Running Past has had separate ‘pages’ on Lee & Hither Green history and Blackheath history for a while and recently added one on Catford. While these are the main areas that the blog covers there are posts on other parts of Lewisham too; this page tries to bring them together in one place
Brockley & Ladywell Cemetery
Charles Cox – a member of the Army Cyclist Corps who died during World War 1
James Brooker – a former Borough of Lewisham Councillor who laid the foundation stone for the original Lewisham Town Hall
Ernest Dowson – the decadent poet who was born in Lee and died in Catford
George Lacy Hillier – A Victorian South London Cycling Champion
The McMillan Sisters – Rachel and Margaret McMillan who were educational and social reformers
Oldest WW1 Combatant – Alfred Figes, also known as William Word, appears to have been the oldest British World War 1 combatant
Ladywell & Brockley
The Brockley Picture Theatre – latterly known as the Ritz which was on Coulgate Street (see post for picture credit)
Hillyfields Prefabs – part of a wider post about prefabs from the air
David Lodge – the links of the novelist to the New Cross Brockley borders, which formed the setting of one of his earliest novels ‘Out of the Shelter’
The Greenwich Park Line – tracing a partially lost railway that linked Greenwich and Nunhead
The Micro Library – a Brockley phone box put to a new use
Around Lewisham Town Centre
Lewisham Hill V-1 – a 1944 rocket attack which led to the development of the Lewisham Hill Estate (see post for photo credit)
Town centre V-1 – the July 1944 rocket attack which killed 51.
Upper Kid Brook – a stream which created the valley stolen by the railway lien from Blackheath and whose outflow into the Quaggy was next to St Stephen’s church
1957 Lewisham Rail Crash – catastrophic accident that killed 90 in the early December smog
1930s traffic accidents – what is now the A20 between New Cross & Lee Green was a notorious area for accidents and road deaths, particularly around central Lewisham
Anchor Brewery – a 19th century brewery run by the Nicholls brothers which was sold to Whitbread in 1890, one of its buildings remains in Tesco’s car park
The Plough – the history of a pub lost to the redevelopment around the station
The Roebuck – another lost pub that went through several incarnations and was latterly on Rennell Street
College Park Estate – the area covering Clarendon Rise, Albion Way, Bonfield Road and Gilmore Road and the links of the latter to the poet James Elroy Flecker
Gilmore Road Telephone Exchange – some history of the building which was converted into flats in 2014
The Australian Lewisham and its links to South London through transportation
Lewisham’s 500 year link to Belgium – the post covers also the Domesday Book record and Lee’s 12th century invasion of Lewisham.
New Cross & Deptford
Robert Browning’s Ode to New Cross – Browning lived close to the site of Haberdashers Askes when the area was still referred to as ‘Plowed Garlic Hill’
The Frying Pan – a long gone Speedway and Dog track that was next to the Old Den
The New Cross Post Office Bomber – Rolla Richards, a Deptford anarchist who attempted to push an incendiary device through the letterbox at the Post Office.
Anti-German attacks in Deptford – early World War attacks on German businesses in Deptford
Sydenham & Forest Hill
Christmas Houses – the houses around Sydenham and Forest Hill built by the family builder E C Christmas
A World War 1 Air Attack on Sydenham Road – on the corner of Sydenham Road and Fairlawn Park
Strange treatments for whooping cough – including a clinic at the South Suburban Gas Works at Bell Green
Livesey Memorial Hall – the Listed former social club of the Gas Works–
CS Forester – the links of the author to Sydenham with references to one of his South London based novels – Payment Deferred
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