Robert Roberts, 1971

Looking at Eltham in 1930 with the drawings of Llwyd Roberts

Way to the Palace

Today I received a wonderful collection of drawings from my friend Margaret whose husband like me grew up in Eltham.

There are 27 of them in all and they were drawn by Mr Llwyd Roberts and published in the Kentish Times in 1930 and then republished in a slim book in 1966.

And as you do I went looking for copyright permission but given that the Kentish Times has now ceased to publish and the pictures are over 85 years old I think I should be OK.

Mr Roberts was born in Borth in Cardiganshire in 1875 and was articled to a Derby architect later spending  seven years as a draughtsman in Burton Upon Trent before working for a series of Welsh newspapers.

After war service and a period in the British army of occupation he settled in Eltham at Bloxham-gardens working as a topographical artist and concentrating on drawings of the ancient buildings of Kent.

And it will be during this time that he produced the drawings in the book.

Now I have to say that they fascinate me.  Some are quite clearly drawn from his direct observation of the buildings while others may be from earlier pictures and a few are a careful attempt to reconstruct a scene from an earlier period.

All of which may mean that some at least may not be an entirely accurate depiction of the past, but that said I suspect they are as close as we going to get.

And they can be judged against surviving photographs as well as maps and other documents.

At the crossroads, as it might have looked in 1870

So I am for once not going to get too hung up about historical accuracy, after all Mr Roberts was a professional draughtsman engaged in serious representation of  buildings and I doubt that he would have invented much more than the figures who inhabit the pictures.

Added to which there is that simple observation that he was there in Eltham in 1929 and 1930 when the pictures were made and would have known the buildings well.

That should be it but history is an odd and messy subject and does throw up all sorts of coincidences.
So many of us will have stood exactly where he stood and indeed I bet some of his drawings will have graced the walls of our homes.

And it doesn’t end there, Margaret’s husband and I both grew up in Eltham. Margaret was born in Ashton-Under-Lyne where I began my married life, and they were married in the Methodist Church in Waterloo in Ashton having met in Borth while studying.

Added to which when Mr Roberts began his career in Derby my great grandparents were also living in the town.

But that I think is the point to stop and instead promise more of his work over the next few days with a bit more explanation of each drawing.


Locarion; Eltham, London

Picture; the old bridge over the moat of Eltham Palace, and At the crossroads, Llwyd Roberts, circa 1929-30, from Old Eltham, 1966, courtesy of Margaret Copeland Gain

Eltham from the pen of Llwyd Roberts ....... nu 6 the White Hart 1930

Now I am a great fan of the work of Mr Llwyd Roberts.

He was during the 1930s our artist in residence and during that time produced a heap of line drawings of Eltham and the surrounding area.

Some were reproduced from old photographs while others  were as he saw them at the time.

This is the old White Hart which according to Mr Roberts "the White Hart, picturesque with its weatherboard and partly pantiled roof, was the last(first) house in the High Street on the western side."

Picture; the White Hart, 1930, Llwyd Roberts

Eltham from the pen of Llwyd Roberts ....... nu 5

Now I am a great fan of the work of Mr Llwyd Roberts.

He was during the 1930s our artist in residence and during that time produced a heap of line drawings of Eltham and the surrounding area.

Some were reproduced from old photographs while others  were as he saw them at the time.

This is the old Rising Sun which according to Mr Roberts "this old building stood for two centuries on the  site now occupied by the L.E.B. showrooms.  When it was demolished the Rising Sun rose again to the east, on its present site."


Picture; The Rising Sun, 1930, Llwyd Roberts

Wishing you well ........... postcards from Woolwich, Greenwich and Eltham for the summer ..... nu 3 Plumstead

A short series with few words looking at the postcards we sent from Woolwich, Greenwich and Eltham.

Our card was sent from Charlton on Sunday August 3 in the last summer before the Great War to a Mrs Greensmith of 14 Greening Street Abbey Wood.  The sender left their name off the card, but they were pleased that “Mrs G” had sent some kind letters and were sorry that “you couldn’t get a trap they are spoken for.” 

Sill it had been “a lovely day” and there was an invitation for Mrs G to come down any tine.

Location; Plumstead, circa 1913,

Picture; Plumstead, circa 1913, Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdb.org/

The shock of the new ………… Genesta Road

Now I have always liked those smallish terraced houses which are a feature of south east London.

But these four which break the mould, appeal to me.

They are on Genesta Road, just down from Plum Lane, opposite Plumcroft Primary School.

And not for the first time I have to reflect that living in Manchester makes it just that bit more difficult to pursue a story, because there is only so much you can do online, before it becomes necessary to resort to a visit to the local heritage centre, which for me would involve setting aside a couple of days.

So, until someone comes forward with some information, I am left to wonder about when they were built.

They may be the result of infill after bomb damage during the last war.  I did also think that perhaps the plot had never been built on but given that the rest of the road is dominated by those terraced houses, which while they differ slightly in their design are much of a muchness.

Either way the four are a bold statement with some interesting features, like the balconies, and the garages.

I am grateful to John King for sharing the picture and I am always pleased when he posts images from south east London, because they are always interesting.

And that is all I am going to say and shall just wait for someone to comment.

And within less than hour of posting the story, people have helped me out.  Debbie Sullivan provided me a link to a site on Modern Housing, and Phil Clarkstone found a reference to our four on Wikipedia.*

Now as everyone knows I don’t as a rule rip off other people’s research, so I suggest you follow the link to read more about 85-91 Genesta Road, leaving me just to say that they were built in 1934, and were indeed infill, taking the place of an orchard.

So, that really is it, I think.  I shall close with a thank you to John who took the picture and to Debbie and Phil, reflecting on that simple observation that history should always be a shared project.

Location; Plumstead

Picture; Genesta Road, 2019, from the collection of John King

**85-91 Genesta Road, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/85%E2%80%9391_Genesta_Road?fbclid=IwAR3PODqYgmLbF7_R4rlTXC6kofyRL59byLDfB9WQZafU8PlgBs_-PuQTYlI

Greenwich Park, and a moment a full 53 years ago .......... nu 2 from the river

It will be a full 55 years ago but the memory of that walk through Greenwich Park on a Saturday in September 1971 has never left me.

I was in my second year at Manchester Poly and the pull of Well Hall and the family were still strong and so
I found myself back home with three friends.

Lois was from Weston and Mike and John from Leeds and we travelled down from Manchester in John’s van on the Friday night.

Even now I have to say I haven’t forgotten the kindness of David Hatch who agreed to put Lois, Mike and John up on his floor.

It was a brief stay and most of it is a blur except for the walk from the gates on the Blackheath side through the park to Wolf’s statue, the observatory and that view down to the river.

At any time of the year that short stroll is pretty good but in late autumn it is magic.  The leaves are on the turn and the bright sunlight can still surprise you with its degree of warmth and the way it brings out the colours all around you.

Now we never made it across the river but had we I am sure we would have been rewarded with a view like this.


All of which just leaves me to reflect on the postcard which was marketed in the USA and carried the imprint of the American YMCA of which there must be a story, but not for now.

Location; Greenwich

Picture; Greenwich Park, 1905 from the series Greenwich, marketed in 1911-12 by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdb.org/

Off Greenwich, 1904

This is called Off Greenwich and the original was painted by Professor Van Hier

Location; Greenwich







Picture, Off Greenwich in the series, On the Thames, issued by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

Sunset, Greenwich, 1904

The third of four picture postcards of Greenwich.

Sunset, Greenwich by Professor Van Hier

Picture, Sunset, Greenwich, in the series, On the Thames, issued by Tuck & Sons, 1904, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

Sunrise Greenwich, 1904

The second of four picture postcards of Greenwich.

Sunrise, Greenwich by Professor Van Hier

Picture, Sunrise, Greenwich, in the series, On the Thames, issued by Tuck & Sons, 1904, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

Moonlight, Greenwich, 1904

The last of four picture postcards of Greenwich.

Moonlight, Greenwich by Professor Van Hier

Picture, Sunset, Greenwich, in the series, On the Thames, issued by Tuck & Sons, 1904, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

Walking through Eltham with Darrell Sprurgeon, ... Well Hall

Returning to the series featuring Discover Eltham.*

I am a great fan of Discover Eltham, so much so that I have two copies, and both are now battered and in need of tender care.

But that is what happens with guide books, if you use them it will show.

Sadly both the 1992 and 2000 editions are out of print and so here are short extracts from the book and the walks you can do.

Well Hall forms section F and is a gentle stroll from the Tudor Barn, up past the Coronet Cinema and the Church of St Barnabus through the Progress Estate and on to The Martyrs Church taking in the memorial to Stephen Lawrence.

Well Hall, 69, an attractive and fascinating building now called the Tudor Barn as well as the moat walls, a bridge and some gardens have survived from the grounds of the Tudor mansion of well Hall: all are now set in a pleasant park.

The state goes back to at least the 13th century.  In the early 16th century a mansion called well Hall was built by the Roper family on the moated site of an earlier house and some medieval structures may have been retained.  In 1733 the estate was purchased by Sir Gregory Page to add to his already extensive Wricklemarsh estate at Blackheath.  He demolished the Tudor house and built a large new mansion on the other side of the moat to the east.

The house was occupied by a succession of people some more famous than others and finally from 1899 to 1933 by the children’s writer Edith Nesbit.  

The house was badly damaged by a fire in 1926, and the whole site was acquired by the then Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich in 1929, to become the Well Hall Pleasaunce.

Nothing remains of the 16th century mansion bit the moat with its largely Tudor brick banks and the Tudor stone arched bridge to the east have survived.(69a)  There is a modern wooden bridge over the moat to the west.

Substantial sections of the original Tudor garden walls to the south have been preserved; in the westernmost walls five triangular headed niches (some blocked) which may have been bee-boles, can be seen.

The Tudor Barn (69b & 69c) now a pub, was part of the original Tudor complex of buildings.  Its original purpose is unknown but it was probably not a barn.  It is a well preserved redbrick building, facing the site of the main mansion across the north arm of the moat, an extension to the moat run along the west side of the building.  A coat of arms on the north side front bears the date 1568, but it is generally considered to date from earlier in the 16th century.

Original features include the patterned black brick, the chimneys stacks at the west end and the rectangular mullioned windows (some blocked) at the east end; the windows at the west end are 17th century.  On the east wall the monogram WR (William Roper) and Edith Nesbit’s bell can be seen.

The white column by the lawn facing the entrance is a sundial of 1941.

The interior is worth viewing especially for the Tudor fireplaces on both floors.  On the ground floor note at the west end an original Tudor brick fireplace, and a section of distinctive stone and pebble tiled floor (which was imported later).  The upper floor is dominated by the exposed rood timbers.  

Note the west end  an original Tudor red brick fireplace, and on the south side a wall a later Tudor stone fire place with fine carving.  

In the west wall is a stained glass window showing Thomas More and his daughter Margaret Roper, designed after Holbein’s portrait by Margaret Cowel 1949.

Next;  Coronet Cinema and the Church of St Barnabus through the Progress Estate and on to The Martyrs Church taking in the memorial to Stephen Lawrence.

* Discover Eltham and its Environ, Darrell Spurgeon, Greenwich Guide Books, 2nd edition 2000

Pictures; map from Eltham and its Environ,, remaining images courtesy of Scott MacDonald