Lost scenes of Well Hall

Now this will be the last for a while of pictures of Eltham trams taken from that wonderful book on Eltham and Woolwich Tramways.*

But that said given that there are equally fascinating pictures of Woolwich, Charlton and Lee Green I reckon I will be back.

And one of the reasons is that each of the pictures reveals a lot about how we lived back nearly three quarters of a century ago.

So here is one that will be familiar to many.
We are on the platform of the old Well Hall Station looking down on the parade of shops and taking in the that climb up to the Woods.

It’s a scene I remember very well.

Of course by the time I was making that journey up from the station to 294 Well Hall the trams had long gone but I think the bakery was still there and the scene is not so different today.

That said the last time I looked 24 HOUR MINICABS were now operating from the shop but you can still make out on the side of the building the ghost sign for “Fyson’s Bakery Makers of Daren Bread” which has fared better than the chemist which once occupied the site.**

Or for that matter Daren bread which was a brown loaf popular in the 1930s and 40s which may also have been sold in the old Co-op which is just visible behind the tram.

I missed that Co-op building by a matter of months.  It had opened in 1906 and was demolished in 1964 just as we arrived.

It may still have been there but if so I don’t remember it or its successor being built,

And that is the value of the picture for despite the bits that seem familiar it is a scene which has vanished.

The tram went in the early 50s, the co-op in the 1960s and sadly for me at least the old station two decades later.

Pictures; looking down from Well Hall Station, date unknown, from the collection of E. Course and reproduced from Eltham & Woolwich Tramways, 1996

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

**Ghost signs in Well Hall, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/ghost-signs-in-well-hall.html

Back in Well Hall in the 1940s

Now I have James Garner to thank for these three photographs of which the ones of his grandmother and Mrs Powell are my favourites.

James Garner's grandmother

They come from that excellent site about the Progress Estate and got me thinking just how many photographs will exist of Well Hall and Eltham.

Some were made by commercial photographers and were reproduced on picture postcards plenty of which are still in circulation.

Many more will be the family snap, often taken in a hurry and sometimes a tad out of focus but as important as those professional images.

If you are lucky there will be a name and with a name you can begin to track the history of the person staring back at you.

And if you are very lucky some of that story will be supplied by the family, so James was able to add that his great grandparents moved to The Progress Estate, moving from Oxford shortly after it was built.

"Digging though my grandmother's photos, I have found a number of photos from their house at 80 Whinyates Road, and of their neighbour Mrs Bartholomew.

Mrs Rose

I'm not too sure of the years, but I'm guessing 1940s.”

But even if the identity of the individuals is unknown they can still offer up a wonderful treasure of detail about how we lived.

I remember my mother and grandmother both wore similar wrap around aprons to the one worn by Powell.

They were cheap, effective and are as much a part of history now as the telegram or the wireless.

Today an apron might be worn just for the duration of preparing and cooking a meal and perhaps not even then.

Back when I was growing up the wrap around apron went on at the beginning of the day and pretty much stayed on all day, taken off perhaps only to go to the shops.

St Barnabas circa 1957

And for most of us there are also the detail of the houses in the background which fasten the location to the estate and look so little different from today.

All of which just leaves that last picture of St Barnabas sometime around 1957 just as it was re-emerging form its years of bomb damage.

So that just leaves me to thank James again point you to the link below and make an appeal for similar images.



Pictures; courtesy of James Garner

* Progress Estate, London, SE9, http://progressestate.blogspot.co.uk/, Whinyates Road, http://progressestate.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/whinyates-road.html

Tracing the bombs that fell on Eltham .............. the online bomb maps

Now I am following up on the story I posted yesterday featuring eight short films about London, and Manchester during the Blitz with a link to a fascinating interactive map from the National Archives.*

London Can Take It is a collection of documentary films made by the GPO, the Ministry of Information and the Co-op recording the experiences of people during the Blitz.

And after reading the post my friend Debbie introduced me to BOMB SIGHT ..... Exploring the London Blitz during October 7 to June 6 1941.*

Now I have only looked at Eltham and Peckham but it covers all of London and allows you to see where the bombs fell, switch from a modern map and satellite picture to the original maps of 1940 and much more.

I started with Peckham where I spent the early years of my life and the map confirmed some of what I knew about the damage to our road but also threw up new mysteries which in time I will try to solve.

And in the same way the map of Well Hall offered a bomb on the corner of Rochester Way and Well Hall Road but not the site of the church along with a spread of hits near the station.

I reckon it will be fascinating for anyone wanting to know more about their bit of Eltham and of course the rest of London.  Not that it ends there other cities will have their bomb maps, including those for  Manchester.***

Pictures; barrage balloon on the Rec from the collection of Alan Brown

* Living through the Blitz ........... Manchester and London and eight short films, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/living-through-blitz-manchester-and.html

**BOMB SIGHTS, http://bombsight.org/#16/51.4708/-0.0539

***Manchester bomb maps, http://enriqueta.man.ac.uk/luna/servlet/view/all/who/Manchester%20City%20Council%20City%20Architect's%20Department%20(Building%20Surveyor's%20Division)?sort=Reference_Number,Page,Current_Repository