Eltham Palace and Eltham People, revisiting a story

Now all too often when you come across books on Eltham Palace they concentrate quite rightly on the building, its history and the people of plenty who occupied the place.

All of which is fine but begs the question of what impact did the Palace have on Eltham?

After all some of the food that graced the fine banqueting tables will have been grown by local farmers and more than a few of the servants who washed cleaned and maintained the gardens might have gone home to a cottage near the High Street.

And then over its years as an empty shell surely a few of our children acting out a dare will have wandered through its grounds?

The stories of these little people do not get into the history books, so I am pleased that the Eltham Society published Eltham Palace and Eltham People which goes a little way to redress that omission.*

It came out in 2003, was reprinted in 2008 and is still available from the Society.**

Here there are chapters on the Palaces’ relationship with Eltham as far back  as 1086 along with events held in the Hall and grounds in the 19th century and the connection with the Courtauld family and as they say much More.

*Eltham Society, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Eltham%20Society

** Eltham Palace and Eltham People, £2.50 [members] £3.00 [non members], Eltham Society Publications, http://www.theelthamsociety.org.uk/publications.php

Eltham in Pictures ......... one to do ..... today

Now its that time again when the Eltham Society presents its annual exhibition “Eltham in Pictures” which is on today at St Mary’s Community Centre, Eltham High Street.

This year the subject is "Eltham Connections" or "Where is my seat?" and explores the lives of a few more people with Eltham connections who might merit a presence on our high street furniture.

The exhibition will be opened by Tom Gregory at 11. am who is the  author of A Boy in the Water.*

It will be open from 10.30am to 4pm

Admission is free and Refreshments will be available.

Location; Eltham

Picture; looking up towards Eltham High Street, 2015, from the collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick

*A Boy in the Water by Tom Gregory, review – the youngest English Channel swimmer,
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Boy-Water-Tom-Gregory/dp/0241354129

Walking Eltham High Street in the company of Frankie Howerd, Kate Bush, Bob Hope, and thirty more

Now if you walk up the High Street you will have spotted and even used the collection of wooden benches that run from Westmount Road down past the parish church to Wythfield Road.

There are 33 of them and each is engraved with the names of people who were in one way or another associated with Eltham.

Some like Frankie Howerd and Bob Hope are well known while others like Sir Stephen Coutauld and R.R.C. Gregory have slipped into the shadows.

The full thirty three names include politicians, artists, writers, and musicians, along with actors, engineers and sports personalties.

Some just briefly passed through Eltham, others made their home here and some are intricately bound up with our history.

And it was the Eltham Society which set about exploring how each of the 33 were connected to Eltham and that became the subject of their 2018 exhibition, entitled "Sitting Pretty in Eltham which sought to explain the stories behind the names on the seats and their local relevance.

The exhibition was held at the St Mary’s Community Centre in Eltham High Street on 24 February 2018 and was opened by Andy Barrow, one of those whose achievements are celebrated by having a bench named in their honour”.*

And having staged the exhibition the Society turned into a book, which is also called Sitting Pretty in Eltham.

It is available from the Eltham Society price £2.50 plus 75p postage.

Mine arrived today and it is fascinating.

And that is all I want to say, other than you can read it in front of the fire, or take it with you, starting with Frankie Howard and finishing outside the Draughts with Steve Peregrin Took.

Location; Eltham High Street

Picture; looking up the High Street, 2015, from the collection of  Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick,

*Sitting Pretty in Eltham, The stories behind the names on the High Street benches, 2018, The Eltham Society, http://theelthamsociety.org.uk/

"In and around Eltham" .............. paintings “to jog your memory”

Now here is one I wish I could go to.  

Today I got my invitation from the Eltham Society to “our annual exhibition this Saturday, the 18th.*

This year we are “In and Around Eltham” with pictures to jog your memory. 

It is at St Mary’s Community Centre in the High Street from 10.30am to 4pm. 

It will be formally opened at 11am by Mark Wall who has been publishing SEnine for the last 10 years. In six weeks time he will be returning to Perth.

There will be refreshments available and St Mary’s will be having an Open Day in the upstairs rooms.”

And it is open to the public.  So I suggest you go along and perhaps report back, after all I may be in Manchester but I still miss Eltham and in particular Well Hall where I grew up.

Alas I shall be engaged here in the city launching a new book  **

But enough of such outrageous self promotion.

“In and Around Eltham” .......... St Mary’s Community Centre in the High Street from 10.30am to 4pm, Saturday February 18th.

Location; Eltham

Picture; Eltham Palace, 2015 from the collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick

*The Eltham Society

**Manchester Remembering 1914-18 

The Eltham Society ............... happy birthday

This month is the birthday of the Eltham Society which has been looking after Eltham since 1965.

The aims of the Society are enshrined in its motto of “Preserving the past, Conserving the present, and Protecting the future” which sums up neatly what it does.

It has a wide ranging set of publications on Eltham’s history, keeps a careful watch on new developments and just celebrates a place I love.

At this point I have to own up to being a later comer.

I only joined a few years ago but in my defence I was only 14 when the society was established, had moved up to Manchester four years later and by 1974 was a home owner here in the north.

And that pretty much is the story of the next forty-one years.

But I do get back occasionally and in the meantime avidly read the society’s newsletter which mixes articles of Eltham’s past with a regular update on the on the changes in the area.

And for any of us who no longer live in Eltham that regular update on what is going on is both fascinating and a continued link to where I grew up.

It is compiled by Mr John Kennet who regularly writes for SENine on the history of the area and has a number of books and pamphlets recording Eltham’s past.

Not that he is alone in writing about how the place has changed.  The newsletter always has at least one article on some aspect of Eltham’s past which are all the more powerful because they are by people who write from firsthand experience.

So the November newsletter contains an account by Patricia Sharman of her memories of living in Jubilee Cottages between 1941 and 1951 which is complimented by an account of how the High Street has changed in half a century.

Not that everyone who lives in Eltham has the same sense of civic pride evidenced by the wanton vandalism to one of the notice boards up by Eltham Palace.

Our Elizabeth and Colin had wandered off towards the Palace last Sunday and having recoded some fine pictures of the High Street recoded this less than pleasant one.

And that neatly brings me back to the Society and its continuing role in helping preserve the place I grew up in, which just leaves me to wander off in the rain and post my subscription which is just 315 which is a modest price for what I get in return.

Pictures; around Eltham Palace, October 2015, from the collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick

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

Passionate about local history

Eltham in 1909

Now I collect local history groups, in fact I hoover them up, avidly signing up to their newsletters mentioning them on the blog and where practical going to the meetings.

And it is because I just don’t think you can get enough local history.

After all when it comes down to it for most of us where we live is important and making sense of what happened  in the past helps understand how the place has developed.

Of course there are  the sniffy historians who mumble on about parish pump events and the need to see the bigger picture, but the bigger picture always ends at the bottom of your road, whether it’s the closure of the local factory during a depression, or the very real and personal conflict of conscience when them at the top decide that it would be better if we followed a Protestant Prayer Book and attended a church devoid of holy pictures.

And it is the local and the family historians who often unearth the evidence that either confirms or rubbishes the great sweep of history theory.

North Cray, © J.D.Gammon

So all of this is to introduce two new ones, the Eltham Society and the North Cray Residents Association.*

Now I rather suspect the secretaries of both will rightly say “we have got on very well for the last x number of years without this Northern chap writing about us,” which is perfectly true but won’t stop me.

The Eltham Society was founded in1965 which was the year after we washed up in the place, although I have to confess with a hint of embarrassment that I only joined this year.  But in my defence I was 14 in 1964, left Eltham for Manchester five years later and only felt that I could start writing about its history recently.

North Cray beat it by 21 years having been set up in the March of 1944 which strikes me as a bit odd given the titanic sweep of history that was going on at the time.  But then the very idea that people could be thinking about the future at such a time appeals to the optimist in me.

The Tudor Barn, Well Hall © Scott MacDonald

And takes me back to that simple idea that if you like somewhere you will want to keep it nice, watch carefully the developments a foot and judge those changes by what has gone on before which fits with Eltham’s  “Preserving the Past, Conserving the Present, Protecting the Future.”

Often the history side grows out of what was a residents association or in our case a Civic Society.

All too often I chose to dismiss them, falling back on the ignorant prejudice that here were a group of penny pinching hard faced zealots unwilling to spend for the common good or wrapped up in arcane practises.

Nor is this so far from the mark in the late 19th century.  Our own Chorlton Residents Association was quick to scrutinise the profligate actions of local government, but then they also campaigned for the provision of better education, sanitation, public libraries and street lighting, all of which I approve of.**

So yet again history is messy, which just leaves me to suggest you explore the history sections of their web sites.

* The Eltham Society http://www.theelthamsociety.org.uk/ and the  North Cray Residents Association http://www.northcrayresidents.org.uk/

** “exercising a rigorous protest against extravagance” ......... The Chorlton Ratepayers Association 1877-?
http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/exercising-rigorous-protest-against_12.html

Picture; The Kings Arms from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/ Footscray courtesy of J.D.Gammon, and the Tudor Barn, courtesy of Scott McDonald