On Shooters Hill with Mrs Craven and George Field in the June of 1841

I have decided to head north of Well Hall to Shooters Hill in search of a story. 

Back in the 1830s and 40s, it was a mixed bunch of those deriving an income from the land and the well off.

So of our forty two people in gainful employment in the June of 1841 the largest group were those who described themselves as agricultural labourers, farm servants or gardeners.

These were followed by those of “Independent means” along with one solicitor, a governess, a tea broker and a publican.

They lived fairly close together on the southern side of Shooters Hill on a stretch facing the Bull Inn.

And I guess quite a few of our band of workers would have spent time in the company of George Field who along with his wife Mary ran the Bull Inn.

Not that I would expect the Bull was ever frequented by Louisa Crewe who rented 21 acres  from the Crown and lived in Hazelwood House which was a big enough pile for it to be marked and named on the tithe map of 1844.

She had not long become a widow.

But of her, her employees and the others in Shooters Hill more next time.
Location, Shooters Hill , London

Picture; detail from the tithe map of Eltham, courtesy of Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone, http://www.kent.gov.uk/leisure_and_culture/kent_history/kent_history__library_centre.aspx

Eltham from the pen of Llwyd Roberts ....... nu 1 the old parish church circa 1840

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

He 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.

Many were published in the Kentish Times in 1930 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.

I featured some of my favourite deawings earlier in the year and over the next few days I shall show so more.

According to Mt Roberts this "was the old parish Church.and the Kings' Arms as they might have loked between 1840-1860."

Location; Eltham

Picture; Eltham Parish Church; drawn circa 1930, Llwyd Roberts

Walking Well Hall Lane in 1843, all fields and not a lot else

I am back in Well Hall, or to be more accurate just north of what was Well Hall House and heading north through what is now the Progress Estate.

What is now Well Hall Pleasaunce is down at the bottom of the map, and our journey up along Well Hall Lane to Shooters Hill would have been a pleasant enough stroll past open fields.

Now what makes this such a fascinating stroll is that courtesy of this tithe map and the accompanying notes, we know who owned this land, who rented it and what it was used for.

All of which makes such a stroll a journey deep into the Eltham of the 1840s.  We can even find out who lived in the cottages in that year and comparing these with census returns, and rate books get an idea of just how long people stayed put in one place.

Location; Well Hall, Eltham, London













Picture; detail of the land to the north of 1843 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

An invitation to the church do and the story of Peter Wakeman

The invitation 

Until a few days ago I had no idea that Peter Wakenham ever existed, but he did and he has left an interesting paper trail for a man who described himself as a labourer.

We know where he lived in the middle decades of the 19^th century, the names of his wife, two children and when he died.

To this we can also add his birth year and the fact that on September 5th 1833 he was invited to the slap up meal in honour of the Rev. J.K. Shaw Brooke who had completed fifty years as the vicar of Eltham

Now none of this is unusual but men like Peter have tended to be forgotten by history.  It is not that they have been written out but rather no one thought them significant enough to be written in.

Peter in Court Yard from the 1841 census 

All of which is a shame because Peter lived in Eltham for 74 years, worked the land as an agricultural labourer and unlike some of his contemporaries could write his own name.

Now this we know because at the wedding of his daughter in 1840 he signed his name as a witness while both his son in law and his father left their mark. 

His signature in 1840

Illiteracy was still a real problem and to get some idea of the number of people who couldn’t read and write in 1851 the authors of  the census on Education fell back on the simple test of how many were able to sign their marriage certificate as against those who put a cross or mark. 

The “test of marriage marks” was not in itself an over accurate form of assessment as the report pointed out “the art of writing is with great facility forgotten by the poor who find no application for it, while for various causes some who can write nevertheless decline to sign the register.”*

It did however show that the number of people signing with a mark had progressively been dropping from 1839. In that year it was 41.6%, in 1840, 42%, and down to 40.8% in 1841 and by 1851 was 38%.

Wedding record for Ann Wakeham in 1840

And while there was a 4% fall in the numbers of men and women who used their mark this hid a disparity between the sexes. Men using their mark dropped from 33.7% in 1839 to 30.8% in 1851 while in women it fell from 49.5% to 45.3%,

But both his children could write.  Ann signed her name at her wedding and his son was to rise to become a farm bailiff.

What is more remarkable is the way that Peter came to my attention.  There were plenty of agricultural labourers in Eltham all of whom have been remembered in some official records but by sheer chance Peter’s invitation to the Jubilee dinner for Shaw Brooke survived and was recorded by the historian R.R.C. Gregory.

The invitation

One side was printed “1833. Eltham Jubilee, in commemoration of the 50th year the Rev. J.K. Shaw Brooke has resided within the parish as Vicar, universally beloved and respected” and invited “Peter Wakemean ... to partake on Thursday , the 5th day of September, of a dinner provided by public subscription in token of the respect and regard entertained the Vicar of the Parish Of Eltham, 1833

N.B. You are quested to wear this card with the other side in front, in a conspicuous manner, to attend on the day in the Court Yard and to bring with you a knife and fork.”

And that was what Peter Wakeman did for according to Mr Gregory “around the card are the needle marks to shew that it had been carefully sewn upon some conspicuous part of his attire.”**

The day went well and the invitation card was kept, eventually being attached to the back of an engraving of the vicar where it stayed for nearly 75 years.

Court Yard in 1844

Peter died in 1852 and for part of his later years he had lived with his son and family.  Before that we have him on Court Yard which was a densely packed row of 17 houses on the east side and another smaller group facing them.

I can’t place him exactly along the row but this was where he was in 1833 and where he was still living eight years later.

But there is still more to do.  Sadly the parish records are incomplete for the period that his children would have been baptised, but the entry for 1815 gives us the name of his daughter Ann and his wife Sarah. 

Now the hunt is on for both Ann and Sarah.  At present I know Sarah married in Woolwich in 1840 and that Sarah had died before the June of 1841, but there will be more.

It is all just a matter of patient research and perhaps another lucky break like the invitation card, which is how I like my history, a bit messy and always full of surprises.

Next; A walk down Court Yard in the June of 1841

Baptismal record of Ann Wakeman 1815

Pictures; of Peter’s invitation card 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 detail of Eltham High Street, 1843 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

*1851 Census of Great Britain on Education

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

Baptismal records and census extracts from ancestry.co.uk courtesy of The National Archives

With John Fry, builder, sawyer, land agent and appraiser in Eltham circa 1837

Fry's Buildings numbered as 264-275 in 1844

John Fry is another of those people that has faded pretty much from history.

He appears only once in The Story of Royal Eltham* and yet the more I looked into the contemporary records the more there was about the man.

He is there of course in the census returns but also the land tax records, the tithe schedule and the parish records.

Not bad for a man who up until recently I knew only as a name for a block of cottages tucked behind the High Street.

All of which remains an instructive lesson in how even the forgotten of history can be rediscovered.

Which begs the question of why John Fry?

The answer is partly because the paper trail is there and also that such people were important to the community and so deserve to be recorded as such.

He was born in 1792 in Kent, possibly at Tunbridge and may have been in Eltham by 1818 for although I can find no record of his marriage to Henrietta she was from Eltham and their first daughter was baptized in the parish church in October 1819.

The Smithy just a little east of their home, 1909

He described himself variously as a builder, carpenter, sawyer, land agent and appraiser and in 1833 he built Fry’s Buildings which were just north of the High Street.

They were twelve wooden cottages** which faced east across the fields with longish gardens at the rear.

The buildings were only demolished in 1957 to make way for an extension to Hinds Store and an additional playground to the old village school on Roper Street.

As cottages go they were a decent size consisting of three rooms upstairs and two down.***  And in 1837 were assessed for the land tax at £3 12shillings.

It was these properties which allowed him to qualify to vote in Parliamentary elections and in the election of 1837 he voted for the two Tory candidates.

Fry's Buildings and their home shown in in yellow, 1858-73

His standing in the community was high enough for him to be one of the assessors for the land tax in 1837 and he was active as a church warden.

All of which does bring him out of the shadows.

We know also that his three daughters were all baptized in the parish church, and that he his eldest was still living with him in 1871.****

There is still much to uncover but as  a start I am pretty pleased with how much we know about John and Harriet and so we will leave them in their house set back from the High Street in a long garden a little west of his twelve cottages.

This house, the workshop and his garden he rented from a Francis Kirkpatrick of which
more later.

Location; Eltham, London

*R.R.C.Gregory, the Story of Royal Eltham, 1909
**Ibid Gregory
***1911 census
**** Harriet, 1819, Lydia, 1823,and Sarah 1825

Pictures, 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
and Fry's Buildings from the the OS map of Kent 1858-73, the Smithy 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

Walking along Court Yard in the June of 1841, looking for John Martin and Hannah Simmons

Court Yard, 1858-73

“If you take up a position upon the spot where what we now call the Court-yard meets the High Street, you will be standing at the centre of village activity and trade in olden times.”*

Now I am not quite sure when our local historian R.R.C. Gregory means by olden times, but I guess it will be sometime from the Middle Ages onwards.

Because it was here that the weekly market and annual fair were held from 1299 when John de Vesci the lord of the manor obtained a charter for a weekly fair on Tuesdays, and an annual  fair on the eve of Holy Trinity and the following two days.

It continued throughout the Middle Ages and even after it was discontinued there were four annual fairs until 1778.

Mr Gregory also records that the parish stocks “are said to have existed on the left hand side of the way, not many yards from the High-street,” along with a number of  pumps one close to the corner of the High Street, another a little further along Court Yard, with a third near the lower gateway leading to the churchyard.

Now in an age before mains water supplied, pumps ponds and water courses were very important, particularly given the concentration of properties along the Court Yard.

The 1843 tithe map shows seventeen properties along the east side of the road with a few more on the opposite side but this is a little deceptive because according the census return for two years earlier there were no less than thirty-two households which comprised 195 people.

I have yet to look at the Rate Books but it rather looks as if some properties were sub let.

Old buildings on Court Yard, Christmas 1980

Either way our picturesque ancient road was a populous place with the church at one end, the Crown in the middle and another publican at the end, serving both the spiritual and temporal needs of the community.

It was a mixed group of people with plenty of agricultural labourers a sprinkling of skilled artisans and a few who described themselves of independent means.

And as ever it is the people themselves who draw you in, like 25 years old Hannah Simmons, living wither her three children and what I take to be her sister in law and two children plus a fifteen year old girl who could be a lodger of sister.

It is easy to be judgemental and I did wonder whether Hannah was a single parent. Not that the period was as harsh on women who had children outside marriage as we have been led to believe..  There is plenty of evidence here in the parish records of single women baptizing their children in front of the congregation.

But in the case of Hannah the records show she stood beside her husband at the baptising of Elizabeth in 1839, Joseph in 1840 and Sarah in 1843.children.  The record also that a Joseph Simmons was staying on the night of the 1841 census at Middle Park House on the night of the 1841 census, and a decade later they have moved to Shooters Hill.**

Equally revealing is the story of the Crown. In 1840 it was being run by John Blundell who was still there the following year, but seems to have retired by 1843 when the place was in the hands of John Martin who seems very much a young man with a dtermination to go places.

At the age of 19 he is there in the 1837 land tax records renting a stable from a James Wright and land from a Mrs Dobson, and by 1843 is in the Crown renting the building and the yard.

Court Yard in 1843, showing the Crown

And as he began his long partnership with the Crown I wonder what its former landlord did with his retirement, which sadly was not long for John Martin died at the age of 51 in 1844.

 Not so John Martin who was to serve pints for another three decades.

So I shall end by leaving him in the Crown in the spring of 1871 with his clientele from Court Road who were still the same mix of agricultural labourers and related trades with a few posh people thrown in.

But with one exception who in his way pointed to the future.

For living in Queen Alley off Court Road was the young Edward Norton who was the son of the postmaster and who at the age of 14 described himself as a telegraph messenger, and that more than anything points to the future for Court Road and Eltham.

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

**Enu 21 6 Plumstead Kent 1851

Pictures; Court Yard from detail of OS map 1858-73, old buildings on Court Yard,1908,   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 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

Sherard House and Church Row in Eltham in 1841 and Richard White census enumerator

Sherard House from the garden, 1909

This is Sherard House and once again I set out to describe the place and once again I have got side tracked.

But I shall start with a little of what I know.

 It stood on the High Street roughly on the site of the Nat West Bank, was built in 1634 and 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.*

By the 1840s the front had been changed considerably but the rear remained unaltered although it would have been difficult to see the features given that it was covered in ivy.

And 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.

Church Row numbered 316-320 and Sherard House 311 and garden 309, 1844

I can’t be sure at present but I think in the June of 1841 it was occupied by a Jane Edwards who was attended to by six servants but had moved on by 1843 when Sherard House was home to Samuel and his wife Frances and their children.

The Jeffreys were well off, farming 256 acres of land north of the High Street around Well Hall.

Not that they or any of our people of property can be said to have lived a life excluded from those of the less well off.

At the bottom of their garden were the five gardens of Church Row, in which lived the families of a shoemaker, carpenter, plumber and three agricultural labourers.

And these people fascinate me.  There was John and Dorothy Fiske, Anne Wakeman, John and Susanna Francis who shared with Joseph and Jane Arnold, while further down the row lived the Russell and Blundell families.

What is all the more remarkable is that these ordinary families show up in a range of official documents from the tithe schedule to the parish records.

The opening page of the census Enu 4 Eltham Kent , 1841 with Richard's signature

All would have been known to Richard White schoolmaster and the enumerator who in the June of 1841 was responsible for delivery the census forms to the 126 households on the north side of the High Street from the church down to South End.

His was the job of making sense of what had been written and in some cases of filling in the forms of those who were illiterate.

These enumerators were not slow to amend and correct the entries, sometimes even altering the occupations listed by a householder.

Now Richard White is an interesting chap and I only wish I knew more about him.  He would have been paid for his work, and may have been selected from a number of people who applied for the job.

Baptismal record of Catherine White, 1838

He lived with his wife in Pound Yard close to the National School, and baptised his two children at the parish church, and then he falls out of history.

I can’t find him or his wife Mary, although there is one official reference to their son later in the century.  Neither of them was from Eltham so perhaps they moved on.

I suspect the rate books may give me a clue, and I have yet to pursue the school records, but in the meantime I shall leave them, but secure in the knowledge that I will return to both them and the occupants of Church Row.

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

Pictures; Sherard House 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 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

Baptismal records and census extracts from ancestry.co.uk courtesy of The National Archives

Heating and hammering at the smithy on Eltham High Street in the June of 1840

The smithy close to the present library, 1909

I like the way that Eltham is revealing more of its past.

Now I say Eltham as if it was a person which it isn’t but in the last few months I rediscovered my love of the place and in so doing have dug deep into its history.

As ever my starting point has been the book written by Richard Robert Castell Gregory in 1909. His The Story of Royal Eltham is a scholarly treasure trove of stories made all the more rich because he could draw on the memories of people born in the first few decades of the 19th century when Eltham was a rural community.

And of course at the heart of all such communities was the black smith.

When he was hammering and heating at his forge he acted as a magnate for people.  Some coming to collect a repaired tool or bringing a horse which was in need of a new shoe would stop and pass the time of day.

And there were always requests to personalise a farm tool. This might mean making a left handed scythe or widening or narrowing hoe blades used to chop out weeds.  Then there would be the endless procession of labourers needing tools sharpened from bill hooks and scythes to axes and all the other types of edged tools.

Mr Metcalf

In the process he  might well replace the broken or split staves.

And all the time, gangs of children attracted to the smithy by the red hot metal and frequent shower of sparks would stand and stare rooted to the spot.

“The farrier’s shop which stood to the west of Sun Yard nearer to the lane was one of the features of the High-street.  It was very old, and just before its destruction was in a dilapidated condition.  It was at one time worked by Mr Foster and his two sons Richard and William.

The last tenant was Mr Metcalfe.

An interesting adventure of old Mr. Foster is told in connection with this shoeing forge.  He had been shoeing a horse which was afterwards taken down to the Court.  

So he got astride the animal and proceeded to take it home himself.  On crossing the Moat bridge, however, the horse was frightened by a boy with a hoop, and bearing his rider with him jumped over the parapet.  Horse and man lighted upon s tack of bricks, and both of the miraculously escaped injury.  Fate however was not always kind to Mr. Foster.  Not long after he had escaped the perils of that terrible leap, he chanced to be getting over the stile at the end of the lane near to the smithy, slipped, and broke his leg.”

Now I thought I had identified the blacksmith who hammered and heated by the High Street.  In 1841 this was George Smith who was in Eltham by 1823 and still active at his forge in 1841.

All of which made Mr Foster a mystery and I assumed a later black smith.  But no he was there in 1840 working alongside George Smith and Thomas Doderell.  All three are listed in the tithe schedule as working the smithy, although by 1841 Thomas Foster was 70 years old and a decade later had retired and was in one of the Alms houses, leaving the business to his son Robert aged 35.

The smithy

George Smith snr was by then in hospital and his son appears with no trade, all of which makes a tad still confusing.

All of which leaves me to track down Thomas Doderell and Mr Foster’s other son.

But at least the Fosters have come out of the shadows and I pretty much know exactly where the stile was which Mr Foster fell off and broke his leg.

Picture; the Smithy 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

Walking Well Hall in the April of 1844

Well Hall in 1746

Walk along Well Hall Road which runs from the High Street north to Shooters Hill  on a sunny day and  it is a pleasant enough trip which starts with the church takes in the Tudor Barn and the Progress Estate before finishing with the common and the woods.

Had you done the same journey in the spring of 1844 it would of course have been very different. Back then it consisted of some farms, a posh house and a collection of cottages with the odd pond and lots of open land.

These were a mix of arable, meadow and pasture land with the woods stretching off north and east bordering Shooters Hill.

Here were agricultural labourers, a blacksmith, some “middling families” and an assortment of others who made their living from teaching to tailoring.

And it is these people’s lives in this small hamlet north of Eltham High Street that I want to explore.

Well Hall House, 1909

1844 is a good point to start because in that year the tithe map and schedule had been published which detailed who owned the land, who rented it and the use it was put to along with its value.

So just north east of the Pleasaunce was Andrews Meadow which was a six acre plot of meadowland farmed by Samuel Jeffryes and owned by Sir Gregory Page Turner and a little further north and on the land that would become the Well Hall Estate was Bridge Field and Eleven Acres which confusingly was actually 26 acres of arable land.

Now there is no reason for me choosing these two fields over others except that I am drawn to any piece of land with my name and to the field where our old house now stands. All of which is a bit self indulgent and so back to the inhabitants of Well Hall.

Baptismal record of Charlotte, daughter of Samuel and Frances Jeffryes, 1837

As ever it is the people of property that we know most about and two of these were Samuel and Frances Jeffryes.

We know their children, where the family lived, something of how they made a living and even how Samuel voted in the key Parliamentary elections of 1837 and 1847.

Now the picture is not complete and there is much research still to be done but there is enough for a story.

Samuel was born in 1803 and came from Shropshire.  Frances was five years younger and had been born in Wales. Their early married life was spent in Shropshire in the village of Sutton where they had five children but by 1837 they were in Eltham and it was here that Frances gave birth to another eight who were all baptized in the parish church.

Burial record of Samuel Jeffyres, 1867

At one point in the late 1830s they lived in Well Hall House which was that large eighteenth century house beside the Tudor Barn but were on what is now Eltham High Street quite close to the church by 1844.

He variously described himself as a “farmer” and a “gentleman” and in the 1840s farmed over 250 acres north of the High Street much of which boarded Well Hall Lane.  And despite moving to Westminster both were buried back in the parish church.

It would have been a short walk from their home on Eltham Street to the church but a slightly longer one from there down to Well Hall for their route would have taken them west past the church to what is now Sherrard Road down past the big pond in Homefield and then on by twists and turns to Well Hall House the home of the Reverend Charles Gulliver Freyer and a short walk on to the six houses a little beyond Kidbrook Lane occupied by John Evans and six other families.

And beyond this just open fields up to the common and Shooters Hill, which is all to the good given that this is fast becoming just a travelogue.

Location; Well Hall, Eltham, London

Pictures; map of Well Hall in 1746, Engraved by Richard Parr, surveyed and published by John Rocque, 1746 IDEAL HOMES: A History of South East London, the Universiyuy of Greenwich, http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/resources  Well Hall House 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, remaining images from the parish records of St John the Baptist

One Acre Allotment and more stories of rural Eltham

One Acre Allotments, 1908

Even in the most built up urban areas there are clues to our rural past.

Here in Chorlton there is still the village green with the old school, the parish graveyard, two old pubs and some former farmhouses along with a barn where the Methodists held services at the beginning of the 19th century.

And Eltham is no different; although I have to say this bit of what was once Kent and is now south east London has managed to retain far more of its old fine houses.

But it is not of fine houses that I want to focus on today but the intriguingly named “One Acre Allotments" which have their story.

They were all that was left of the fields to the north of the High Street beyond the line of buildings and had you had a mind to you could have walked them all the way up to the woods and Shooters Hill.

Our field was known locally as One Acre and was directly behind what is now the school on Roper Street.

One Acre  1844, One Acre  is numbered 251, 

It was meadow land and formed a block of meadows which stretched east across along the present Gourock Road and also included the field that ran along what is now the west side of Roper Street.
and was “often used to accommodate for the night the herds of cattle or flocks of sheep that were being driven out of Kent into the London market.”* 

A practice which seeks to remind us that most of our big cities were supplied with fresh food which before the railway was walked to its destination and joined the livestock permanently kept in urban centres.

In total there were four of these meadow fields and only one is officially listed with a name.  In the 1840s they were farmed by different tenants but three were owned by Sir Gregory Page Turner while that on the western side of Roper Street was Glebe land.

It might not be good history but I do catch myself wandering down the lane which is now Roper Street and heading off onto the footpath where the land finished.  Had I done this in the 1840s there at the end of the lane would have the stile and the start of the footpath.

The Smithy and One Acre Meadow, 1858-74

And  I had a choice, turn east and by degree I would have ended up at Shooters Hill, and if I gone west along what was sometimes called “The Slip” which ran parallel to the High Street I would have reached the parish church.

And if that was not enough choices at both the start of The Slip and at its end there were paths off to Well Hall and Shooters Hill.

Now I rather think there may also be stories about the people who rented these four fields.  Each is known to us, and two appear to have been comfortably off describing themselves variously as Gentleman, Independent or Merchant.

But as ever there seems a little bit of mystery and yes it is our field which the records show was rented by a George Smith snr in 1839, but exactly which George Smith is a problem, for there were three living in Eltham during the 1820s into the next two decades.

The most obvious was George Smith who listed himself as a blacksmith during the period.  He lived in the High Street had a son called George which might explain the description George Smith snr and his smithy was at the bottom of the lane where it joined the High Street.

If this is him the fates were not kind, by 1851 he is in hospital and his son is living with his former wife who had reverted to her maiden name. And like so much of the history I like this just gets a tad messier, because George Smith snr is recorded as renting 40 acres along with a “farmhouse, barn, yard and building” which seems a bit out of the range of a blacksmith.

But we shall see.

*R.R.C.Gregory, The Story of Royal Eltham
Pictures; One Acre Allotments 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 detail of Eltham, and detail of the Smithy and One Acre Meadow,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 and detail of smithy, the lane and the meadow land from the OS map of Kent 1858-74

In Eltham with the Reverend John Kenward Shaw Brooke and some revealing records

John Kenward Shaw Brooke from an engraving in the church

I am sitting looking at a picture of the Reverend John Kenward Shaw Brooke and have been reflecting on what started as a simple piece of research about the man led me off in all sorts of directions.


John Kenward Shaw Brooke was vicar of St John’s in Eltham from the age of 24 in 1783 till his death in 1840.

Such was his reputation in the parish that on the jubilee of his tenure in office the newly built row of cottages owned by John Fry became known as Jubilee Cottages, a name they retained till their demolition in 1957.

He was in the words of the local historian R.R.C. Gregory “a man greatly revered of strong character, and holding the office of Vicar for the long period of fifty-seven years, he has left a mark upon parochial history more indelible, perhaps, than that of any preceding Vicar.”*

So much so that over 70 years after his death in the summer of 1909 there were engravings of the man “in many of the homes of Eltham ...and so impressive were the demonstrations that took place [to commemorate his fifty years on office in 1833] that the children and grandchildren of those who witnessed them find to this day, a congenial theme for conversational purposes.”

Cover of the by Rev Myers, 1841 

Nor was this all for just a year after his death his life and contribution were recorded in a 22 page booklet focusing particularly on his establishment of the National Infant and Sunday Schools, the endowment he left to the school and his other charity work.**

And as I dug deeper I got side tracked and despite serious efforts to return to our man I was led off on different tracks.

All of which began with the poll books which are not only a record of who could vote in Parliamentary elections but also how they voted.

John Kenward Shaw Brooke appears in a number of them from the late 18th century into the 19th and encompassing the great election after the 1832 Reform Act.

The first comes from 1790 and the last in 1838, and what they show is that the Reverend Shaw Brooke consistently voted Tory.

One of thast enteries by the Reverend Shaw Brook in December 1839

Nor is this all for like so many men of the period he voted in more than one place.

So along with Eltham he was registered in the parish of St Dunstan in the West in the City of London and Wickhambreaux which is just five miles from Canterbury.

And like so many clergymen of the period he also managed more than one church.

In his case the second living was at the Rectory of Hurst-Pierpoint, in Sussex, “where respect and esteem ever awaited him; and where, although his residence was limited to a few weeks annually, he lost no opportunity of promoting the well being of his parishioners, by his sanction and liberal support of every means of advancing their temporal and spiritual interests.”***

But it was in Eltham where he was most busy and trawling the parish records there frequently is his name and of course his handwriting which for any historian is an exciting link with both the man and the period.


Here too purely by chance I came across the burial record of Lucy Jeffery who died in her first year in the June of 1841.

Only weeks before I had uncovered her baptismal records along with her siblings and in the course of charting the family through from the 1840s noted she had fallen off the official records.  At the time I assumed she had changed her name on marriage, and thought that I would follow it up in the future.

Not so, she was buried on June 19th in the parish church yard, which led me to ponder on the ages of the others laid to rest during the period. In time I think it will turn into a major piece of research but for now of the 48 buried during 1840, 19 were under the age of 5 of which many were never to see their first birthday.

Burial record for John Kenward Shaw Brook

It is unscientific, lacks at present any details of the causes of death and is confined to that one year but most of us will I suspect reflect on the lost lives and unfilled futures which they represent.

John Kenward Shaw Brooke had died the year before aged 81 and was buried on December 23rd 1840.

Pictures; John Kenward Shaw Brookes 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,

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

**Rev W.T.Myers, 1841

***ibid R.R.C. Gregory

Going to school in Eltham in 1840

Now the National School  was opened in 1814 by the Reverend J.K. Shaw Brooke.

These were church schools and provided elementary education for the children of the poor.

They were the product of the National Society which had begun in 1811 and aimed to establish a national school in every parish delivering a curriculum based on the teaching of the church.

According to a report of the Charity Commissioners from 1819 the annual salary of the school master was to be £20 and by one of those wonderful chance survivals the first register was preserved which the historian R.R.C.Gregory published in his of Eltham.*

“Amongst the “batch of boys admitted were many bearing names that are still familiar in Eltham,
James Shearing, aged 7
John Scriven, aged 11
Thomas Foster, aged 6
Edward Hand, aged 10, 
William Stevens, aged 6
Charles Russell, aged 9
James Kingston, aged 7
I. Wakeman, aged 6
T.Wakeman, aged 8.”

And just like these names were familiar to Mr Gregory and his readers in 1909, some have stepped out of the shadows again today.

Thomas Foster was the son of the blacksmith who helped run the smithy on the High Street and the Wakeman boys were I think related to Peter Wakeman who had been invited to the Jubilee celebrations to mark the Reverend J.K. Shaw Brooke’s fifty years as vicar of Eltham.

This first school was at the end of Pound Place where it joined Back Lane and 1840 the infants’ school was added.

Now given that I have already mentioned Richard White who taught at the school in 1841, and lived on Pound Place I reckon there are a few more stories to come on the National School, its teachers and students.

Location; Eltham, London



Pictures; The National Infants School 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, 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

What we did in October when we were still a farming community

Cows on the meadows, 2003

An occasional series reflecting on what we did in the township when we were still a small rural community.

Now if I had been farming here in the 1850s I might well have turned to The Book of the Farm by Henry Stephens.*

It was written in 1844, and ran to countless editions. It was the manual for anyone wanting to be a farmer.

Everything is here from what crops to plant and when to how to make a well, as well as sound advice on hiring labourers, the construction of a water meadow, and the best location for the milk house and cheese room. I learned which materials were best for building a farm house and how much I could expect to pay for materials, as well as the most up to date scientific information on planting wurzels.

It was a practical book and so “the cost of digging a well in clay, eight feet in diameter and sixteen deep and building a ring three feet in diameter with dry rubble masonry is only L5 [£5] exclusive of carriage and the cost of pumps.”

He calculated that that two brood sows could produce 40 pigs between them and that retaining six for home use the remaining 34 could easily be sold at market.

So many of the smaller farmers and market gardeners in the township might well keep at least one sow and use it to supplement their income.

Nor should we forget that these animals were destined for the table and so the slaughter of pigs was best done around Martinmas in early November because “the flesh in the warm months is not sufficiently firm and is then liable to be fly born before it is cured” and doing so in early November had the added advantage that cured hams would be ready for Christmas.

But today and over the next few weeks I want to drop in to another farming book which is H Rider Haggard’s A Farmer’s Year, written in 1898 and published the following year.

Now he was farming in Norfolk a full half century later than Mr Stephens and of course Norfolk isn’t rural Chorlton or Eltham or anywhere in south east London..

Harrowing in Mustard on stubble

That said this is what he wrote for the beginning of October.

“Since harvest about 250 loads of manure have been carted from the yards direct to the various fields where they are to spread, and sundry dykes on the marshland have been drawn.  

Also a little thrashing has been done and we sold some barley at sixteen shillings and fifteen shillings according to its quality.

Today October 5th we are ploughing on the bean stubble but with the soil in its present condition it is dreadfully hard work for the horses.”


*Stephens Henry, The Book of the Farm, 1844

** Haggard, H Rider, A Farmer’s Year,  1899

Pictures; the Meadows, courtesy of David Bishop 2003, and Harrowing in Mustard on stubble from A Farmer’s Year, 1899

What did Mrs Wood of Eltham Lodge do during the day?

Eltham Lodge from the front, 2000

I wonder how Anna Wood spent her days in Eltham Lodge.

She was a woman of some wealth and standing in the community and there is plenty of information on how her class busied themselves.

But at present nothing has come to light about her daily routines, the local societies she may have contributed to or even what she thought.

Now this is not some idle speculation or an exercise in sexist assumptions about Anna Wood, rather an exploration of her life In Eltham from when she arrived in 1838 till her death fifty one years later.

The detailed lives of working women in Eltham have not survived but we can be fairly confident we know what they would have done involving that balancing act between home and possibly outside work but Anna is a bit of mystery.

We know she was active in protecting the estate and refused permission for the South Eastern Railway Company to build its railway across South Park which resulted in them having to site the station further south in 1866.

The Wood house and the seven servants, 1841

It would have been much the sort of life described by Mrs Beeton in her guide to Household Management * which put much emphasis on how to behave in public, and participate in charitable activities but above all how to manage the home.

And in this role a woman who employed servants had to be like a “commander of an army or the leader of an enterprise”  **

Mrs Beeton was insistent that after breakfast Jane Elizabeth’s day would include an inspection of the servant’s work and a discussion on the order of the day.  Relationships between servant and mistress should be “firm, without being severe, and kind, without being familiar.”**

And her household was large ranging from seven servants in 1841, to six between 1851 and 71, and falling to five in 1881.

Along with these big events was the inevitable round of visiting or receiving visitors, which involved a strict protocol including leaving a card in the event of the person being out and only visiting if invited.

This was especially the case if the destination was the country or another town, “Do not” was the advice of one handbook on how young ladies should conduct themselves, “visit a friend in the country, or another town, unless you have what is called a standing invitation,” for it maybe that the invitation was “designed only to make a show of politeness.” ***

It followed that before arriving at the house, the guest should have informed her host “of the exact day and hour when she may expect you.”

But these social engagements were only part of her activities.  Mrs Beeton also stressed the importance of charitable work, and above all

“Visiting the houses of the poor is the only practical way really to understand the actual state of each family; and although there may be difficulties in following out this plan in the metropolis and other large cities, yet in country towns and rural districts these objections do not obtain. 

Great advantages may result from visits paid to the poor; for there being, unfortunately, much ignorance, generally, amongst them with respect to all household knowledge, there will be opportunities for advising and instructing them, in a pleasant and unobtrusive manner, in cleanliness, industry, cookery, and good management.” ****

Rear of Eltham Lodge, 2000

There were also those activities which combined good works and social gatherings. 

In Chorlton-cum Hardy a similar rural community on the edge of Manchester, one of the most important was the church bazaar committee which included the wives and daughters of both the gentry and farmers is a good example.

The committee had been formed to raise money for the new parish church and culminated with a bazaar held at the Royal Exchange during the Easter of 1862.

It was a cross section of the township and included the daughters of the well off, farmer’s wives and married woman from the larger houses. ****

All of which leaves me  thinking that Mrs Wood would have done her bit and it is now just a matter of finding it.

*Beeton Isabella, first published in 24 monthly parts between 1859-61 before being published in a bound edition in 1861

**Ibid, Chapter 1 page 1 Google edition page 50

*** The Behaviour Book, Leslie, Miss, Willis P Hazzard, London, 1839, page 10, Google edition page 19

****Ibid, Beeton,  page 6, Google edition page 55

***** They were Mrs Ed Booth, rectory, the Misses Holt Beech House, the Misses Morton Lime Bank, the Misses Dean Barlow Farm, Mrs Whitelegg the Green, Mrs J B Wilkinson Brook Cottage, Mrs Tunder the Grange, Mrs Law the Lodge Urmston, Mrs Aders Bella Villas Whalley Range, Mrs Burghardt Whalley Range, Mrs Findeisen Holly Bank, Mrs Meredith White Thorn Cottage Pennington Brookfield House Mrs Broughton Lowe Longford Terrace Longford, Mrs Dewhurst Myrtle Lodge Longford

Pictures; of Eltham Lodge, courtesy of Darrell Spurgeon, Discover Eltham, 2nd edition 2000, and detail from 1841 census courtesy of National Archives and ancestry.co.