This page brings together all the posts on Lee in one place in a way in which it is easy to see at a glance the subjects that the blog has covered. It isn’t exhaustive and will be added to over time.
Boundaries – as a ‘rule of thumb’ this page will cover the old civil parish of Lee – a long thin parish which Running Past did a ‘beating of the bounds’ in several stages:
- Lee Green to Winn Road, passing a street whose residents probably now wish it had a different name – Corona Road;
- Through Grove Park;
- Then on through Marvels and Elmstead Woods;
- The circuit skirted Chinbrook Meadows and followed the appropriately named stream Border Ditch;
- Another ‘Ditch’, Hither Green Ditch, more or less parallel to Verdant Lane and Manor Lane
- Following the Quaggy from Longhurst Road into Lewisham;
- The penultimate part followed another Quaggy tributary, Upper Kid Brook to Blackheath;
- Returning to Lee Green from Blackheath in the final stage.
There is a virtual walk broadly around the edge of Manor House Gardens which covers the middle part of Lee and is a good starting point to the history of the area.
For posts on the neighbouring areas of Hither Green, Lewisham, Catford and Blackheath there are separate pages.
The Large Houses of Lee
Lee was once home to a series of large houses, homes to the wealthy, these were mainly centred around Old Road and several directly or indirectly had links to slavery.
Lee Place – a Stately Home of Lee – the first of the large houses in the area, home to the Boones (pictured below) – it was probably built by George Thomson
The Firs – home to the Papillions, the Sladens and Wingfield Larkings – was on the western bend of Old Road, at its junction with Manor Lane Terrace
The Manor House – the story of the house that is now home to the library, the first part covers its early links to slavery, it’s ‘dark heritage’; the second looks at the decades before it was bought by the London County Council
Pentland House – next door to the Manor House, probably the oldest residential property in Lewisham, it became a university hall of residence and is now a hostel.
Lee House – a medieval mansion which was demolished and rebuilt as a Victorian country house,its site is now occupied by the Lee Centre
Shakespeare & Lewisham – the links between Brian Annesley, a Lord of the Manor of Lee and King Lear, he lived in a large farm roughly where St Margaret’s Lee School is now situated
Belmont – the House that named the Hill, and the Edwardian housing that came afterwards
Wyberton House – originally home to William Webster who built Blackheath Concert Halls, the non-conformist chapel at Hither Green Cemetery & the ‘Cathedral on the Marshes’ – Crossness Pumping Station.
Hurst and Lee Lodges – a pair of linked large houses off Lee High Road then eventually became a rocking horse manufacturer
Housing & Development
W J Scudamore – a building firm working in the area from the late 19th century to the 1960s – their homes cover much of Lee from Chalcroft Road to Baring Road
Pound Land – the Homes of John Pound in Lee and Grove Park (and Blackheath) – relatively few houses remain but he was a major builder on Northbrook land
The Woodstock Estate – The 1930s Homes of Woodyates & Pitfold Roads in Lee
The Firs Estate – Rembrandt, Murillo, Lochaber Roads – part of the post of The Firs
A Dairy and a Pastor – the story of Waite Davies Road
Lee New Town – early 19th century servants’ housing in the Boone Street and Lee Church Street area, little bits of this remain, the post also covers the redeveloped housing of the early 1960s.
Corona Road – a street named after the Crown land it was built on rather than the virus
Aislibie Road – covered both in the posts on Lee House and on Benjamin Aislabie
The Mercator Estate – mid 19th century suburbia to 1960s council housing
Old Road – Arts & Crafts housing On the site of Lee Place
Bankwell Road – an Edwardian street between Old and Lee High Roads
Leybridge Court – a history of the site including the large houses once there
Farming in Lee
Until the 2nd half of the 19th century Lee was rural, and even into the 1930s there were fields and farming at its edge in what was then suburbia. The farms and their land have had a direct impact on patterns of development since.
William Morris & Lee Green Farm – the story of a farm that used to be where the Leegate Centre is now
College Farm – A Dairy Farm on Burnt Ash Hill
Horn Park Farm – a remnant of the Royal Parks of Eltham
Melrose/Woodman’s Farm – a relatively short-lived farm whose farm-house remains on Ashdale Road (part of a post on an airship that landed there)
Burnt Ash Farm – in a prominent location at the junction of what is now Baring Road, this post charts the story of the farm which was to later become a diary.
Lee Manor Farm – created when Burnt Ash Farm was divided, latterly based in Manor Lane Terrace
The Maller Nurseries – growing of flowers and plants on the land of the former Lee Green Farm
Pubs, Watering Holes & Public Halls
Pound’s Pubs – the Summerfield, the Northbrook & the Crown (below)
The Prince Arthur – A lost Lee green pub
The Woodman – a former Lee High Road hostelry
The Rose of Lee or Dirty South – a large Lee High Road pub that closed in 2020
The Sultan – a Lee High Road pub that was replaced by a Nandos
The New Tiger’s Head – a closed Lee Green boozer, now a food shop
A Sunday Constitutional in Lee – memories of a Sunday lunchtime pub crawl in Lee & Blackheath from the autobiography of Phyllis Willmott
Lochaber Hall – the former church hall of Holy Trinity
The Swan – its history was covered as part of a post on the former lake behind
Lee Public Halls – a home for variety, soap suds and building supplies over the years on Holme Lacey Road
Lee Centre – on brief history of the Centre, built ‘For the use and benefit of the men and lads of Lee’ as part of a post on Lee House
Lee Working Men’s Club – a closed club, with a long history on Lee Road
Jubilee Coffee Tavern – a temperance coffee house that became a bank (pictured below)
Parks, Leisure and Sport
Until the railways came to SE London, Lee Green was still rural and the Old Tiger’s Head (its pre-1896 version is below) was home to various sports.
Lee Races – 19th century horse racing, initially at Lee Green, later in Harrow Meadows (off Eltham Road) and in Shooters Hill Road
Victorian Sprinting & Hurdling at the Old Tiger’s Head
Victorian distance running at the Old Tiger’s Head – part of the story of Tom Cook, the Greenwich Cowboy
Victorian Pigeon Shooting at the Old Tigers Head
Ravensbourne Athletic Club – a company sports club with a residential building that became council housing after World War Two
Lee Picture Palace – a short lived cinema on Lee High Road
Imperial Picture Palace (Pullman) – a cinema near Lee Green
Manor House Gardens Ice House & WW2 Air Raid Shelters in the Park
Death by Falling from the Clouds – a parachute fatality off Burnt Ash Hill
Parklife – Manor Park – the story of the park’s rejuvenation
Lee’s Accidental Airship Record – Willows II ‘voyage’ from Cardiff to Lee which then set a record in 1910
Wartime
The First Night of the Blitz – a Lee, Hither Green and Catford perspective
Post Christmas Blitz Attacks on Lee – two linked posts, the first on 27 December 1940, the second on the attacks on 29 December 1940
VE Day in Lee
Manor House Gardens Ice House & WW2 Air Raid Shelters in the Park
Remembering the WW1 War Dead in Lee & Lewisham
Remembering those who died on the WW2 Home Front in Lee, Hither Green & Blackheath
Remembering Lewisham’s World War 1 combatants – including at St Mildred’s Church
First Day of the Somme – post on some of the local young men who lost their lives at Gommecourt
Lenham Road V1 Attack – a V1 that hit the junction of Lenham and Lampmead Roads
Rivers, Streams & Lakes
The Quaggy – Sutcliffe Park to Lee Green – the penultimate section of a series of posts following its sourcebook its confluence with the Ravensbourne
The Quaggy – Lee Green to Manor Park – the urban river passing between Victorian and Edwardian houses and two of south London’s finest parks
The Quaggy – Manor Park to the Ravensbourne – the final stretch into Lewisham as it flows from Hither Green into Lewisham, stopping briefly to listen to Kate Bush
The Looking Glass of Lee – the part moat and lake of Annersley and the Boones and the former course of Mid Kid Brook
Mid Kid Brook – joins the Quaggy behind the Old Tiger’s Head (below)
Upper Kid Brook – formed part of the northern boundary of old Lee and joins the Quaggy by St Stephen’s in Lewisham
Shopping
Market Terrace – a Lee High Road shopping parade
310 – 322 Lee High Road (Part 1) and Part 2 – the shops to the east of Bankwell Road
1 – 19 Burnt Ash Road – the shops before the Leegate Centre – in 2 parts 1860s to World War 1 and 1919 to the demolition in the 1960s
2 -30 Burnt Ash Road – the shops opposite, that became part of the Sainsbury’s site, again in 2 parts 1850s to World War 1 and 1919 to the present day (via Penfolds)
Reeds Corner Eltham Road – a series of posts looking at a shopping parade that was to be demolished for the Leegate Centre in the 1960s – Up to 1905, the Reed’s Empire and post 1905
Manor Park Parade – the Lee High Road parade opposite the Rose of Lee/Dirty South – in two parts – shops 1 to 9 and 10 -19
Ghost Signs
Charles Holdaway Painter and Grainer – Belmont Hill, considered Lewisham now, but Lee when painted
Frederick Stimpson, Gilder and Carver – Lee Road (sadly currently hidden)
Wittals Motors – Bankwell Road, part of wider piece on Ghost signs in Lewisham and Catford
John Campion & Son – a Catford ghost sign, it included two shops in Lee
Churches and Chapels
Christ Church – the Lost Church of Lee Park
Church of the Good Shepherd – the original church ‘lost’ to fire in the Blitz
St Peter’s – now part of the parish with the Good Shepherd, a church that continues after several incarnations on and around Eltham Road
Holy Trinity, Glenton Road – another church ‘lost’ in World War Two
The Tin Tabernacle of Lee – on the corner of Baring and Waite Davies Roads (above)
Baptist Chapel on the corner of Eastdown Park and Lee High Road
Boone’s Chapels – both the listed version and the still standing but largely hidden replacement closer to Lee Green
Lee People
E Nesbit, the Railway Children & Lewisham – with some links to Lee and Grove Park, which may well have inspired the book
Ernest Dowson – the decadent poet who was born on what is now Belmont Grove and has a block of flats named after him
Caroline Townsend – a Lee suffragette
Olive Llewhellin – a militant suffragette who lived in Burnt Ash Hill
Benjamin Aislabie – the last tenant of Lee Place, slave owner, the worst ever first-class cricketer -remembered by an incorrectly spelled street name
George & Maurice Thomson – owners of Lee Place and Lee House respectively, the latter a slave trader, the former also had links to the slave trade but is better known as a soldier and MP during the Commonwealth
James Waite Davies – the story of Waite Davies Road, the man and the dairy that preceded it
Penfolds Motors
A history of the firm from its Deptford carting origins to showrooms at Lee Green and elsewhere – the first part up to World War One, the second part continuing the story until the firm was wound up
A series of other sites around Lee – 36 Old Road, the corner of Bankwell and Lee High Roads, Clarendon Rise, and Lee Green.
A Lee Miscellany
36 Old Road – a story of horse drawn buses, crash repairs, the Lord Mayor’s Show and toffee
87 Old Road – from Lee Working Men’s Institution – a Victorian non-drinking club for the wealthy, to Chiesman’s warehouse, an auction house, indoor shooting and now flats
Suffragette City – Lee and Hither Green – covers the full range suffragette activities from pillar box ‘outrages’, to the arson of a cricket club and jam making
Northbrook School – the three buildings and three names of the school (also Trinity and Hedgley Street)
Garibaldi in Lewisham – Criterion Biscuits
The Three Fire Stations of Lee – Weardale Road, Lee High Road and Eltham Road
Lee’s 12th century invasion of Lewisham – part of a wider post on Lewisham’s Belgian connections
Graffiti Ancient & Modern – 18th century graffiti in St Margaret’s Passage, along with the alley’s former names
Following the Meridian II – Into Inner London – through Hither Green and Lee to St Margaret’s Churchyard, part of a wider ‘trip’ from the edge of London to the Observatory
1930s Traffic Accidents – Lee High Road and Eltham Road, part of one of the worst parts of London for accidents
Children’s Play in 1930s Lee – part of Phyllis Willmott’s memoires
The Almshouses of Lee – the Boone’s Almshouses and the Merchant Taylor’s ones
The Leahurst Road Murder – the sad story of a WW2 murder with links back to a WW1 tragedy
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Notes
The source for the black and white photograph of St Margaret’s Lee School which was taken in 1959 is http://collage.cityoflondon.gov.uk/collage/app Record number 189098 / Catalogue reference: SC_PHL_02_0327_59_2658 – permission given for use here, but no rights to elsewhere.
Running Past 