The history of Eltham in just 20 objects ........Nu 9 a water trough chosen by Jean

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.

And here my friend Jean has chosen a horse tough and describes her choice.

This is a photograph of a disused Horse Water Trough still in position in Bexley Road, the road linking Eltham with the neighbouring town of Bexley.

With the growing awareness in the late 19th century of the need for such street furniture, to ease the way of the hundreds of workhorses pulling wagons and vehicles of all kinds up and down the highways of the kingdom, stone troughs of the kind shown in this photograph were provided throughout the country through the generosity and compassion of individual benefactors, and many survive to this day.

The one provided on the Bexley Road was presented by Sir Spencer Maryon-Wilson of Charlton House, Greenwich.  Charlton House is one of the finest Jacobean mansions in the London area and it remained the home of the Maryon-Wilson family until 1916, when Sir Spencer Maryon-Wilson moved out of the house which was being used as a hospital for officers during the 1st World War.

Charlton House and Park were sold to Greenwich Borough Council in 1925, and Sir Spencer Maryon-Wilson died in 1944

Location; Eltham

Picture and text; courtesy of Jean Gammons

When I lost a water trough ….. in Stretford in the summer of 1965

 I collect water troughs ….. eccentric perhaps but fun.

And had I been on Chester Road in the summer of 1965 this one would have made the collection.

But then in 1965 I was sixteen still living at home in southeast London and had yet to come across one of the passions of my life.  

Sixty years ago I might well have snapped this one, recorded its exact location, and returned decades later to check its fate.

Now I have no idea how many water troughs were made in the 19th century or for that matter how many have survived.

In London they were made and maintained by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association which is not the zippiest of names but neatly does the business.

It had been founded in 1859 as the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain Association and added the rest when it began providing fresh water for horses and cattle as well as fountains for the people of London.

According to Dickens’s Dictionary of London, in 1879 there were 800 fountains and troughs which on a hot day 30,000 people took advantage of the supply while a “single trough supplied the wants of 1,800 horses in day.”*

So, I shouldn’t be surprised that in my pursuit of water troughs I should keep turning up fine examples of ones that have lasted the course.

All of which leads me back to the Chester Road trough which the caption from the 1965 slide says was erected in 1874, and here’s the rub I can’t find it.

I have wandered down Chester Road using Google maps, checked out the route from the 1896 OS map, and even trawled the collection of old photographs from Trafford Lifetimes, but to no avail.**

That said someone will know, suggest where to look and perhaps surprise me with the fact that it now resides in one of the parks.

And even before the post went live, my friend Lawrence helped me out with, "I do remember it now. That’s the floodlights of Old Trafford in the background. 

They were four steel towers at each corner. Erected around late 1957 early 1958. Now demolished. That pub is the Dog and Partridge. Used to go drinking in there when I was 16. Now demolished and the Bishop’s Blaze pub was built there.

Chester Road was widened and the island went under tarmac and the horse trough disappeared. That area has fascinating relics of the early 20th Century. I think the building behind the camera now a Halfords tyre fixing garage was a factory for motor cars.

It's the starter for ten.

Location; Stretford

Pictures; the Stretford water trough, Chester Road 1965, from the 1965 Collection 

*quoted from Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Drinking_Fountain_and_Cattle_Trough_Association

**Trafford Lifetimes, https://apps.trafford.gov.uk/TraffordLifetimes/

At Ordsall Hall with a water trough from Pendleton and thank you to Eddie Smith

Now I have become interested in those water troughs which may well soon rival my obsession with ghost signs.

They were once a common feature of all our cities and towns and were usually positioned at crossroads or at the side of busy thoroughfares and did the business of providing drinking water for horses, cattle and other live stock.

The ones I remember best were still in use in the early 1950s although I suspect by then their best days were over, and during the next half century they became obsolete.

Some were carted off to Corporation yards and later broken up for hardcore, others became ornamental flower beds and a few have been stolen and no doubt now reside at the bottom of a posh garden somewhere.

In London by 1879 the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association had built 800 fountains and troughs.

Here in the twin cities it was the Manchester and Salford Cattle Trough Association who were engaged in the same work.

I can remember the one in Withington which for a time disappeared before reappearing and also the one in Audenshaw.

All of which is a lead into the one which Eddie Smith posted recently on the  facebook site Classic Salford Photos Group.

The water trough can be found in Ordsall Hall but was originally one of two outside the old Woolpack in Pendleton Square.

I was pleased he gave me permission to feature it and it will be a major new series.

Picture; water trough Ordsall Hall 2015 and in Pendleton circa 1904,  from the collection of Eddie Smith

Another day another water trough ........ just down the road in Brixton

Now I have no idea how many water troughs were made in the 19th century or for that matter how many have survived.

In London they were made and maintained by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association which is not the zippiest of names but neatly does the business.

It had been founded in 1859 as the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain Association and added the rest when it began providing fresh water for horses and cattle as well as fountains for the people of London.

According to Dickens’s Dictionary of London, in 1879 there were 800 fountains and troughs which on a hot day 30,000 people took advantage of the supply while a “single trough supplied the wants of 1,800 horses in day.”*

So I shouldn’t be surprised that in my pursuit of water troughs across the borough I should keep turning up fine examples of ones that have lasted the course.

And for this fine one I have Ali Knapp and Jean Watkinson to thank.

Ali had alerted me to its survival at the junction of Kings Avenue and Lyham Road and asked Jean to take some pictures.

All of which just leaves me to ponder on where the next trough will come from.

Pictures; the water trough at the junction of Kings Avenue and Lyham Road, 2015 courtesy of and Jean Watkinson

*quoted from Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Drinking_Fountain_and_Cattle_Trough_Association

The day I went to Brockley looking for a water trough and found a cinema

Now I like the way you start off on a story and end up discovering all sorts of things you never knew.

The Brockley Barge, 2008

So in my quest for water troughs across south east London I have had lots of people share their memories of ones they remember.

And yesterday Margaret Nash wrote that “I haven't thought about horse troughs for years but after your post it bought back memories of a very foggy evening in the early 50's. 

It was a real pea souper and I had a boyfriend who had a car, we were on our way to see friends at Honor Oak. 

As we slowly drove along Brockley Road we came up behind a vehicle so stopped for what seemed ages until my boyfriend got out to see what the long hold up was, only to come back to tell me we were parked behind a horse trough. 

It was at a point in Brockley Road where the road divides off to the right into what is now Foxbury Road. 

I wondered if my mind was playing tricks but googled street view and the horse trough isn't there anymore but a pub called the Brockley Barge stands where the road divides.”

And that was a challenge I couldn’t turn down and went looking for the pub and the site of the trough.

The Brockley Barge turned out to be the old Breakspear Arms which had opened in 1868 and was renamed in 2000 when it became a Wetherspoons, and according to that wonderful site London Pubology has appeared in the Good Pub Guide for six years.*

Having found the pub I found the water trough.  It stood just in front of The Breakspear and is there on the OS map for 1896 and was still there in 1952.

The pub, the cinema and the water trough, 1952

For those who want an exact date for when it was placed there I can’t offer one up although I do know it will have been sometime after 1872.

Nor do I know when it was declared obsolete and taken away, but at least we found it just where Margret left it, and although she never mentioned it the trough faced a cinema which I had no idea ever existed.

This was the Brockley Picture Theatre which opened its doors on September 27 1913 and underwent several name changes over the next 43 years.

According to Mr Ken Roe “It was re-named Palladium Cinema from 24th May 1915.

The Ritz, date unknown 

In 1929 it was under new independent ownership and had a change of name to Giralda Cinema. 

This only lasted until 1936 when it was closed on 2nd November 1936 for renovation. 

It re-opened as the New Palladium Cinema. By the 25th May 1942, it had been re-named Ritz Cinema.

The Ritz Cinema was closed on 14th March 1956 with Charles Drake in 'Tobor the Great' and John Derek in 'The Fortune Hunter'(The Outcast). It was demolished in April 1960 and the site was re-developed. In 2009 an MOT car testing centre and garage is located on the site.”**

And now the MOT centre has gone and the site is underdevelopment again.

Looking at the maps and comparing with an old photograph it was a big place with a 40 feet wide proscenium and a 16 feet deep stage and a massive entrance.

I had wondered why the place didn’t ring any bells but I would not have ventured into Brockley until the early 1960s by which time the cinema had gone and with it perhaps that water trough.

Pictures; Brockley Barge, July 2008 courtesy of London Pubology, and that water trough and detail of St Mary’s Road 1953 historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at Historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at http://maps.southwark.gov.uk/connect/southwark.jsp?mapcfg=Historical_Selection&style=historical&banner=historical.
 with mapping provided by Landmark Information Group and picture of the Ritz by courtesy of Martin Tapsell from the Ritz Cinema, Ken Roe, cinematreasures,


* London Pubology, http://www.pubology.co.uk/pubs/215.html
**Ritz Cinema, Ken Roe, cinematreasures, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/27905

On Vassall Road ............with a water trough, the Union and a butter factory

Vassall Road trough, 2015

Now I have Ros to thank for these fine pictures of the water trough at Vassall Road and as ever there is a story which unites the trough, the Union and a butter factory.

Vassall Road was outside my comfort zone when I was growing up in Lausanne because it was just a tad too far to walk looking for adventures.

Back then adventures started with a walk except on those rare occasions when we spent our pocket money on a train trip from Queens Road or bought a Red Rover.

Neither of which ever took me down towards Camberwell New Road.

So Ross’s water trough was new to me and unlike so many it has been preserved and in the absence of passing horses and other livestock has been filled with flowers.

But the inscription exhorting kindness “to your animals” can still be read even if one of the stone emplacements which would have protected the trough from wheel hubs of passing wagons has been lost.

And intrigued by its survival I went looking for it on the old maps and there it was just where Ros left it yesterday.

And in 1953

Sometimes these troughs were moved from the centre of a crossroads as part of road widening schemes or just because they were getting in the way of the growing amount of traffic, but ours seems to have been sited on Vassall Road by the early 1950s and while it doesn’t show up on earlier maps I am guessing this is where it has always been.

Close enough to the old Union public house for the odd carter to leave his wagon in charge of his assistant and while his horse drank from the tough nipped in to the pub for a quick pint.

And having chatted to Mr Cook the landlord of the Union our carter might have gone off to deliver to one of the many small factories in the area.

The trough, the Union and the Butter factory, 1953

Now Mr Cook was pulling pints at the pub in 1914 and not long before there had been a smithy just across the way on Farmer Road and later still a Butter Factory and Kenoval House (Roller Shutter Factory).

Today there are still some industrial units along the road opposite the Academy and bits of them may date back to our butter factory roller shutter factory but the set of streets which included Warrior Road, Westhall Road and Elfin Road have gone.

And even the Union has undergone change with part of it becoming Bar Lenuccia which makes the survival of the water trough something to marvel over.

Pictures; the water trough on Vassall Road, courtesy of Ros Parks, and detail of Vassall Road and Farmer’s Road, 1953, historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at Historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at http://maps.southwark.gov.uk/connect/southwark.jsp?mapcfg=Historical_Selection&style=historical&banner=historical.
 with mapping provided by Landmark Information Group

Now you can go looking for a water trough and five turn up on the same day

My water trough was at the top of St Mary’s Road where it joined Evelina Road.

I remember it from the 1950s and so did Linda and Joan and in the case of Joan she told me that  “you have just given me a memory jolt... I can recall my mum telling me off for trying to get into that trough..... it was all green and slimy inside !!”

I vaguely remember others and said I would set myself the task of looking for them and it is a search which has already been helped by Ros, Linda, Sue, Sharon and Helen who all came up with fresh sites.

So now I know of the one on the Old Kent Road where it joined New Cross Road, the two at the top of Deptford Road, the one at Vassel Road and a fifth outside the Kentish Drovers on Commercial Road where Sue’s mum fell in “and swallowed her false tooth celebrating on VJ night. What a night that must have been” and finally one on Southhampton Way.

There will be others, after all there were lots of horses and other livestock on our streets and all needed watering.

So the project has just started.

I am hoping for more stories and pictures.  Pat has promised one of the tough at Vassel Road.

So as they say watch this space.

Thanks to Linda Barnes,Helen Middleton, Sue England, Joan Griffiths Sharon Wood, and Pat Ross.

Picture. down on Bexley Road 2014, courtesy of Jean Gammons

Drinking Troughs I have known

The drinking trough was one of those bits of street furniture I took for granted.

A water trough I knew .... St Mary's Road, date unknown

Thinking back they were all over the place and given the number of horses in use until the middle of the 20th century that is no surprise.

But they owed their origins as much to cattle as horses.

In the middle of the 19th century  cattle along with other livestock were still being walked into our city centres and while the days of bring them in from the country were over they were still being walked from main railway stations to dairies and abattoirs.

As late as the 1950s my old friend Oliver Bailey had the job of transporting pigs from our local station to his farm through the streets of Chorlton-cum-Hardy and the family still kept a herd of cattle on a patch of land in the heart of the township.

So the water trough during the years I grew up in Lausanne Road was still in use although by then its use was pretty much limited to offering water to the horses pulling the milk floats and the rag and bone man’s cart.

An on Bexley Road a water trough with flowers

And if I think hard enough the one on the corner of St Mary’s Road and Evelina Road was more often dry and a place for us lads to sit in and be silly getting our clothes dusty and a tad grimy from the accumulated muck which was a mix of dried leaves, the odd discarded crisp paper and street grit.

Some troughs can still be found like the one in Eltham, others were taken over as flower beds before finding their way into Corporation Yards and finally broken up as rubble.

Now I have decided to begin looking for them and plotting their presence around the area where I grew up.
And to help me I have fallen back on an excellent set of historical maps of Southwark.*

The trough on St Mary's Road, 1953

They cover the period from 1896-1953 and offer up a fascinating resource more so as the later ones cover my own time in Lausanne Road.

Added to which there is the facility to compare them with modern street maps and switch to contemporary street scenes.

From which I know that my water trough at the top of St Mary’s Road has long gone.
And as you would expect the story behind the maps is a tale in itself.
They were found in a cupboard by Mr Carter in the council offices who decided to have them digitized and made available on line.

That Peckham water trough again

They represent an invaluable resource for any one engaged in family research or like me have been drawn back to write about the place I grew up.

All too often my memory is hazy to the point where I wonder whether they actually happened.
So trying to track where my old friend Jimmy lived proved almost impossible.

I knew it was a street off Queen’s Road between Mona and the fire station.  Sadly google street maps offered no help but there on the 1953 map was the place and by using the electoral roll I found him and his house all over again.

And the same 1953 map offered up the corner of St Mary’s Road with Evelina Road that water  trough which was good because despite Adrian’s picture I had come to doubt that I had ever sat there.

All I have to do is find the rest.

Tomorrow, Ghost signs on Evelina Road .............. along with an old telephone kiosk and much more

Picture; St Mary’s Road with water trough, date unknown supplied by Adrian Parfitt, water trough, Bexley Road, 2015 from the collection of Jean Gammons and detail of St Mary’s Road 1953 historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at Historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at http://maps.southwark.gov.uk/connect/southwark.jsp?mapcfg=Historical_Selection&style=historical&banner=historical.
 with mapping provided by Landmark Information Group

A water trough and a tram transformer now that’s value for money .......... up Manchester Road

Now as water troughs go this is one I had all but forgotten.

It is situated where Manchester Road and Audenshaw Road diverge and I passed it pretty much every day when we lived in Ashton back in the 1970s.

And I have Ron to thank for supplying the pictures and setting me off on the story.

It was erected in 1879 and is made of polished Cornish granite and carried the inscription "THE RIGHTEOUS MAN REGARDETH THE LIFE OF HIS BEAST" and like so many it is now used as a flower tub.

But in the late 19th century and into the 20th it would have offered up a welcome break for carters and farmers travelling the Manchester Road.

Nearby was the canal and up ahead were the mills of Ashton and not so far away that jam factory,
Like many people I just took water troughs for granted.

They were a bit of that street furniture which were always there and when I was growing up still offered water to passing horses pulling milk floats and the carts of the local rag and bone man.

That said by the mid 1950s there wasn’t that much demand and the one near us was usually dry filled only with some decaying leaves bits of litter and a thin layer of grit.

But once they had been an important part of the landscape as was the tram transformer which I have to say I also took for granted.

In fact if I am honest I don’t think the one which stands behind the Audenshaw trough even registered with me.

It dates from around 1903, carried the coat of arms of Manchester Corporation and was made by the British Electric Transformer Company.

Now I think I can be fairly certain of the date because British Electric Transformer Company of Hayes in Middlesex which had been registered in that year took over from the British Electric Transformer Manufacturing Co.

And the date also fits with the extension by Manchester Corporation Tramways of its route to Audenshaw from Piccadilly.

This transformer pillar was restored by Norweb in 1983 and given its distinctive black and gold colour scheme.

I might be wrong but I rather remember is as painted a dull matt light green but then it was a long time ago.

All of which just leaves me to thank Ron for providing the images, jogging my memory and offering up another little obsession to sit with that of ghost signs.*

Pictures; the Audenshaw trough 2015, courtesy of Ron Stubley

*The Ghost Sign, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Ghost%20Sign