So were you in the Eltham Hill Gaumont on Sunday September 12 1965?

Now you pretty much know it’s time to get a life when you go looking for the date for a film listing for the Eltham Hill Gaumont.

Eltham Hill Gaumont, 1998

The listing was posted recently by Kath May and advertised the four films showing for the week beginning September 12.

For those with time on their hands on that Sunday the cinema was showing for just the one day The Unknown with Dean Jagger and Teenage Frankenstein with Whit Bissell, Phyllis Coates and Gary Conway.

With titles like that they were of course X rated under the old Board of Censorship classification and if there was anyone still unsure the listing carried the warning Adults only.

Now I have never really given it much thought but I suppose Sunday in the cinema in the 1950s and 60s would be a slow day.

The cinema , circa 1938

Most people would have gone on a Friday or Saturday night and the week would be given over to a more discerning audience, leaving Sunday for those just over 18 with money left in their pockets and with a taste for the macabre.

For the rest of the week starting on the Monday and running for a full six days there was Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn in Last Train from Gun Hill which was an A and Yul Brynner in Escape from Zahrain.

I went looking for the plots of the four films and wish I hadn’t bothered.  Suffice to say that today I doubt that even the most desperate of TV executives would look to showing them on even the graveyard slot.

So as a reward and in answer to Kath’s musings of when this week was I went off and roamed the records.  

Film poster, 1957

Now the films themselves were no clue.  The Unknown dated from 1956, Teenage Frankenstein from the following year and Last Train from 1959 which left Escape from Zahrain which was made in 1962.

But given that you can on the internet find a day if you have the month and the year with just a little bit of fiddling it was possible to place Sunday September 12 in 1965.

Which just leaves me to record that the Gaumont had opened on April 14 1938 showing Queen Victoria with Anna Neagle and closed on June 19 1967 with David Niven in Happy Go Lovely and Dana Andrews in Duel in the Jungle.*

It reopened as a Mecca Bingo Club and the rest as they say is a down to two fat ladies and a joyful shout of Bingo.

But I wouldn't have done the job properly if I didn't also try to date the second picture of the cinema.

It was showing Will Hay's film Oh Mr Porter which was released in 1937 and so I am guessing it will be the late 1930s.

And that's all I am going to say except to thank Kath for finding and posting the film listing leaving me to go off and watch the paint dry on the back door.

Picture; the old cinema November 1998 courtesy of David Simpson and sometime before 1952, cousinadnab taken from Gaumont Eltham Hill, Cinema Treasures, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/14991 and film poster for Teenage Frankenstein, 1957 which is in the public domain

* Gaumont Eltham Hill, Cinema Treasures, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/14991

What a difference a century makes ............. looking down to Eltham Hill in 2015 and 1915

I like this view from St John’s church yard down towards Eltham Hill.

It is one I have taken for granted but nicely shows just how Eltham has changed in a century and reminds me how I have yet to track down the story of Eltham Brewery and the Kenward brothers who were listed as the owners in 1914.

The brewery was originally further up the High Street but so far I haven’t discovered much in the way of any references to either building.

And that is a bit odd given the number of people who will have once worked for the Kenward brothers.

That said I did come across a James Kenward at Rosslyn on Footscray Road in the 1890s but he appears not to have been connected with brewing, so the hunt goes on.

In the meantime I will also go in search of shop keepers who occupied the properties on the south side of the road.

Location; Eltham, London












Pictures; looking down to Eltham Hill, 2015 from the collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitpatrick,  and the brewery in 1915 GRW 325 in 1917, GRW 215, http://boroughphotos.org/greenwich/ courtesy of Greenwich Heritage Centre, http://www.greenwichheritage.org/site/index.php

Queenscroft, the one you can miss

Queenscroft, 2013 

Queenscroft is one of those places you can miss which is a pity because it has a rich history dating back to 1720 and maybe even earlier.

And not for the first time I am struck by one of the major differences between Eltham where I grew up and Chorlton cum Hardy where I have lived for the last 37 years.

Both were small rural communities on the edge of big cities, and both were seen by those with money as a good place to live.

But Chorlton had fewer of those big fine houses and all of them have now vanished save two modest properties unlike Eltham which had more and has been lucky enough to keep many of them.

During the last century most of them have changed their use but they are still there.

A once elegant home

Which brings me back to Queenscroft which stands at 150 Eltham Hill next to a larger neo Georgian block of yellow brick built in 1973.

Today the property is not seen at its best.

It is sandwiched between other properties and is close to the road, so that the only way to fully take in its splendour is to stand on the opposite side of Eltham Hill and gaze at it between passing traffic.

But just a century ago it was still set well back from the highway behind a stone wall and sixty years earlier commanded fine views at the rear across open land.

To the east and behind the house was an orchard and then just fields all the way down to the Palace.

Queens Croft in 1909 with garden wall and orginal spelling

It had fourteen rooms and a little of its former elegance can be seen from the well proportioned windows and front entrance.

At the turn of the last century it was occupied by a Colonel Tasker and then by Lieutenant Edward Beddington and his wife Elsie, their two young sons and five servants.

In 1911 Lieutenant Edward Beddington was 27 and an officer in the 16th Lancers and according to his military record was one of the “Old Contemptibles” who had fought in the opening months of the Great War in France.  Unlike so many of the British Expeditionary Force he survived the war and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel and died in 1926.

In time it should be possible track most of the families of Queenscroft over the last two centuries, and one has already come to light.

Looking east up the hill with the church in background

This was John and Elizabeth Garland who were there by 1841 and may have been living in the house on the hill by 1837.

In that year John who was a wine merchant is listed as paying land tax in Eltham and two years later is in the tithe schedule.

There after he appears in various directories, the 1851 census and the poll book for 1852 which also records that he voted Liberal in the General Election.

He died in Eltham in the January of 1854 and was buried in the parish church Elizabeth his wife survived him by another twelve years.

Queenscroft in 1874

I shall return to the people of Queenscroft because there will be other stories of the people who lived behind its front door.

And only today my friend Jean has gone off to check out more of its history including a memory of going there to arrange a visit from the sweep who lived in the place.

So that just leaves the map of the area with Queenscroft in 1870 with the house in red.

Pictures; Queenscroft,  1909,  from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm
Queenscroft today from the collection of Jean Gammons  and map of Eltham from the OS map of Kent, 1858-74

Discovering more about John and Elizabeth Garland and their home in 1843

Queenscroft today

I am back with John and Elizabeth Garland who lived in that fine house called Queenscroft on Eltham Hill in 1841.*

The house is still there sandwiched between other properties and is close to the road so that the only way to fully take in its splendour is to stand on the opposite side of Eltham Hill and gaze at it between passing traffic.

But just a century ago it was still set well back from the highway behind a stone wall and sixty years earlier commanded fine views at the rear across open land.

It is the sort of house that will suit the life of a man who described himself as a wine merchant.  It had eleven rooms and still looks elegant although some of its past glory has faded a bit.

Now I know John and Elizabeth were in Queenscroft by 1841 and may have been thee on the hill by 1837.
In that year John was listed as paying land tax in Eltham and two years later is in the tithe schedule.

And it is of the tithe schedule that I want to write about today.

This was a list of who owned the land, who rented it, along with its value and the use it was put to.
Tithe schedules were drawn up in the late 1830s and early 1840s and allow you to track the people of Eltham because the list is linked to a map and the map precisely pinpoints where they lived.

So John Garland rented just over two acres of land from the Crown upon which was his house and garden, a pleasure garden, pigsties, yard, knife and coalhouse, stable and yard, another garden with a building and an acre of meadowland.

The tithe map showing Queenscroft at number 41

All of which were close together.

His house, garden and pleasure garden are numbered on the schedule as 41 and this corresponds on the map to Queenscroft which is pretty much opposite Sherrard Road, while the stable and yard were listed as number 64 and the meadow land as number 70.

These last two were just a little to the east of the house and are now the gardens of houses on Kings Orchard.

And of course all the other great and wealthy and not so great and less rich inhabitants can be placed around Eltham and comparing these too the census returns and street directories it is possible to follow our people around the place, judging whether their fortunes have waxed or waned by where they lived.

But the tithe schedule and map are just the start, for there are also tax records and electoral registers all which both anchor men like John Garland but shed light on his prosperity and even his political opinions, because according to the 1854 poll book he voted Liberal in the General Election of that year.

Sadly Elizabeth is rarely touched by these records as are few other women.  Most of the names on the tithe schedule are men, as are the entries on the tax records and of course no women qualified for a parliamentary vote.

Queenscroft in 1909

They do appear in their own right on the census records and may appear on the directories if they are single or widowed and will be there in the parish records.

But as ever it will always be easier to track men and especially men of substance, and so I shall return to the Garland’s.

He died in Eltham in the January of 1854 and was buried in the parish church Elizabeth his wife survived him by another twelve years.

Location; Eltham, London

Pictures; Queenscroft,  1909,  from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm
Queenscroft today from the collection of Jean Gammons  and detail from the  1844 Tithe map for Eltham courtesy of Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone

*Queenscroft, that house on Eltham Hill, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Eltham%20in%20the%201840s

It’s what they do ….. when you are not there …… knocking down Eltham Baths

Now, for everyone who never left Eltham or moved in some time at the turn of this century the demolition of Eltham Baths is not news.

But then I left for good in 1973, and on visits back over the next few decades, it was just a place to show the kids…… one of Eltham’s landmarks.

It was built between 1938-39, contained two swimming pools, the larger one had tiered seating for 320 spectators and a smaller one was mainly intended for instruction.

A hydrotherapy pool was added in 1968.*

But I haven’t been back for a while, and our last flying visit took us down Well Hall Road, past the old family home and on to Woolwich, a river crossing and the long journey back to Manchester.

So, I was only vaguely aware that the baths had closed in 2008, and were knocked down three years later.

I would like to say that a little bit of my childhood had been taken away when it shut its doors, but I must confess I never went.

We only washed up in Well Hall in 1964, and by then I was past going to swimming pools, although I have fond memories of the open air one in Danson Park in the long hot summers of the late 1960s.

Sad to say that has also gone…… closed in 1979, demolished in the 1980s and now grassed over.

So, I indebted to the site Blackfen Past and Present which informed me that, “Danson was opened as a public park in 1925 and was a popular place for meeting up with friends and family. 

There was an aviary containing birds near the Mansion, a boating lake, miniature railway and deck chairs for hire. A swimming pool opened on 25 July 1936, located on the southern edge of the park. 

There was a large rectangular main pool with an ornamental fountain, a paddling pool for children and a beginners’ pool. There was a cafe selling pots of tea and on hot summer days it was wise to get there early to avoid disappointment as queues would run all down the road”.**

The passage of time has left those visits a bit of a blur, but I do remember waiting outside the Rising Sun, with John Coward, and two friends from Eltham Green nursing a hangover and waiting for a bus to the pool.

All of which has taken me away from Eltham Baths, and a fine selection of photographs taken by John King and posted today on social media.

I  thank John for giving me permission to reproduce them.

The eagle eyed will have spotted I have omitted pictures of Danson Park, but then Tricia posted some recently so it has not been entirely missed out.

Leaving me just to reflect I really must get back to Eltham more frequently.

Location; Eltham

Pictures; Eltham Baths, 2008-2019, from the collection of John King

*Former Eltham Baths, Mola, https://www.mola.org.uk/former-eltham-baths-eltham-hill-london-se9-standing-building-survey-report

**Danson Park Swimming Pool, Blackfen Past and Present, December 31, 2014, https://blackfenpastandpresent.com/2014/12/31/danson-park-swimming-pool/