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

A little bit of our history down at the Co-op

2d token issued by the R.A.C.S., date unknown

It’s so easy to lose so much of our history.

Now the big things like the homes of the great and good, as well as the not so good but still very powerful and rich usually survive, as do their possessions.

In the same way those important papers of State, the letters and records of government from Roman tax records to Magana Carta and much else have come down to us.

Although I do have to concede sometimes it is a dam close thing and often it is down to accident rather than design that these things are still around to tell us something of the past.

Of course in the great sweep of history more rather than less has gone forever.

1£ Co-op book of stamps circa 1970

And amongst all that lost material are the overwhelming majority of everyday objects each with their own unique story.

I could have picked almost anything to explore these vanished objects but in the end choose the humble trading token and its modern equivalent the trading stamp.

It began with a sheet of those Green Shield Stamps posted on facebook which if you are of a certain age will bring back vivid memories of collecting them, then sticking them in books and eventually exchanging shed loads of them for a range of goods.

Co-op stamps, circa 1970

And into the game came the Co-op which had been operating its own reward system since its inception.

This was the dividend which gave every member a share of the stores profits.  All you needed to do was quote your “divi number” and the amount you spent would be recorded.

Talk to many people and they can instantly remember their family number and even quote it back.

Sadly I was never one of them and so for me the introduction of the divi stamp was to be welcomed.  So instead of holding up a line of shoppers down at the Well Hall Co-op opposite the Pleasaunce I could now vanish with the groceries secure in the knowledge that all was well with our divi reward.

A token issued by  Bolden Industrial Co-op, date uknown

“Dividend Stamps were introduced in 1965. 

It was an alternative to the traditional methods of paying the 'divi', and as a response to the adoption of trading stamps by other food retailers like Tesco who adopted the Green Shield stamps scheme. 

Some individual Co-operative societies operated their own stamp schemes but the CWS National scheme was in use from 1969.”*

Running alongside the number and then later the stamps were the old tokens, made of very thin metal.

"Coop members would go into their local society shops to buy the tokens for bread, milk, coal etc. The amount they spent would then be registered for their dividend payments.  The members would then give the token to the milkman, bread man or coal roundsman etc in return for the items they wanted."**

Co-op stamps, circa 1970

In our house some at least never made it back to the Co-op and instead were used as toys and even took the place of playing cards.


So for those who remember them and a lot more who are totally baffled by them here is a selection taken from my friend Lawrence’s blog* and the Bolden History site.*

They were an important part of many peoples' way of budgeting and marked a commitment to a co-operative way of life which I still think is the way forward.

Pictures; Co-op trading stamps, courtesy of Lawrence Beedle, and trading tokens from Boldon History

*Hardy Lane Scrapbook, http://hardylane.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/co-op-stamps.html

**Boldon History, http://www.boldonhistory.co.uk/Boldon-Colliery-ID11/The%20Co-op-IDI141

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 39 ..... a day in the summer of 1978 at the Pleasaunce

It will have been a day in August and having aimlessly wandered around Well Hall with a camera I washed up at the Pleasaunce.

Like so many people from Eltham, the Barn and the gardens are a special place.

It is that mix of history, the moat, and the walks around the flowerbeds and away into the secluded areas.

As a youngster I never tired of the place and later I would make a special trip to whatever exhibition was being staged upstairs.

And then I moved away and the visits were limited to summer holidays and it would have been on one of these that I took the photograph.

For four decades it was one of the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s which sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Although in the case of the Pleasuance looking at recent pictures taken by others not much has changed.

And that is reassuring.

Location; Eltham

Picture; Eltham, circa 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A golden childhood growing up in Well Hall in the 1960's

Lost in the woods, 1977

Now Eltham was a pretty good place to grow up in the 1960s especially when you had come from Peckham.

It was partly the opportunity to wander over large areas of open and wooded land where you could play, walk and just let your imagination out for the day.

That said I was 14 when we arrived in Well Hall which made some of the “play thing” a little old hat.

But that freedom to set off up into the woods on a warm summer’s morning with no real idea of where you would end up was magic.

Of course the first few times you took off up there it really was discovering new places, and then later it was equally special as you shared it with a girlfriend.

What started out at Well Hall could by degree take you off to Welling via the castle and offer up some stunning views.

And when you tired of trees, solitude and aimless meanderings there was always the Palace and the pleasure of walking along King John’s Walk towards Mottingham.

King John's Walk, towards Mottingham, 1977

Looking back all that didn’t last long, partly I guess because the summers were all too short and soon there were widening horizons and counter attractions.

Never underestimate just how a sixteen your old starting out a fresh at Crown Woods with a whole new set of friends can be drawn away from the simple pleasures of a walk in the woods.

But they never quite went away, after all when you live on Well Hall Road the woods dominated the view from the back window and on those storming summer nights when the sky was lit up with the jagged flashes of lightening it was hard not to be drawn up there.

Not that anyone with any sense would venture there in such a storm.

A much better attraction was the Welcome from where you could sit out the storm with a pint although all too often I was less lucky.  Those storms seemed to pick me out as I was walking back from a Friday night in Woolwich, and later still falling out of the King’s Arms in the High Street.

And now the woods and Well Hall are a long way from where I live and separated by a gulf of time but they still exert a pull and bring back a pretty perfect childhood.

Pictures; the woods and King Jon's Walk, 1977 from the collection of Jean Gammons

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.16 looking out from Well Hall Station

A short series on the pictures of Eltham and Woolwich in 1976.

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Well Hall

Picture; Well Hall circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Snaps of the Pleasaunce ……..

In the summer of 1979 armed with a new camera I wandered across Well Hall snapping at all I saw.

Looking at them again today l have to admit that they weren’t the best and the colour ones have not survived well sitting in our cellar for over four decades.

But they are a record of where I grew up and given that it was 46 years ago some at least now have a period feel.

So while I can recognise the places it is like looking through a dirty window …… you can vaguely make out the building or the scene, but its indistinct and a tad different.

Not so the Pleasaunce, which pretty much looks the same as when I wandered around it in the 1960s, and again in the 80s’ and 90s.

True the floral gardens will have changed a bit, but otherwise it’s the Pleasaunce, a place whose history I have explored over the years.

And that is it.

Location; Well Hall Pleasaunce

Pictures; that familiar Well Hall place, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 19 ........... the unremarkable

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Now there is nothing over remarkable about these two pictures of our garden in Well Hall sometime in the 1970s.

The quality is a bit iffy but then they are over 47 years old and were taken with one of those old clunky instamatic cameras, which processed the film straight away and turned out the image in minutes.

The film was expensive and from memory you only got eight or so shots, but there was something magical about the instant nature of the process.

Today the mobile phone or the digital camera will do it equally fast with the added advantage that it can be sent on to family and friends across the planet.

But in 1970 this was pretty neat, and how better to use it than a snap of our back garden.

I doubt any of us will remember who took them but they show the garden just as I remember it.  My sisters, and in particular our Stella laid out the garden and Dad was on hand to do the actual work.

And like all back gardens, there in the corner was the shed, full of all sorts of treasures and a real necessity given we didn’t have a cellar.

Dad put it up around 1964 and a full thirty years later it still had that powerful smell of creosote.

Looking at out garden and across to our neighbours there is nothing remarkable about any of them, but that actually makes the fascinating and in their own way a real history lesson.

Here is how we decided to lay out our small gardens back in 1970.

They may not be much different from the same gardens today or those of the 1950s, but they do offer up a picture of life in 1970, added to which they are our garden, which is enough for me.

Location; Well Hall

Pictures; the back garden of our house on Well Hall Road, circa 1970, from the Simpson collection

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

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 24 ........... the shed, the garden and a new way of taking pictures

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family. *

Now this is nothing more complicated than a picture from one of our bedrooms looking down on the back garden.

It was taken sometime in the early 1970s, and shows Dad's shed, the old swing which came with us from Lausanne Road, and the two fruit trees.

And in its mix of stuff, I guess will not be much different than all the other houses on the Progress Estate.

What might just set it apart was that the picture was taken with one of those instant cameras, which gave you a result in seconds.

Once the button had been pushed , you waited just a minute or so for the photograph to appear, doing away with a trip to the chemist, or posting the film away to a photographic lab.

All of which dispensed with the week or delay before the images arrived back.

Here was instant pictures, which to a pre mobile generation was magic.

I can't now remember which type of instant camera we used, and I have to say most of the pictures have long since been lost, while a few were ruined as they came out, because the trick was lo let them dry, otherwise you smudged them.

And that could be a bit of a disaster given how much the films cost to buy.

The shed and the trees have long gone, and this represents one of the few pictures we have of the house and garden.

Still it's enough and will bring back shed loads of memories to me and my sisters and their partners.

Location; Well Hall

Pictures; Well Hall Road, circa 1973, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*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

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 48 ..... our house

This is another of the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s.

Our house, 1974

They sat undisturbed in our cellar for a decade and a bit but all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

At which point I have to confess this one was taken by one of my sisters on one of those cameras which gave you a print straight away, but it will still date from the 1970s or at the latest sometime in the mid 1980s.

Looking at the house today little has changed.  The porch added by Dad in 1964 has gone, the front has been painted white, and the wall that ran alongside the pavement has been replaced by a wooden fence which was what would have been there back in 1915 when the property was built.

The same house, 2014

The great tree which stood almost in front of our house was long ago demolished but a new one has been planted.

But that is not quite the end of the story because for Christmas I got one of those scanners which can scan old negatives and I have a lot of old negatives of Eltham, Woolwich and beyond, so as they say, watch this space.

Location; Well Hall Road

Picture; our house,1974 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and our house in 2014, courtesy of Chrissie Rose

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 29 ...... carefree days

It was a far more innocent age or at least we used to think so and back then I thought nothing of taking a picture of a young person sitting on the green.

Today I would think twice, and quite rightly so, added to which I tend to ask permission before I take a picture of anyone out walking or even of their house or their car.

But something like forty years now separate me from the scene which includes the young person and distance does add to anonymity.

We are behind our house and I guess I would have wandered through the passage way from Well Hall Road and onto the green and from there may well have ambled on up towards the woods.

It is a familiar view for countless people who grew up on the estate and still do today.

But now I am not so sure it is Lovelace Green.

Memory and the logic of where I would have gone suggests that it is Lovelace Green but modern pictures have thrown me.

And that is the price you pay for leaving home 44 years ago.

Either way it is a view I remember with affection and one that brings back my carefree childhood.

For four decades it was one of the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s which sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

But despite the quality it was good enough for Jacqui to comment that "It's Lovelace Andrew, looking now on streetview the trees on the green have obviously grown and the post and chain fence has gone. 

The only puzzle is why the woods can no longer be seen over the rooftops! Thanks for the memories, I would have been biking around the estate as a 15 year old, happy days!".

Location; Well Hall

Picture; Well Hall circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

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.

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 41 ..... the barn by the water

Now I am the first to say that the Barn, the moat and the gardens have not changed that much since I took this picture in the summer of 1978.

For four decades it was one of the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s which sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Eltham

Picture; Eltham, circa 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 45 ..... from the station

Now I say from the station, but I can' be sure, but the direction and the height would suggest I was looking down from the stairs that led form the platform to the road below.

This was one of the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s which sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

And this one in particular is a lost scene because of course I could never replicate the shot.

The creation of a new station east of the old one means that there is no way I can stand on the same spot and that is shame because for two a bit years it meant I was home having left New Cross and a school I didn’t warm too for Eltham.

Somewhere just hidden from view was our house on Well Hall Road and beyond it the woods.

All very reassuring.

Location; Eltham

Picture; Eltham, circa 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 40 .....

This is how I remember our river, not as an empty stretch of water but a busy place where the daily grind of hard work was carried out against a backdrop of the changing tides and ships from all over the workd.

For four decades it was one of the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s which sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Of course much of that work was hard  and dangerous and not always well paid but it supported a community.
And that is reassuring.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; Woolwich, circa 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.2 Well Hall Odeon

A short series on the pictures of Eltham and Woolwich in 1979.

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Eltham

Picture; Eltham, circa 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 42 ..... across the open water to the cranes beyond

For four decades it was one of the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s which sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; Woolwich, circa 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.25 in the back garden of Well Hall Road

There is nothing more bitter sweet than uncovering the picture of three of my sisters in the garden in Well Hall.

We were all young with the world a head of us, and now we have fond memories of growing up there.

The image is one of those lost pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s which sat undisturbed in our cellar for decades.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

On that sunny day Dad will have been pottering, I was busy with the camera, and our Stella, Jillian and Theresa were discussing something, only Elizabeth was missing.

Location; Well Hall






Picture; Well Hall, circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson