Sydenham Town Forum

There was a 'hut' in the playground where teenagers kept out of the rain/smoked. But that too has gone, I believe. Did it get burnt down or was it removed as part of the recent work? If I am right on the order of events: the hut was removed, the smokers used the 'tree house' at the top of the slide ...

Will, Your investigation of the route of the canal has created a good deal of interest amongst the friends of Devonshire rd nature reserve. The Garthorne site in particular has always interested many of us, and we have unsuccessfully been trying to organise a walk over that site for a few years. Now...

Sydenhamites

Perhaps Sydenham should be twinned with Gomorrah?

Falkor, re Chaplin St. Very interesting that you would get a row of slums (although they look all right to me!) right behind the large houses on what is now Westbourne Drive, the divide between rich and poor being the old Sydenham Common boundary. I need to correct this thread though, after bumping ...

As the boarding goes up around the old armoury http://www.sydenhamsociety.com/Armoury.html , sweet shop, car stereo shack and the finest collection of used car tyres in SE London, in preparation for demolition and subsequent building of flats on Perry Vale, East of Forest Hill Station, I found mysel...

My uneducated thoughts on this: I suggest the 'From Sydenham Common' end of Perry Slough on the map is the 'Forest Hill' end of Perry Vale, as Forest Hill was pretty much built on Sydenham Common, and the Bell Green side of Sydenham had already been enclosed. Therefore the map is not N/S orientated ...

What rubbish Perryman! http://www.pubs.com/pub_history.cfm "The beer act of 1830 lifted restrictions on the sale and production of beer, leading to an explosion in the number of beerhouses, many literally in someone’s house. The established publicans whose trade was being undermined, improved o...

(I posted this on SE23.com in response to a sub thread question: 'Which is the oldest pub in SE23?', but it might be of interest here) The Dartmouth Arms, Forest Hill http://www.thedartmoutharms.com/history.html The Dartmouth Arms was first licensed in 1815. The original building was approximately o...

What an excellent post. Not sure about the lock at Forest Hill (station) though. Records are pretty clear that there was only a swing bridge next to the corner bookies at Forest Hill, not a lock. The 1812 enclosure map only shows a bridge. This picture shows a lock. Today, to the eye, it seems fairl...

kennyb2: from http://www.davros.org/rail/atmospheric.html "The longest <pneumatic railway> line to carry passengers was opened at the Crystal Palace in London in 1864. It used a tunnel about 9 by 10 feet, 1800 feet long. The driving fan was 22 feet across, generating about 0.01 atmosphere of pr...

Did the building only stand for 5 years or can it be pinpointed on the 1843 map? Wow. I've not seen this map before. I would think the period this map records is sometime between 1836 and 1839, as the canal has clearly closed (August 1836) and the original (pre-atmospheric) railway has not been bui...

This Kent field/hill is my favourite part of the gardens and must be the largest remaining public area of what was Sydenham common. Interesting observation BTW; you might be right... I think I'm going to have to rethink this last bit - there is of course Wells Park which was part of the common!! Ye...

Steve G conducted a walk around here recently. The common as mapped in 1799 was bounded on the west by the county border that ran down Elliot bank. The hallowed field/play area south of Horniman's is in Surrey as is the vast majority of Horniman's gardens and so not part of the common as of 1799. St...

Curiouser and curiouser! (and sorry for the delay of thanks for detailed information.) So the cottages have no obvious connection to a church despite their Gothic windows and crosses and the date of 1797 refers to a time before it was built. Presumably the date is connected to the mysterious black s...

I'm curious about this house too. There is another shield over the side door (only tall people need apply) with a date of 1797. One of Steve Grindlay's old Perry Vale photos shows a large church roughly on the site of the nearby primary school, so that might explain the window design that to my uned...