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

Walking down the High Street sometime around 1907

Now I can’t be sure when this picture was taken.

The postmark records that it was sent at 11 am on September 20th 1907, but picture postcard companies did keep old photographs in the catalogue and reuse them long after they had been taken.

In some cases even over printing on what was a summer scene a Christmas greeting or retouching the picture to the point where it almost became a blur.

In this case we are on the High Street looking west down towards the church, and I am fascinated by the shop advertising “Eltham Steam Printing Works” which was on the north side of the street.

Given that the Castle is almost opposite I think our shop will be under the modern block which includes Marks and Spencer but I am finding it difficult to find the shop on the street directories.

It doesn’t appear in the 1914 lists, so may have gone by then.

Of course I may be looking in the wrong place and at present I don’t have access to earlier directories, but someone will, and the story behind the “Eltham Steam Printing Works” will come out of the shadows.

Location; Eltham High Street

Picture; Eltham High Street, 1907, courtesy of Tricia Leslie

A day in December on our High Street ................. nu 2 that supermarket

Now if you still live where you grew up the chances are that you take it all for granted.

For those of us who long ago moved away from Eltham that is something we can’t do.

So here for the next few days are a selection of Eltham High Street on a December day just before Christmas.

They were taken by Ryan and are not in any order but take me back to the High Street I remember which when I was there still boasted a David Greig.

It has  gone now but if look up at the top of 132/136 there is a little bit of its history picked out with the letters DG.

The building was “erected for the grocers David Greig in 1905 – the initials are in terracotta in the gables.

Note the fine brickwork, the two balconies, and lots of quirky detail.”*

And not to be out done the building next door at 130 dates back to the mid 19th century

Picture, David Greig, 2015 from the collection of Ryan Ginn

*Spurgeoon, Darrell, Discover Eltham, 2000