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

Standing outside Burton’s on Well Hall Road remembering a suit

Thinking of my first suit......... outside Burton's, 2015

Now I am back with another one of those buildings that most of us take for granted.

Added to which a large chunk of people will not even know that this fast food outlet was once Burton's.

The building was on the site of Eltham’s Congregational Church but when it was demolished in 1936 Burton's built their store.

The company was founded by Montague Burton in Chesterfield in 1904 under the name of The Cross-Tailoring Company and was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1929 by which time it had 400 stores, factories and mills.

 After World War II Montague Burton was one of the suppliers of demob suits to the British government for demobilising servicemen, comprising jacket, trousers, waistcoat, shirt and underwear*

Burton's in the 1960s

And so sometime around 1967 this was where I went for my first ever made to measure suit which was a great successor, followed by heaps of shirts, and ties and a not very successful grey overcoat which I took an instant dislike to and did our dad for years.

The shop dominated the corner of Well Hall Road and the High Street and will be remembered with fondness by many, as will the dance hall above.

I never went there but would often pass it at closing time on a Saturday night having walked back from Grove Park and a girl friend called Ann.

It was such a feature of Eltham life that I just thought it would always be there but on one flying visit in the 1980s it had gone and with it a bit of my growing up.

Pictures; the old Burton building, 2015 courtesy of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick and Burton's in the 1960s from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Burton (retailer), Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burton_(retailer)

Eltham Church ......”one towards your collection”

Now, I don’t for one minute think that when Lizzie sent this picture postcard to her auntie in Bridlington, that she ever thought it would reappear in Eltham a full century and a bit later.

And I am please it has courtesy of Tricia Leslie, because it offers up some interesting detail.

To the right, directly opposite the church is the wall of the Congregational Church which was later demolished to build Burton’s which is now McDonald’s.

The half timbered gateway is there but the space beyond, heading north down Well Hall Road, has yet to get the tram huts and has a second wooden gate and iron fence where today the stone seat and low wall with the word Eltham have been placed.

Add to this, that Well Hall Road looks narrower and was itself just under two years old, having been cut at this point as far as the railway bridge in 1905.

That said there is a lot that does look familiar, even though today the novelty of a camera has worn off leaving people unlikely to pose for a photographer.

Location; Eltham Church

Picture; Eltham Church,1907, courtesy of Tricia Leslie

Painting Well Hall and Eltham ....... nu 7 tram sheds and missing the tram

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

The Tram sheds, 2017 painted from a photograph, 1977

Now I always took the bus shelters for granted after all they had always been there and had always been bus shelters.

But not so.

They had started off as places to wait for the trams which began coming through Eltham at the beginning of the 20th century and which in turn were only made possible by the extension of Well Hall Road.

Neither of which I found out until recently.

LCC tram 1622, 2015

Of course it made perfect sense to extend Well Hall Road up from Sherard Road making a more direct route from Woolwich to the High Street.

And it made equal sense to start a tram service.

If I travelled on the old trams I have no memory, although Dad told me we made a special trip to see the last one arrive at the New Cross depot in 1952.

Sadly I can’t remember, and nor did he take a picture.

All of which just leaves the shelters as a testament to what had once been.

Location; Eltham, London

Painting; the tram sheds Well Hall Road © 2017 Peter Topping from a photograph by Jean Gammons circa 1977

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

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

Picture;  LCC tram 1622, 2015, Crich Tramway Village courtesy of Andy Robertson

One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, part 3, looking for the first residents

Our house today

This is where we lived  in for thirty years.

We moved into 294 Well Hall Road in March 1964 and while us kids slowly moved out over the years it remained my dad’s home till 1994.

And so I have decided to explore its history.

I can’t say I have ever thought of the people who lived their lives in our house but now I think it is time to start.

After all we accounted for just under a third of its existence and so I have begun to look for the people who were there before us.

Now  most of the spade work is being done by my friend Jean who has already been down to the Heritage Centre at Greenwich and trawled the street directories from when the estate was built.

And Jean will be back there looking for connections between the first occupants and the personnel records of the Royal Arsenal during the Great War.

The first of those residents was Basil Nunn who lived in our house until 1919 and was followed by Alfred W Rendle who stayed there until 1928.

I have great hopes that much more will be revealed for of course once you have a name then lots follow.  I have already started looking at the electoral registers for the period, and in time there may be the odd newspaper story, baptismal and marriage record and perhaps even someone who remembers them.

Added to this I will be able to conjure up the family who occupied our house and give a different context to the rooms we took for granted including how those rooms looked originally and how they might have been used.

The Bullet Factory, the Arsenal, circa 1916

And not for the first time during the search I have lapsed into a bit of idle speculation, pondering on which part of the Royal Arsenal Mr Nunn and perhaps Mr Randel worked in and whether they took the tram or cycled to Woolwich.

In turn I have thought about what they did to the garden and whether Mrs Nunn or Mrs Randel complained about the steep staircase which runs up the centre of the house, and how many times in a day they had to use them.

But all of that is a flight of fancy and rather stops me from the serious business of finding out more about the house and the first families who lived there.

So while Jean beavers away I shall go digging for any evidence of what the house might have been like when brand new and Mr Nunn moved in.

Research by Jean Gammons

Location; Well Hall, Eltham, London

Pictures; 294 Well Hall Road in 2014 courtesy of Chrissie Rose and inside the Royal Arsenal from the collection of Mark Flynn, The Bullet Factory, W H Kingsway, http://www.markfynn.com/

*One hundred years of one house in Well Hall, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20100%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, part 1, reflections

Well Hall Road and our house 2014

The story of one house over a century and a bit.*

2015 was the birthday of the house we lived in for thirty years.

We moved into 294 Well Hall Road in March 1964 and while us kids slowly moved out over the years it remained my dad’s home till 1994.

So this will be the start of a series of stories about the house which next year will celebrate its centenary.

Now despite spending most days digging deep into the past and uncovering the lives of those who interest me I have to confess that the people who occupied our house for the first forty-nine years are unknown to me.

But their lives will span the two world wars, along with the uncertain years that followed the end of the first war and the growing prosperity that came in the decades after 1945.

In the garden 1964

And more than anything it will be about the house and how it changed from a fairly basic but well built early 20th century property to one which was adapted to the growth in consumer products, central heating and the revolution in leisure.

So when we moved in in 1964, there was still a water heater which had been run off a solid fuel stove, the kitchen possessed just two power points and the windows were the originals that had come with the house in 1915.

The first residents would have gone off to work on the tram, and no doubt welcomed the new Well Hall Odeon which offered up evenings of excitement and was far closer than the first picture house up along the High Street.

And on those fine warm summer evenings there would still have been plenty of open spaces to enjoy.

The real discoveries will also be in just how their lives in the late 1920s and 30s matched and contrasted with those of the people I so often deal with who lived in the north  in the more challenged old industries of textiles, coal mining and ship building.

So it is all there to search out, and on the way I am well aware that George, Jean and Chrissie will be on hand to offer up their memories of their bit of Well Hall and Eltham.

Location; Well Hall, Eltham, London

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 1964  and Chrissie Rose 2015

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road,
https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

Buying a book at Wilcox's on Well Hall Road and a thank you

Well Hall Odeon, circa 1960s

It is pretty much one of those things that when you live somewhere you take it for granted.

Growing up in Eltham in the 1960s I don’t think I ever took a photograph of the place and most of the changes that occurred just passed me by.

That said I am not sure that there were many dramatic developments to Eltham during that decade.

The cinemas were all still there when I left as was the old station, and the shops on Well Hall Road just down from the Odeon were the same when I returned in the early 70s.

They included the radio shop where mum bought our first stereogram, the barber's shop next to the cinema where you always came out with a short back and sides no matter what you had asked for and Wells the Chemist and the cafe.

Some places have faded from my memory and others while still vivid have challenged me to remember their name.

Wilcox, Well Hall Road circa 1960s

So here I am with that shop at the top of Well Hall Road hard by Burton’s.

It sold everything from papers and sweets to books and on a Saturday morning it was one of the first ports of call before heading up the High Street to meet friends, or visit the library.

And only yesterday our Saul started reading the copy of Canterbury Tales which I bought from Wilcox’s sometime in the summer of 1967.

The book is much battered and is in danger of falling apart but it is a nice reminder of the continuity which binds me to the place where I grew up and still feel a pull for.

So I was pleased that I have come across a fresh collection of photographs from the community website This is Eltham and particularly pleased that they have given me permission to raid the archive.*

Some are very much part of my childhood while others look back to an earlier period of Eltham’s history.

But it is the one of Wilcox’s that has triggered off a rich cascade of memories and underlines for me the power of an image to reawaken the past.

And as these things go just as I finished the story, Lesley of This is Eltham, told me that Wilcox's  
"was my father's shop Andrew,  he had 5 shops in Eltham, 32 High Street, and there's a photo of my mother in that shop in 1938/9, then a haberdashery's in Well Hall Parade opposite the Pleasaunce, one with a Post Office in Westhrone Avenue and and a tiny, tiny one at the High Street end of Archery Road but that was probably gone by the time you came to Eltham."

Now that I think is just a perfect ending.

Pictures; Well Hall Odeon and Wilcox’s circa 1960 courtesy of This is Eltham


*This is Eltham, http://www.thisiseltham.co.uk/index.php

Well Hall Road and memories of collecting my National Insurance number in 1965

Now I left Eltham a long time ago and bits of the place have tended to fade faster than others.  

But Chrissie’s pictures of the parade of shops at the top end of Well Hall Road brought it all back.

During the 1960s and early 70s that stretch from the Spiritualist Church to Dobell Road didn’t get that much of a second glance.

If you were on the bus you passed it without even thinking and if you walked, it was for me just the prelude to a look in at Normans, and Wilcox’s further along before heading in to the High Street.

But the parade did contain that wonderful model shop and the place dad bought his timber which meant that on occasions I lingered gazing in at the made up model aircraft before going to get some “two b one” and wood screws for something dad was making.

It was also where in 1965 I went to collect the card with my National Insurance number and here someone will have to help me out.

As I remember it was that bit of an extension to the side of what is now the Polish Deli and I guess was an add on to the original building.  After you had entered there was a flight of stairs to the offices and that is all I remember.

I have no idea when it was built, opened for business or for that matter closed.

But that is the price you pay for moving away because things and places have a habit of changing and sometimes it is so complete that you even begin to wonder whether what you remember really was the case.

Now I am on firmer ground with the Shining Pearl which always caught my imagination with that huge swirling red and yellow sun which dominated the window.

I reckon it will have been one of the first Chinese meals I ever ate not counting of course Vesta Chow Mein which with its partner the Vesta Curry stood for all that was exotic eating in our house back in 1965.

Not that I am going to knock it, after all when you are 16 and want to rebel against sausage and mash but lack many culinary skills, the Vesta range was the name of the game, followed by Angel Delight which was even easier to serve than old fashioned blamange.

All of which is a long way from the offices of the Employment Exchange and later Alan’s the furniture place.

But I will add a correction from Carol Coleman, who posted, "I worked for the department of health & social security in this building in the late 1960s. 

It was a benefits office not an employment exchange. The building was an old snooker hall and before that a theatre. 

The stage was still there and the department had converted part of it into office space. The steps led into a large waiting room with a long table and metal seating. 

Public enquiries were dealt with at this table and at either end were two small cubicles used for private conversations if required. A big space with a high roof it was cold working there in the winter!"

So I shall close before I am accused of nostalgic tosh, thank Chrissie for her pictures of the parade and just ask if anyone has a picture of the Shinning Pearl.

Sitting here within a few miles of Manchester’s Chinese Quarter and the equally famous Curry Mile in Rusholme I have a wish to be reminded of the Shinning Pearl.

Location; Well Hall Road, Eltham, London

Pictures; from the collection of Chrissie Rose

Walking Well Hall ......... past the station and then the climb up to the High Street

Now anyone who walked up to the High Street from anywhere along Well Hall Road may well have wondered about these houses.

I was always fascinated by how high and set back they were from the road and was always particularly intrigued by the one with high wall and brick entrance.

And I remember the time when one of the occupants excavated all that land in front of their house to create a car space which must have been in the late 60s or early 70s.

In time someone will post on the history of these properties.

Tricia’s picture, she thinks, dates from the 1930s and certainly the tram lines  will date it to before the end of the 1940s.

When I regularly walked Well Hall from our house just beyond the roundabout which will have been thirty or so year after the picture was taken little had changed.

And I still remember the school friend who lived on the opposite side of the road.

She was called Deboarah, was a year below me at Crown Woods and went off to train as a teacher.  Alas our paths never crossed again.

Many others remember those houses.  My friend Jean thought they were posh while Lesley like me passed them many times on foot.

For me it was the return journey back from the High Street, which was just that better with its view down the slope to the station and then that steady rise away in the distance that took in the Odeon and the woods.

So thank you Tricia for posting the pictures.

Memories are made of these.

Location; Eltham

Pictures; Well Hall Road, circa 1930s, courtesy of Tricia Leslie

The history of Eltham in just 20 objects ........Nu 3 the Rock Band and the Welcome Inn from Paula

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.

Here is Paula's choice

ROCK legends Status Quo were filled with nostalgia after they were honoured with a plaque commemorating their first gig.

The Music Heritage Plaque from the Performing Rights Society was unveiled at the former site of the Welcome Inn in Well Hall Road, Eltham, where the band first performed in 1967.

The pub, at the junction of Westmount Road, burnt down in 2006 and is now a block of flats.

Location' Eltham

Contributed by Paula Nottle

Picture; supplied by Paula Nottle

A car, a row of shops and a liitle bit more is revealed about the history of Well Hall Road

Now I like the way that a photograph can draw you in and sends you off on all sorts of new enquiriess.

Mr Abbot's car on Well Hall Road, circa 1950s

So it was with this one that Kath May shared with me.

She wrote that “My Nan lived on Well Hall Road and this was my uncle Bob’s car outside her house.”

He owned it in the 1950s and has promised to jot down anything he can remember about the car.

The number plate suggests it would have been registered sometime between 1903 and the early 1930s and of course there will be someone out there who recognises the make and may offer up the date it was made.

All of which leaves me to concentrate on the buildings behind which when I lived on Well Hall Road I just took for granted.

We sometimes got our papers from the corner shop, I had my hair cut at the barbers and mum bought our first Roberts radio from the electrical shop and yes we used Wells the Chemist and the small supermarket which I think was still trading as Delroy’s and I even have sat for a drink in the cafe.

But I never at any time ever gave a thought to when they were built and only recently when I discovered that part of the site had been occupied by Well Hall Cottages did I wonder about the date of the construction.

Well Hall Road, 1937

And as ever it was Tricia Lesley who went looking for answers.

The cottages which may date from the mid 18th century were demolished in 1923 and the present properties built in 1937.*

What is remarkable is the continuity of businesses, many of which were still there when we arrived in 1964.

Now armed with a directory it should be possible to do that bit of research comparing the shops in 1937 with 1964 and 2015 which is all good history allowing us to draw conclusions about changing shopping patterns.

And even given the passage of 78 years some shops have continued to offer the same service, although like everywhere the onward march of the takeaway is all too present along with the Tesco Express in the new build which was once that bit of open ground with the small community hut.

I had quite forgotten that this new build is very new and that on one of my last flying visits in 2008 the site was still the small hall and bit of green.

All of which is grist to the local historian and leaves me to reflect that I bought a Mars bar most school days from nu 5 Odeon Parade and once visited the hair dresser's next door, and only the once for having carefully explained what I wanted, came back with a "short back and sides."

And it just so happens that Mr Birch was related to Tricia who helped with the story. "My uncle Harold Birch  was married to my dads older sister the one who wrote me all those lovely letters of her days living in the huts."

Now that is how I like my history!  But he still gave me the wrong haircut.

*Additional research by Tricia Leslie including material from The Eltham Hutments by John Kennett, 1988

Picture; Mr Abbot’s car circa 1950s, from the collection of Kath May

Missing that old bridge

My old bridge circa 1940s

I cannot even begin to count the number of times I walked under the railway bridge which spanned Well Hall Road.

But then why should I?

It had carried trains across the road from 1895 and continued to do so for 90 years and I just took it for granted.

And then in 1985 as part of the construction of the relief road and the new station it was replaced by a new bridge which is a functional no nonsense bit of railway architecture and it lacks the style of the one I remember with those columns that adorn the upper part of the bridge and the brackets with their detailed wheels.

Detail of that bridge

Perhaps after those 90 years it had had its day but it is one of those little examples of how function can have style.

The picture dates to sometime after the last war but is pretty much as I remember it.

Go back a couple of decades and there were large hoardings underneath the bridge along with more on the embankment and a poster which ran right across the upper section.

And then it all changed again and now it has gone completely.

A new bridge 2015

I don’t suppose it matters over much but points to that simple observation that we take things for granted.

All of the shops beyond the bridge have changed since that tram trundled past although some further up by the Pleasaunce were operated by the same families when I walked up Well Hall Road.

So not an earth shattering bit of our history but still a bit of it.

Pictures; Well Hall bridge, circa 1940s, from the collection of A J Watkins, reproduced from Eltham and Woolwich Tramways and the new bridge 2014, from the collection of Chrissy Rose

*Eltham and Woolwich Tramways, Robert J Harley, Middleton Press, 1996, https://www.middletonpress.co.uk/

Telling sad stories about the end of our Police Station …….

Actually, is it less a story and more a collection of pictures taken by Garry Luttman who was on hand to record the demolition of Eltham’s Police Station

Just before opening, 1936/37

It opened sometime around 1936/7, and after over 80 years of service it closed permanently in August 2021.

The front desk had been closed four years earlier, but there remained a police presence until 2021.

Of course for those who live in Eltham this will not be news, but there are lots of us who were born here or grew up in Eltham who may not know that the police station has gone.

All of which makes Garry's pictures so important because they record its end.

Somewhere there will be photographs of the place being built and others of the time between then and now. 

2023

I am hoping that they will surface along with memories and anecdotes of the station and those who used it.

2023

And just before I posted the story Garry came up with an image from 1936/7 showing the finishing touches being made before the station was opened adding, "I have especially fond memories of the place, as my late father was stationed there for a number of years and it was, infact, his last 'Nick'. 

The last stages, 2023

If we were in Eltham when he was on leave, he would occasionally take my brother and I into the canteen for a cup of tea and some biscuits!"

Back in 2019 I wrote about its history and that story prompted a heap of accounts from people who had been summoned to the station, has asked for help or just remembered its presence.*

So here’s hoping that this story will elicit some responses, like those that have started to come through from yesterday’s article.**

Location; Well Hall Road, Eltham

Pictures, Eltham Police Station, 2023, and in 1936/7 from the collection of Garry Luttman.

*Eltham Police Station .............. one of those buildings I have always taken for granted, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2019/06/eltham-police-station-one-of-those.html

**Pictures from an Eltham Walk ......no. 1 ...... goodbye after 84 years, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/09/pictures-from-eltham-walk-no-1-goodbye.html

Pictures from an Eltham Walk ......no. 1 ...... goodbye after 87 years

If you are going out for a walk, always take a picture.  

Looking for a Police Station, 2023

My friend Larissa does and it follows on from her very succesful project of capturing scenes of Eltham from a bus.*

And the first of the new series is that empty space at the top of Well Hall Road, close to the High Street.

Most of us will know it as the former Police Station which I took for granted while I was growing up in Well Hall.

At the time I never gave it much thought and if I did I guess I thought it was rather ugly.

But the passage of time has made me think it was a fine example of late 1930s architecture, where purpose took precedence over style, although I do think it does have style.

Passing the Police Station, 2015

Or I should say did, because for all of us who no longer live in Eltham I can report it has gone.

It was closed some years ago, recently  demolished and is the site is waiting for something to happen.

And as you do I went looking for a planning application for its redevelopment on Greenwich's planning portal.

So far there is no reference for what is to happen, although I did  stumble across the two applications to knock it down, the first in September 2022 and the second in the November of the same year.

That said someone may know.

Knocking on the door, 2015

Leaving me just to reflect that I have wondered about when it was built***

The search ended up with the Greenwich Heritage Centre who came up with a date between 1936-39.

"The only clues as to the date of the station I’ve found come from the electoral register and the ordnance survey map. The ordnance survey as revised in 1936 shows the site on which the station would come to be built as empty. 

Fortunately, it appears that when built there were three flats incorporated into the station - for married members of the force or possibly caretakers, I would imagine – which means that the police station, with its residents, was included in the electoral register. 

The first time it appears is in October 1939. So 1936-39 is as close as I can come to a date."

Although there is a picture of the station just before it opened with a suggested date of 1936/7.

So, that may be when it was built and 87 years later it has gone.

Apologies to anyone who knew it is no more and a thank you to Larissa for the pictures and the start of a new Eltham series.

A space, 2023

Picture; Eltham Police Station, Well Hall Road, 2015, from the collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick and the space that was Eltham Police Station, courtesy of Larissa Hamment

Tomorrow; the sad end of our Police Station

*Picture; from an Eltham Bus; https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Pictures%20from%20an%20Eltham%20Bus

** Greenwich Planning Portal, https://planning.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/online-applications/searchResultsBack.do?action=back

***Eltham Police Station .............. one of those buildings I have always taken for granted, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2019/06/eltham-police-station-one-of-those.html

****Greenwich Heritage Centre, http://www.greenwichheritage.org/site/index.php

Who remembers Tudors of Eltham? ......... Peter's story

Now this is less a history story and more a mystery investigation.

It began with a picture of an old van in a lane in Footscray and yes once again it was my friend Jean who supplied the picture and contributed much to the search.

The van belonged to Tudors of Eltham who were listed at 58-60 Well Hall Road.  I vaguely remember the name but that is about it.

The van was registered in 1985 and was bought minus its engine in 1990 from a firm in Maidstone, its new owner having responded out of nothing more than simple curiosity to an advert. that said "Large van for sale- no Tax, no Insurance and no Engine."

Jean has added "He found that the story behind this had a bizzare twist- it seems that the van's previous owners, who may have been Tudors of Eltham, had trouble with the engine, and let someone dismantle it and take it away for repair but sadly the said mechanic never returned.

However, he bought the van anyway as it was cheap and he thought it would make a good 'mobile shed'. 

Towing it home was not without danger though as another driver - not seeing the towing rope-cut across him whilst coming over Maidstone Bridge, almost dividing him from life and limb and his new-found bargain of a lifetime."

Today 58-60 Well Hall Road is occupied by another furniture company who have been trading on the spot since 1991.

Jean remembers that back in the 1960s and 70s the shop “was, a branch of Jones Brothers, timber merchants and most of the wood in my house was bought at this shop,” which I rather think was where dad bought his wood from as well.

And just to add to the mist I remember the entrance on the extreme left of the parade of shops being a branch of the Ministry of Empolyment  because it was there at the tender age of 16 I went for a National Insurance card.

So there is the mystery, when were Tudors of Eltham on Well Hall Road, and who remembers them?

At this point of course the historian in me mutters it should be possible to track them down with a directory, but who wants to spoil a mystery?

Pictures; from the collection of Jean Gammons.

Eltham’s ghost signs ........... nu 2 Mr Johnson

Now I can’t quite work out why I can’t find many ghost signs across Eltham.

These were the adverts for products, companies and businesses which have long since vanished but their hand painted signs linger on, usually on gable ends or hidden under modern signage.

There was that one on the corner of Well Hall Road and Dunvegan but I can’t remember others.

So I was pleased when Paula shared this one which has only just come out of the shadows,

It was for years hidden by a huge permanent bill board so substantial that it even had a platform and was on the side of the estate agents at the top of Well Hall Road and will have gone again.

And sometime between September of last year and recently that structure came down to reveal the ghost sign of “Johnson, builders & decorators merchants.”

All of which prompts me to go looking for the story of the firm which I can’t remember but I bet someone can and will be able to offer up chapter and verse and in turn offer up more ghost signs from Eltham along with Woolwich and further a field.

Location; Eltham

Picture; Eltham ghost sign Well Hall Road, 2016, from the collection of Paula Nottle

Eltham Police Station .............. one of those buildings I have always taken for granted

I don’t suppose I am the only one who takes the more recent buildings of Eltham for granted.

The big brick built police station at the High Street end of Well Hall Road doesn’t have the style or elegance of its Shooters Hill counterpart but I grew up with it and it has just been a part of the landscape as familiar as the old Burtons, the fire station and St John’s Church.

If I am honest I have to say it is an ugly building and while it is a perfectly functional piece of architecture it does nothing for me.

Not that I have ever been inside and until this week I wasn’t even aware that it was just open from 10 am to 6 pm on Tuesdays through to Saturday which is a bit of news that has left me without a story because for years I dined out on telling people how we had had two police stations at either end of our road.

Now the Shooters Hill one which was opened in 1905 has long closed  and the other at nu 2 Well Hall Road seems a pale shadow.

But the place will have a history and so I shall set myself the target of looking for its history.

And like you do I have wondered about when it was built and  turned to the Greenwich Heritage Centre who came up with a date between 1936-39.

"The only clues as to the date of the station I’ve found come from the electoral register and the ordnance survey map. The ordnance survey as revised in 1936 shows the site on which the station would come to be built as empty. 

Fortunately, it appears that when built there were three flats incorporated into the station - for married members of the force or possibly caretakers, I would imagine – which means that the police station, with its residents, was included in the electoral register. 

The first time it appears is in October 1939. So 1936-39 is as close as I can come to a date."

And that is just perfect.

And Garry Luttman has added "As an update Andrew, the front counter is now permanently closed. The building is still operational, but no one knows for how much longer. Most London boroughs now have only one centralised police station".


Location; Well Hall Road, Eltham, London

Picture; Eltham Police Station, Well Hall Road, 2015, from the collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick

*Greenwich Heritage Centre, http://www.greenwichheritage.org/site/index.php

Walking out one May morning in Well Hall

Now on a day like this, with the sun already climbing across the sky I am thinking of Well Hall, and Eltham.

It is a feature of getting older, that the memories come flooding back and stay longer.

I guess that with fewer routine things to do, from feeding the kids, sending them off to school and going out to work there is more time to let the past wander in.

For me that morning sun is often a trigger and in an instant I am back at the top of our road by the old church, hard by what was Burtons and Wilcox’s.

And it helps when you get a picture of that very spot.

So yesterday I was really pleased that Ryan shared this one of the parish church, on a bright May day.

It is just how I would have seen it walking up Well Hall and that is all I have to say.

Location; Well Hall Road

Picture; Eltham Church, 2018 from the collection of Ryan Ginn

My house on Well Hall Road and two more, thank you Chrissie

Another in the series which feature contemporary photographs of places with a history.

This was where we lived from 1964 till 1991.

Back then the front door was painted blue and there was a front porch which was only built after dad had submitted plans to the Progress Estate.

The walls were yet to be painted white and the bins were kept at the back.

My bedroom was the one at the from above the door.

There was still a brick wall separating the wide expanse of green from the street to our front door and the very tall and impressive tree still dominated the spot

And Mrs Gold lived next to us in the end house to your left.

All of which is perhaps a tad too personnel so instead I shall include two more pictures of the Well Hall estate for no other reason than I lived there and they were taken by new friend Chrissie and I like them.

Looking at them again they bring back fond memories.

Of course that odd well worn thought "that you don't miss the place till you've gone" is pretty much how I feel when I see these scenes of Well Hall.

But there will be lots of new people who will be enjoying the place and its history so that is consolation enough.


Pictures; of the Progress Estate, Chrissie Rose, February 2014

The Progress Estate, just one year off a century

Now the blog is read pretty much everywhere.

This is not a boast, that is something I am too modest to do but since November 2011 when it began it has been read by lots of people across the globe.

So with that in mind I wanted to show Well Hall off to the world.

So here are three pictures taken by Jean Low and her husband of the Progress Estate.

They feature the different styles that were built and capture what makes the estate a much sought after place to live and one which many look back on with fond memories.

And that includes me who moved to Well Hall Road in 1964 when the Progress Estate was almost fifty years old.

If you live in Eltham its history is well known and for those who don’t I shall just say it was built in 1915 by the Government as homes for the workers at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich and was originally called the Well Hall Estate before changing its name after it had been bought by the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society.

Now that just leaves me waiting for someone to take a picture of 294 Well Hall Road where we lived from 1964 till 1991.

I know I should have taken one when we lived there but I didn't.

Well you tend to take a place for granted and I have to admit I miss it.

But when ever I pass the place it looks as good as I remember it.

And if you want more follow the story at Living in a piece of history, the Progress Estate Well Hall, in the spring of 1964, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/living-in-piece-of-history-progress.html

Pictures; courtesy of Jean Low