Travelling by tram round the Well Hall Circus

Now I have no idea when this picture was taken. 

I do know that it will date from after 1931 when the roundabout was built which according to Eltham and Woolwich Tramways was constructed as part of the Westhorne Avenue extension.*

And if I wanted to be more specific I guess it can be no earlier than 1938 a date which cinema buffs will confirm.

The Odeon was opened in 1936 and of the two films showing that week The Dark Horse was made in 1932 and I’ll give a million six years later.

I can’t say either would have got me walking down from our house.

The Dark Horse was a political comedy starring Bette Davies and turned on the efforts of Ms Davies and others to find a candidate for Governor at the Progressive Party convention and ran through a series of improbable plot lines.

Not to be out done its running mate that week centred around Warner Baxter who played a millionaire saving a tramp from suicide, and then taking the tramps clothes and disappearing with a rumour that he would give a million dollars to anyone who is kind to a tramp.

But perhaps I am being unfair.  I can sit through endless episodes of Coronation Street, have bought at least two DVDs of Downton Abbey and can pretty much quote James T Kirk word for word in all his Star Trek films and plenty of the TV shows.

And having demonstrated my unnerving attention to detail I can offer up the names of all those who occupied the shops stretching down from the cinema to the Pleasaunce when Ms Davies was at the Odeon.**

But I am on firmer ground with the second which dates from December 29 1948 and I have to say it doesn’t look so different from when I walked up Well Hall Road in the mid 1960s.

From memory the path across the roundabout had gone, along with the tram poles although I suspect under the tarmac still lurked the tramlines.

And for all I know they may still be there.

Like all good stories I learnt something knew because back in the 1940s our roundabout was, according to the London Transport timetable known as Well Hall Circus.

So that is all I shall say, except to thank Middleton Press for giving me permission to reproduce the pictures from their book Eltham and Woolwich Tramways and promise you more later.

Oh and a thank you to Tricia Leslie who first came across the pictures and posted them and then introduced me to the tram book.

Pictures; Arriving at the Well Odeon,  circa 1938, A J Watkins, and Well hall Circus, 1948, H B Priestley reproduced from Eltham and Woolwich Tramways

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

** A car, a row of shops and a little bit more is revealed about the history of Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/a-car-row-of-shops-and-liitle-bit-more.html

At the opening of the Well Hall Odeon, May 20th 1936

Now it would be a full 28 years after the Well Odeon was open that I first saw a film there.

And of course I have no idea what the film was or for that matter almost any of the pictures I went on to see at the place.

But it was a regular haunt made more so because I had the job of taking my sisters there on a Saturday morning.

Of all the picture houses I have been in there, was something special about the Odeon.

It started with that unique box office in the centre of the foyer, that thick carpet, the decor and of course the smell.

Put them all together and you felt that this was somewhere special, a place not only to be entertained but a place where for a few hours the daily routines along with the niggles of the day could be forgotten.

And these picture houses were designed for just that purpose.  Plenty of homes back in 1936 were still austere places little in the way of luxury and by comparison drab and dim and cold.

But the Well Hall Odeon radiated style from that tall glass and tiled tower to the sweep of the entrance roof.

And it was big. It dwarfed the houses that surrounded it stretched back and was only really challenged by the church opposite.

So I am really pleased that Chrissie shared the souvenir programme with me.

Location; Well Hall, Eltham, London

Picture; souvenir booklet of the opening of the Well Hall Odeon, 1936 courtesy of Chrissie Rose

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