On Eltham High Street ......... looking for Mr Brown

Now, it is so easy to get lost in an old picture of Eltham.

Eltham Village, date unknown

This is one that my friend Tricia found and posted recently.

The caption says Eltham Village and the post mark on the back is 1904.

That said I think the photograph maybe much older, given that the picture has been heavily retouched.

It is a familiar one showing the old brewery and the High Street.

And as you do I went looking for clues, and there on the corner of the wall on the southern side is a shop sign for Thomas Brown.

The shop of Mr Thomas Brown

This usually offers up a way of anchoring the scene in a time, because Mr Brown should show up on a census return and a street directory.

But he doesn’t.

There is a Thomas Brown and this one lives on Eltham High Street but in the 1880s and 90s he was residing in Sun Yard and gave his occupation variously as a road labourer and gardener.

Nor did he appear to have a son called Thomas.

The earliest street directories I can access are from 1914 and no shop keeper called Thomas Brown appears on the list.

That said I did discover that four doors up from the old Chequers pub were the “dining rooms” run by a Mr Charles Wollard who was still there four years later.

His near businesses included a cycle manufacturer, a watch maker, two confectioners, an oilman, a linen draper, and Mrs Alice Brotherton’s refreshment rooms.

Eltham Brewery

I will in due course go looking for Mr Wollard’s dining rooms which may have been a cut above his rival.  Mrs Alice’s premise were a modest affair and no doubt consisted just of the front room of her five roomed house.

She was there from 1911 and it may well have been a way of making an income after her husband who was a parish road builder had died.

They had lived just over the road in Jubilee Cottages and it would be nice to think that some of her neighbours might have dropped in or that she had a small order delivered from the brewery opposite

Of course that is just fanciful tosh and gets me no nearer a date for the picture postcard, which does not even provide the name of the manufacturer of the card.

Still it is a nice picture and I thank Tricia for finding it.

Location; Eltham

Picture; Eltham Village, circa 1904 from the collection of Tricia Leslie

Shopping on Well Hall Road in the summer of 1907

Well Hall Parade in 1907

Now I am back with two more from Greenwich’s collection of old photographs.

They are both of Well Hall Road and are separated by just eight years.

Of the two the first offers up much more detail of what this row of shops looked like just over a century ago.

And it is a world away from today.

It starts with those ornate lamps protruding from the shop fronts which may have been lit by oil but I suspect will have been gas.

The chemist,  the fancy draper and the watchmaker, 1907

Then there are the large windows  with their iron frames which have just a hint of ornate decoration, which are topped by the names of the owners some of which will have been painted but others might have been etched on glass.

And finally there are the shop displays some of which adhere to that old Edwardian maxim of pile them high and sell them cheap.

Now I rather think it must either be a Sunday or early one morning as most of the shops have their blinds down, even though some have opened their large canopies.

On balance I would go for a Sunday afternoon sometime in the summer judging by the number of  pedestrians and the way the light is falling.

And for those with an even keener eye for detail there are no tram lines and of course a total absence of traffic bar the solitary horse and cart.

The caption says 1907 and assuming that there hasn’t ben a rapid turn over of shop keepers the shop on the corner with Greenvale Road opposite the Co-op was Mr William’s who was a cycle maker and seems to have left his shop signs propped up outside.

Little change in 1915 on Well Hall Road

And using the same street directory for 1908 it is possible to identify all the shops and their owners up to the chemists run by the London Drug Company.

Nor has much changed in the eight years that takes us up to the second picture taken in 1915.

By then the tram has arrived, there is a little more traffic which might just be explained by the fact that the shops are open and there are a fair few people about.

It is easy to forget that our parade of shops would have been as colourful as those of today and each would have displayed their names on the awnings which on this sunny day were pretty much all down.

Picture; Well Hall Road in 1907, GRW 378, and 1915, GWR380 http://boroughphotos.org/greenwich/ courtesy of Greenwich Heritage Centre, http://www.greenwichheritage.org/site/index.php

Images of old Eltham and a warning for the future

Just sixty-two years separate these two images of Eltham. 

The first dates from 1915 not long after the southern end of Well Hall Road was cut and the tram service from Woolwich inaugurated.

It is a picture I have featured already but is well worth a second look as I ponder on the future of the photograph as a historical record of a place.*

But first to the pictures.

The first is one of those traditional picture postcards, sent in their thousands every year from the late 19th century well into the middle of the 20th century.  They are a wonderful record of the past and most contain something of interest in the message on the reverse.

And this one is just five years from when the passenger tram service began.

It started on Saturday July 23rd 1910 and according to The Kentish Independent was a great success linking the small communities on the route from Eltham to Woolwich.

During the week the service was every ten minutes with the first leaving Beresford Square for Eltham at 6.40 am and the last at 11.30 pm.

And it cost just two pence to complete the full trip from Beresford Square to Eltham High Street, whilst workmen's through tickets were issued until eight o'clock in the morning at half price.**

Just sixty-two years later Jean took this image of Eltham Hill at the corner of Sherard Road.

At first glance the buildings look familiar but many have changed hands and with that change have come new businesses.

All of which is fertile research for the local historian, but I wonder for how much longer images like these will act as a stimulus to unlocking the past.

For the simple reason is that fewer and fewer of us are now taking pictures which are printed off on card or paper.

The digital camera and phone camera are wonderful tools but I doubt that many of the pictures that are taken with them ever get printed.

Instead they sit on computers which with the advance of technology mean they will not always be accessible to the future.

I trained on the old BBC computer and friends on the Sinclair both are now as much a part of the past as the telegram is to the email.

So I doubt there will be many of these images for the next generation to crawl over.

And in the same way the advent of first the telephone and now the email has pretty much eliminated the old letter, often written by hand and sent by the post.  These too will be lost to the future researcher.

Now I am no luddite and I like my digital camera and emails but I will in the fullness of time deposit some at least of my pictures in the digital record banks.

And of course print a few off.

Picture; Eltham Church and Well Hall Road, 1915, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Eltham Hill 1977, courtesy of Jean Gammons

Elm Terrace ......... the picture and the story ...... Eltham High Street in 1905

Now, I have to say that this row of terraced houses is not what you expect to see off the High Street.

And I had to think for a few minutes just where Elm Terrace is, because I don’t remember the houses and I doubt few people today will either.

Elm Terrace is of course one of those narrow little streets off the High Street, opposite the Rising Sun.

As a kid I had no reason to go down there, and the last time I ventured down it was an unremarkable place with a Chinese restaurant and not much else, although there was a bit of a ghost sign which had been exposed after a sign board had been taken down.

It is on the side of the wall of number 23 which was once Four Paws Grooming Saloon, but has been empty for a few years.

Now as everyone knows I am attracted to ghost signs and this one intrigues me because all we have left picked out in giant red lettering is ASTEL, leaving me to wait for someone with a longer memory to tell me what it referred to.

So with that cleared up, I am back to the picture, which is dated around 1905.

I say 1905, but that was when the picture postcard was sent and so the actual date it was taken maybe earlier, but not much because, Margaret writes to her aunt “that I have put a cross by our house. Mrs Smith used to live by the lamp post - the house you see at the bottom is Mrs Masson”.

These were four roomed houses and there were 23 of them in the terrace.

Our own historian Mr Gregory writing in1909 said nothing about the properties and limited himself to a speculation on the origins of the name which he thought “in all probability is derived from two old elm trees which at one time stood at the end of the road remote from the High Street.”*

Now I don’t blame him for passing over a description of the houses, at the time they would have been familiar to everyone.

As it was nine years later they do not even warrant a reference in the 1918 street directory, which confined itself to listing just William Ryde & Son, farriers, and The Eltham Public Hall which was owned by R. Smith & Company.

The line of the roof of the hall is just visible at the end of the terrace. It dated from the 1870s and was the British School but with the opening of the school at Pope Street the building was “used for meetings, concerts and similar purposes”.

As for our houses, those “on left were demolished for the Arcade development in 1930 which was only half completed when the developer went bankrupt.  The Elm Terrace Fitness Centred (opened in 1931 as an indoor market) covers the site of most of the cottages on the right except the last three, which are now used for commercial purposes”. ***

I have to say I do like the picture and more because we can identify pretty much everyone who lived here during the early 20th century using electoral registers and the census returns.

And here I must pay tribute to Tricia, who sent over the picture and did much of the research on Margaret Pocknall from which I know she was a dress maker, born in Eltham in 1877, and her family moved around Eltham and settled just round the corner in Southend Road in Elm Villas.

But I will close with one simple observation and that  even back then, a gable end invited the idle to chalk on the wall.

To which Matt K Minch went one better and posted this picture with the comment, "'Astel' I think is the remnants of the sign that said Hardcastles, this being what became of the 3 houses that survived there."

And that really is it, with thanks to Matt and Tricia who did all the research.
Location; Eltham

Picture; Elm Terrace, courtesy of Tricia Leslie, and Elm Terrace from the collection of Matt K Minch, date unknown

*Gregory, R.R.C. The Story of Royal Eltham, 1909, page 286

**ibid, Gregory, R.R.C., page 287

***Kennet, John, Eltham a Pictorial History, 1995 image 84

That first cinema at the top of Eltham High Street

This is the Eltham Cinema and was on the corner of the High Street and Westmount Road.

Eltham Cinema, circa 1913

It was opened in 1913 and demolished in 1968 which means I must have seen it countless times on my way to school at Crown Woods but even now it does not register with me.

I can’t be sure but I am guessing it survived as a Picture House until the big plush cinemas further down the High Street, and in Well Hall offered a bigger and comfortable experience.

And until now that was about all I knew, but yesterday I came across The Kinematograph Year Book, Program, Diary and Directory 1914, which is packed with everything from a list of all the cinemas in 1914 with information about this new and exciting form of entertainment along with lots of adverts.

Advert

And from the book I now know that its proprietor was a Mr Robert Frederick Bean who was listed in 1913 at 4 Everest Road.  A few years earlier he was in Brockley describing himself as a manufacturer’s agent for lace.  He was 31, had been married for three years and had two children and employed a nurse and a housemaid.

I wish I knew more about them but that is about it although they do seem to have moved around a bit living in Lewisham as well as Brockley and Eltham.

In time we will learn more and perhaps also a bit more about the cinema which sadly had no listing for the number of people it could seat.

And Tricia had found out more, "it had 1 screen and seated 400  people. It was built in 1912 opened 1913 and closed 1937.

Pictures; Eltham Cinema, courtesy of Thisiseltham, and advert from The Kinematograph Year Book, 1914, page 43

*Thisiselatham, http://www.thisiseltham.co.uk/

The Library ..... the pub ..... and the oilman .... with a thank you to Village Eltham

Now I know there will be plenty of pictures of the library knocking around and I dare say some better quality versions of this one which dates from around 1915.

Eltham High Street, circa 1915

But I like it for all sorts of reasons, not least because of the detail it offers of the High Street on a bright sunny day, but also because like many it was somewhere I regularly went to, added to which it was where our Stella worked during the 1970s and into the next decade.

So not surprising then that it crops up on the blog in various stories including some that feature a painting by Peter Topping, who like me has been drawn to it, which is a tribute to the building given that Peter is from Preston and has never visited Eltham.*

But I digress, going back to the photograph along with the Library on the north side of the High Street is The Rising sun whose landlady in 1918 was a Mrs. Shirley Relph who took over the pub after the death of her husband in 1909.  He was a William Relph who offered up beer and cheer from sometime in the 1880s and moved into the new Rising Sun when it was built in 1904.

The Rising Sun, 1915

The old pub according to our historian R.R.C Gregory was about 200 years old when it was demolished and replaced by the present pub .

Nor is that the only thing that intrigues me about William.

I had almost given up hope of finding him and then as you do I came across his widow Julia who was still in charge in 1911, and it was Julia who caught my imagination.

She was born in Cadiz, Spain and of course that raises all sorts of intriguing speculation.

But before I could go off on a flight of fancy I discovered her maiden name was West and like William her father was a publican.

That said her parents were in Spain between the birth of her brother in 1852 and when she was born two years later which may explain why they are missing from the census returns for the middle decades of the 19th century.

Directly opposite between Pound Place and Elm Terrace there was a group of tradesmen, which included Frederick Cook, baker at 142, George Mence Smith, oilman at 144, the coach builders Robert Whittaker & Coin 144a, leaving just William Ryde and Sons who were ironmongers and Thomas Grant Bootmaker.**

I am indebted to Paula Richardson, who along with Gus White and Ian Murdock produced a delightful little book in 1984 entitled Village Eltham, which   included 36 photographs of Eltham and the surrounding district drawn from their collection of old picture postcards.***

The book was sent to me by my friend Barbara who like me attended Crown Woods, and like me left Eltham in the late 1960s, me for Manchester and Barbara for Ontario,

Village Eltham, 1984

All of which means the book has travelled far.

Now ever mindful of copyright I only reproduced one image from the book along with the cover, and expressed the hope that the authors would see the story and grant me permission to use some more of the images.

And so just a few days after I posted the story  Pauls got in touch writing, “Hi Andrew - this brought back memories. We published this privately. Most of the postcards were collected by my ex partner, Ian and his friend, Gus. We were all members of the local history group in Eltham. 

I lost touch years ago when I moved to Australia, but I'm sure as long as you give us credit, it is ok for you to share some images, as the whole point of the book was to take them to a wider audience”.****

So I shall do just that.

*Eltham Library, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Eltham%20Library

**Eltham High Street, 1918, Post Office Directory, London, 1918

***A little bit of Eltham from Ontario in Canada, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2022/04/a-little-bit-of-eltham-from-ontario-in.html

 ****Eltham Village,  Gus White, Ian Murdock and Paula Richardson in 1984 and published by G & Pi Publications Eltham

Along time in the story of a house in Eltham

Cliefden House in 1909

Now I am back at Cliefden House.

This grand 18th century property is still there on the High Street opposite Passey Place.

It was built sometime around 1720 with an eastern addition dating from the mid 19th century.

Together this made for a large 17 roomed house which could accommodate and it has been both a private residence, and a school and now shops and offices.

I have written about it in the past and have decided on a second visit.  Now this is mainly because I want to feature a then and now set of pictures, although strictly speaking they are both then pictures.

The first dates from 1909 and the second from 1977.

Cliefen House in 1977

In the space of that time the front garden and wall have been sacrificed to the widening of the High Street and with scant disregard for such an elegant old property Granada and Frisbys Shoes set about adding the most appalling signage to the exterior.

And we may just have caught the place on a bad year for the front walls look in need of a coat of paint.

So I suppose today we have to be pleased that the present two occupants of the downstairs shops have been a little more subdued with their signs and a fresh coat of paint has been applied.

Pictures; Cliefden House in 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 and in 1977, courtesy of Jean Gammons

Letters from the Western Front

Mr and Mrs Davison and their son, date unknown

I am rereading the letters of George Davison.*

It has been a moving experience and one that has taken me from his first letters and postcards to his death on the Western Front just five months before the end of that war.

And taken me to Woolwich, Ireland and finally France.

But the collection is bigger than even this because it starts with his school records, includes the letters he sent to his future wife and finishes with the terse official correspondence from the War Office and along with all these is a series of further documents taking us into the 1950s.

They cover his enlistment in Manchester, his time in Woolwich and Ireland before his arrival in France and also reveal the changing addresses of his family.

I have yet to read them in detail but as I move to scan the last letters of May and early June I know that I will soon record his last letter because he was killed on June 17 1918.

And nothing quite prepares you for the knowledge that soon there will be no more letters from George and that the link with his wife of seven years will be severed.

His final letters talk of the irritations of moving around the Front including the loss of personal equipment and the varying quality of the accommodation and on June 15 wrote

The last letter from George to his wife, June 15, 1918

“You would be surprised to see some of our living places – at present we have an excellent dug out about 20 feet below the surface. 

It has however two drawbacks – poor ventilation and only artificial (candle) light.  

Compared to some it is a Palace.”

And this was where he died on June 17 when the dugout received a direct.  All three men in the dug out were “killed instantly” and according to the Royal Engineers who inspected the position “it was not considered safe to recover the bodies.

The dug out was then filled in and is marked as the resting place of your brother in law and his comrade. ”**

Now I have read and reread those last few letters and they still have the power to move me.

I was prepared for the fact that he was killed but you can never quite shake off either the manner of the death or that the description in the letter of July 6.

And that I think is all that needs to be said.

Picture; of George and Nellie Davison and additional material courtesy of David Harrop

*George Davison, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/George%20Davison

*extract of the letter sent to Bdn W.F.Evans, R.A.F, July 6 1918

Painting Well Hall and Eltham ....... nu 3 Well Hall Cottages

An occasional series featuring buildings and places I like and painted by Peter Topping.

I have always been fascinated by Well Hall Cottages which were demolished in 1923 and  date from at least the mid 18th century.*

They consisted of six properties just north of Kidbrook Lane and  formed a rough L shape with three running west from Well Hall Lane, another two pointing north with a sixth at the rear on the western side.

By 1844 one of the six was occupied by John and Mary Evans. They were in their sixties, he had been born in Wiltshire and she was from Dublin.

Tracking down the other five has been less easy, but judging from the people listed on the census returns for 1841 and ’51 the cottages may have been home to agricultural labourers, a blacksmith and a carpenter.

There are plenty of photographs of the cottages but to my knowledge no paintings of the buildings so it was fitting that Peter should paint them using a coloured picture postcard dating from the early 20th century.

Now I am not a fan of taking a monochrome image and adding colour using a software process, but as Peter has used a postcard which had already been colourized, a very long time ago, my objections fly away.

Painting; Well Hall Cottages © 2015 Peter Topping from a photograph circa early 19th century.
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

*Well Hall Cottages, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Well%20Hall%20Cottages

The history of Eltham in just 20 objects ........Nu 1 the Tram sheds

The challenge is to write a history of Eltham in just 20 objects which are in no particular order, and have been selected purely at random.

Anyone who wants to nominate their own is free to do so, just add a description in no more than 200 words and send it to me.

Today I have chosen those three buildings on Well Hall Road beside the parish church.  For over a century they consisted of a waiting room flanked by public lavatories.  They were originally built to serve tram passengers when the service began in 1910 and carried on in to the age of the motor bus.  In the 1970s the planners wondered if they should be demolished for a public place.  In their way they are a little bit of our history.

Picture; courtesy of Jean Gammons

“The Moat, Well Hall”.......... sometime around 1903

The caption just says the “The Moat, Well Hall” and I just love this picture.

It comes from Some Records of Eltham which was published in 1903 and written by Rev. Elphinstone Rivers who was vicar of the parish church from 1895.*

In time I will go digging for more on the author but at present I am marvelling in this old book which my sister Jill found.

The chapters cover the early history of Eltham, include a heap of old documents and some fine pictures which brings me back to this one of Well Hall.

I guess it will have been taken when Edith Nesbit was in the big house which fronted the main road.

This had been built in 1733 and survived until 1930.

I like what the Rev. Elphinstone Rivers wrote about the spot, "seen from the roadway, the present comparatively modern farm house does not strike the beholder as being of great interest.

The old fashioned cottages a little to the north are of a
much more picturesque character.

If one takes the trouble to enter the farmhouse-yard, however, and walk around the back of the stables, he will encounter a fragment of an antique moat and just beyond he will see a picturesque gable end and chimney stack of ancient brickwork which formed a portion of the venerable mansion of the Ropers.

The spot is beautifully quiet one, and should be visited if one wants to see it at its best, when the setting sun is dipping behind the western horizon lighting up the quant old brickwork with a ruddy glow and filling the glass panes with a golden blaze of brilliance.”

Now for that alone I am pretty pleased our Jill found the book, and I rather think there will be more from Rev. Elphinstone Rivers.

Alas the identity of the man sitting by the moat will I fear never be discovered, but then I haven't read through the book so we shall see.

Picture; of the Moat at Well circ 1903, from Some Records of Eltham


*Some Records of Eltham 1060-1903, Rev. Elphinstone Rivers, 1903

More from the Royal Herbert and that unknown nurse

"Myself" date unknown

Now while I am pretty sure where this picture outside the Royal Herbert  was taken I am no nearer to finding the identity of the nurse.*

The caption just says “myself” and while there are plenty of others in which she appears none have her name.

They all come from collection of photographs she compiled into an album of the staff and patients of the Royal Herbert during the Great War.

These picture books were an important part of the life of the hospitals and cover both military hospitals and those run by the Red Cross and St John Ambulance.

Some like this one are just photographs, but others contain comments, poems and drawings from men recovering from wounds and illnesses.

"Sister Heard and myself"

They represent an important part of the men’s recovery and while many of the names of the staff and patients are lost some are recorded and can be tracked.

In the case of John Henry Harrington De Graves of the Canadian Expeditionary Force who appears in an autograph book for a Red Cross Hospital in Cheltenham my friend Susan researched the Canadian side of his life both before and after the Great War.**

In time I am sure we will be able to do the same for some of the men and nurses of the Royal Herbert.

What makes this book just that bit more interesting is that the pictures include some from Gallipoli showing our unnamed nurse at Salonika.

So there you have it, a history book all on its own, which just leaves me to say I will be doing more research and to thank David Harrop from whose collection the album comes.

The Royal Herbert, date unknown

Location; Woolwich, London







Pictures; from the Royal Hebert collection, 1915-16 courtesy of David Harrop

*The Royal Herbert, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Royal%20Herbert%20Hospital 

**The Man Behind the Autograph,http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/the-man-behind-autograph.html

Eltham High Street in the summer of 1915 and again sometime in the 1960s

At first glance it looks familiar enough.  

We are looking at the parish church  on a warm summer’s morning sometime in 1915.

It is a picture I have grown to like and given that I have just bought the postcard I am quite pleased with myself.

Now I say bought, but in fact I have ordered it up and if it hasn’t been sold I shall soon be the proud owner of a little bit of old Eltham.*

So back to the picture which has enough detail to mark it off as an image from almost a century ago.

The tram is about to leave travelling along Well Hall Road which was cut just over a decade before and on the eastern side of the road there are none of the familiar shops while just out of the picture on the extreme right was Eltham’s third Congregational Church.

It was built in 1868 “in a strong Gothic Style with a tall spire and was demolished in 1936.”**

And while I don’t usually do then and now pictures I couldn’t resist adding the second photograph which I guess is from the 1960s.

This is the Eltham I remember.

They say you should never go back and I have to admit the first time I returned after Burton’s had gone, along with the newsagent/bookshop it was rather like a little of my childhood had been consigned to the rubbish bin..

But all of that smacks of nostalgic tosh, and no doubt any youngster who had stood beside the photographer in the summer of 1915 may well have muttered something similar when Burtons opened its grand new shop on the corner of Well Hall Road and the High Street in 1937.

Now I have to confess the shop with its great Ionic columns and pilasters at first floor level still dominates the corner even if the sleek 1960s Italian suits, jackets and ties have been replaced by fast food and soft drinks.

And while I bought my first suit from the shop it will always be the memory of the crowds turning out from the dance hall above the shop on a Saturday night that I remember along with the newsagents which occupied part of the Well Hall side of the building.

It was there that I would buy my Penguin Classics many of which still sit on the bookshelves here in Chorlton.

But again I am in danger of sliding into nostalgia so it’s best to leave these two pictures in the past, until my post card arrives from Mr Flynn which no doubt will set me off again.

And in the meantime I would welcome any images of Eltham which will provide the material for more stories.

Pictures;  Eltham in 1915, courtesy currently of Mr Flynn and Eltham in the 1960s

*MARK FLYNN POSTCARDS http://www.markfynn.com/index.html

**Spurgeon Darrell, Discover Eltham, 2000

Walking along the High Street in 1908, calling in for a pint and a packet of sweets

Walking down the south side of the High Street in 1909

So this is a walk down the southern side of the High Street in 1908 or 1909.

Now even I have to concede this might not be the most zippy story but at least this is a chance to put names to the buildings as we pass down from Court Yard to Elizabeth Terrace.

On the corner of the High Street where it meets Court Yard was Whistler & Worge who were builders.

They were relatively new comers having occupied the premise for just a few years.

Builders, sweet shops and of course the pub

Next to them was John Robert Howe, dairyman followed by Miss Annie Wise, confectioner and at 86 the Greyhound Public House run by Henry Elms who described himself variously as publican, licensed victualler and fruit grower.

Mr Elms had been born in 1844, and moved around Kent before settling in the Greyhound sometime before 1891.

In the yard at the rear of the pub was Thomas Tilling Ltd, jobmaster and at 88 Mellin & Co chemist, just leaving William Narbeth the draper at 92.

I could go on up the High Street or probe deeper behind the doors but I think I shall pretty much leave it there.

Miss Annie had only recently taken over from her widowed mother, and Mr Elms would die in 1910.

Picture; courtesy of Kristina Bedford.

*Eltham Through Time, Amberley, Publishing,  2013

Walking up the High Street on a January day in 1914

Now there are many ways of recreating a walk up the High Street on a day log ago.

One of the easiest is to use photographs from the past, another is to look up the census record and today I am going to use a street directory.

That directory is the 1914 Post Office Directory listing the names of people and businesses from Well Hall Road east along the High Street.

At which point I would usually go off and dig deep into the records to uncover something of the lives of Mrs Dobell of Sherard house, Mr Rosselli of Mr Merlwood and Mrs Yeatman of Cliefden house, but all have appeared in the blog over the years as have the their homes.

And so has the blacksmiths and the London & South Western Bank ltd.

All you have to do to find them is use the search box on the right hand side of the story.

So that just leaves me to suggest you download the list of 1914 occupants and wander up to the High Street to check out who is there now.

Location; Eltham









Pictures; list of residents and businesses from the Post Directory, 1914 and the northern side of the High Street in 2015 from collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick

At the Kings Arms waiting for Fred Wisdom to pull a pint

Now this is one of those familiar pictures of the High Street, looking east towards the church and Court Yard some time in 1915.

It comes from an excellent collection from Greenwich Heritage Centre which I discovered recently.

On the surface it is interesting enough but it is the clues it offers up about some of the people who lived along this bit of the High street.

And because Mr Digby who took the picture focused on the Kings Arms I shall start with the pub and its landlord Fred Wisdom.

I can’t be sure when he took over the place but four years earlier he had been running the Railway Bell in Tonbridge.

He lived here with his wife Elizabeth, their two young children and his two nieces who worked behind the bar and described themselves as assistants.

And there is more because I know that Fred was born in 1878, Elizabeth two years earlier and they had been married in 1899.

I doubt we will ever know why they moved to Eltham but they were here by 1914 and were still pulling pints six years later.

All of which came from trawling the street directories and electoral registers which supply the names of the rest of the inhabitants on the block running up to Court Yard.

But for now my attention has been drawn to the big billboard on the gable end.

It is advertising the serialization of a story by Hall Cains who was one of the most popular novelists in the later Victorian and Edwardian period with many of his books being turned into films.

According to one source they were primarily romances, involving love triangles, but also addressed some of the more serious political and social issues of the day.

And as if on cue the book advertised as being serialized in the popular Reynolds’s News was Woman Thou Gavest Me. which I shall go looking for.

But I will just leave you back on the High Street in 1915.

Picture; the Old Kings Head, High Street Eltham, GRW 276, http://boroughphotos.org/greenwich/
courtesy of Greenwich Heritage Centre, http://www.greenwichheritage.org/site/index.php

Looking at the Greyhound on Eltham High Street

Sometimes it is just sufficient to let the image do the business.

We are on the High Street and the caption just says “The Greyhound and other buildings (from and old photograph)".

And for once I shan’t attempt to poke around behind the front doors, other than to say that running the Greyhound in 1908 was Ernest Robert Elms, who lived in the seven roomed property with his wife, two children and a barman.

Pictures; the Greyhound and other buildings, 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

Off to the “flicks” in the winter of 1913 and a challenge for today

Now on a dismal Saturday afternoon in Eltham during the winter of 1913 I might well have decided to take myself off to the Picturedrome where I could have seen epics like the Battle of Waterloo, stories drawn from great novels like Zola’s Germinal or melodramas loosely based on the Old Testament along with documentaries about nature, disasters at sea and much more.

The Battle of Waterloo, 1913

The obvious choice would have been the Eltham Cinema on the corner of the High Street and Westmount Road, which was run by Mr Robert Frederick Bean and which had only been open for a few months.

But with the help of the tram I might instead of ventured off into Woolwich, Greenwich and even Plumstead.

And as much as the film might have attracted me so might the name of the cinema.

Some had names which reflected this new and exciting form of entertainment ranging from the Kinemacolor Palace to those incorporating the word “electric” of which my favourite was the Bijou Electric Theatre, while others traded on exotic places like the Trocadero, and the Alhambra Pavilion.

Germinal, 1913

Most also incorporated the title “Pictuedrome” and some went through frequent name changes.

But what they all had in common was that magic of sitting in the dark and seeing moving pictures many times life size telling stories of adventure, romance set in faraway places which for most people were just names on a map.

So with that in mind the choice was pretty wide.  I could have wandered over to Plumstead and visited the Imperial on Plumstead Road or taken a chance on the Windsor Electric Theatre on Maxey Road but equally could have been drawn to either the Globe on the Common or the Cinematograph at numbers 144-6 the High Street.

Greenwich offered up another three and Woolwich had six.

Judith, 1913

A century on I rather think it might be fun to go looking for these ten.  Sadly in the case of the Three Crowns, the New Cinema and the Premier Electric Theatre they are just listed as Woolwich, but the remaining seven have full addresses.

In Woolwich there was the Arsenal Kinema, Beresford Square, the Premier Electric Theatre, at 126 Powis Street, and the New Cinema at 93 New Road.

And that just left the Greenwich three, which were the Trafalgar Cinema, 82 Trafalgar Road, Chapman’s Pictures Bridge Street, the Greenwich Hippodrome, Stockwell Street, and the Theatre Royal, on High Street.

The Terrors of the Jungle, 1913

And there is the challenge.  Not that any will still exist, but armed with a modern map, a corresponding map for 1913 and a street directory for the same year it should be possible to do a bit of detective work.

Location; Eltham, Plumstead, Greenwich and Woolwich.







Pictures; stills from films available to watch in 1913, from  The Kinematograph Year Book*

*The Kinematograph Year Book Program Diary and Directory 1914, http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/kinematograph-year-book-program-diary-and-directory-1914-2014-09-18.pdf

With Gertie on Westmount Road in Eltham in 1915

Now I like picture postcards, not just because of the image on the front but because of the message on the back.

Sometimes they are short and to the point but often they take you off in all sorts of directions and along the way tell you much about what was going on in Eltham at the time.

And so it is with this one.

It was sent by Gertie to E in 1915 from Westmount Road.

Now the house is still there on Westmount Road, and is an impressive double fronted property which according to the census return in 1911 had nine rooms.

And back in 1911 it was the home of Lewis St J R Clutterbuck, his wife Isabella, and their daughter Jessie along with their three servants, Mary and Elizabeth Jackson, and Louisa Mary Pim Casson.

Mary and Elizabeth were sisters from Essex and Louisa was from Suffolk.  Louisa was described as the parlour maid, Elizabeth the cook and Mary “child’s nurse.”

Not that there was anything much unusual in that, for Jessie was just two years old and Lewis was a Lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery so I guess there was the usual degree of status to maintain and perhaps also a demanding social life for the two who had only been married  for three years.

And that is where the story could go off in all sorts of directions.

Lewis had been born in Dublin into an army family whose father in turn had been born in India.  In 1891 Lewis and his parents were stationed in Chester Castle, and a decade later Lewis aged 16  was training to be an officer in Woolwich.

So by 1915 t is possible the family had moved on again and they may not have been in Westmount Road when the young Gertie sent her postcard which announced “I like the nursery work so much better so have taken a nurse’s place 2 children."

It would be tempting to think she was now nurse to Jessie and another, but at present there is no way of knowing.

The street directories would help but I don’t at present have access to the ones for the period, nor do I have Lewis’s service record, although I think he survived the Great War to rise to the rank of Colonel in 1939.

And then there are other leads, E lived at Foxearth Hall in Sudbury which might suggest she too was a servant.

It is a simple enough piece of domestic history but which still has the opportunity to lead off down different paths.

But what I also like about the card is that little touch of humour reflected in Gertie’s after thought which just says, "Floss tells me post it now about time too?!!"

And post it she did sometime in the later afternoon.

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson