Lee Sorting Office

There have been several posts on Running Past about the evolution of public buildings around Lee – the two telephone exchanges, the trio of fire stations and most recently the municipal offices off what is now Woodyates Road.  Next door to the latter, albeit constructed a little later was the Lee Sorting Office.

From around 1888, perhaps a little earlier, the Sorting Office was based on Lee High Road on the corner of what is now Lampmead Road (originally it was a dog leg of Lenham Road) – it is now home to a firm of solicitors, after being the offices of a realtively long standing business, Homesales, who were also in Market Terrace.

In the 1881 census, what was then 1 Sussex Terrace, was a grocer’s run by Nathaniel Short – he was from Greenwich and had four young children, with wife Elizabeth from Gravesend. They can have been there no more than a year as their youngest daughter was born in Lewisham, rather than Lee and the older children all were born in Bexleyheath. 

Little had changed by the 1884 Kelly’s Directory, but by1888 the address was now 226 High Road, and Short had added a Post Office to the Grocery business.  Out at the back there were some buildings used as a sorting office.

Where sorting had been done before isn’t immediately clear – there were several other local post offices, including one already covered at 10 Burnt Ash Road (now part of the Sainsbury’s site) run by Martin Martin.  There was another in the row of shops between Brandram Road and Boone Street.

There was a high turnover of grocers and Postmasters, the Shorts moved on to Enfield by around 1888 – they were in Enfield in the 1891 census, making a circuitous trip via Australia to get there.   William James Francis took over from the Shorts; Abraham Culverhouse was in charge when the census enumerators called again in 1891 and Roberts & Co were running the Post Office and grocers by 1896.  There was no mention of a post office by 1900 when A M Curtis was there and it was not listed in the 1901 census and just being a grocer in 1904 when George Iliffe was there.

With a burgeoning population, continuing to run a sorting office from some small outbuildings behind a grocery shop was not really sustainable.  Lewisham already had one – located in what is now the shopping centre and had gone out to tender in 1895 (1).  Lee’s sorting office was put out to tender three years later. It was a site next to what were originally Lee Parish Offices, on what was then Woodstock Road. It became Woodyates Road after the development of the Woodstock Estate.

The Architect was Jasper Wager; a man from Bridgnorth in Shropshire, he had been working for Her Majesty’s Office of Works since 1877, they were responsible for a lot of public building work at this stage.  The sorting office at Lee seems to have been one of the earliest projects that he was specifically responsible for.  He was probably living locally at the time it was built – in the 1901 he is listed as living next to Greenwich Park in Vanbrugh Hill.

There were several impressive Post Office buildings that Wager designed over the next decade or so including ones in Woodford Green, Esher, Enfield, and Barnet.  There was another next door to the closed Arches Leisure Centre in Greenwich, plus others in Chelsea, Islington, and Winchmore Hill.

It is a striking building; the Local Listing describes it as ‘(a) single storey red brick Queen Anne Revival building (with) near symmetrical elevation onto Woodyates Road with stone mullioned and transomed window. Stone surround to centrally placed entrance door with stylised gablet with casement windows above.’

There is some lovely detail on it – particularly the stone sign Postmen’s Office over the main door (the newer brickwork to the side was the site of the postbox).

Looking at the 1911 census, around 35 men were listed as ‘postmen’ (no women) in Lee. Some obviously may have been based at other Sorting Offices. Unsurprisingly, they were concentrated in the smaller houses of the area, but in relative terms they were well paid, as shared households were rare, other than around half a dozen in their teens.  The road with the most was Taunton Road – which was home to Edward Greenwood (131), Philip Cox (56), Arthur Fincham (47), Arthur Goodwin (69), Charles Wood and lodger William Hedge (99), plus two other lodgers William Pescott (72) and Bertie Ridgewell (64). Roads like Lenham, Lochaber and the small houses of Lee New Town also had significant numbers.

While this wasn’t the case in either the 1901 or 1911 Censuses, some staff lived on site by the time World War Two broke out – in the 1939 Register there was postman Edward Wood and Ernest Rawlings who worked as a Post Office cleaner. 

At the rear of the site there was a scout hut, it was certainly there after world War Two and possibly before.

Like much of the post war development of the eastern side of Burnt Ash Road, the partial redevelopment of the site for housing in the mid-1990s related to the ending of Crown Estate leases.  It had been the same with shops on Burnt Ash and Eltham Roads that made way for the Leegate Centre and the housing that was demolished for Leybridge Court and most of the nurseries.  The Sorting Office closed in 1993 with sorting and deliveries on the Lewisham side of Lee being transferred to Endgate Street and, presumably, on the Greenwich side to Court Yard in Eltham. 

The site for both the Municipal Depot and the Sorting Office was bought by Developer Gengis Kemal.  The main depot building fronting onto Woodyates Road along with its stables in the north west corner along with the Sorting Office were all retained and converted.  There was sympathetic infill to the rest of the site.  The site is now known as Jasmin Court – it was originally to be called Jasmine after the daughter of the developer – the sign at the entrance to the former yard refers to it as this.  However, it appears to have been incorrectly had an ‘e’ removed by Lewisham so Jasmin is what it is officially known as.  It follows in the footsteps of a trio of misspelled Lee street names going back over a century – Holme Lacey Road, Aislibie Road and Wolfram Close (3).

Notes

1. London Evening Standard 5 July 1895
2. Kentish Mercury 12 August 1898
3. Before someone else notes this, the irony of this is not lost on a writer with poor proof reading skills

Credits

• Census and related information is via Find My Past (subscription required)
• Kelly’s Directory data comes from Southwark Archives
• The Ordnance Survey map is part of the collection of the National Library of Scotland and is used on a non-commercial licence
• I am indebted to George Willis who lives in Jasmin Court (the 1990s development that the offices and stables are now part of) who has researched the site – although most of the research for this post was in parallel so any errors are obviously mine.  Thank you also to Darryl from the excellent 853 news blog for putting us in touch – if you don’t follow 853 you are missing out!

Probably the First Shopping Parade in Lee – Part 2, the 20th Century & Beyond

In the first part of this post we looked at the early Victorian origins of the parade as it evolved from houses into shops. We’d seen gradual changes in the businesses reflecting Lee’s transformation from village to suburbia in the second half of the century. As we left it, it was a parade that seemed to be doing well – many of the shopkeepers able to afford to live in the suburban houses with servants.

We return to the parade as the new century dawned, again looking at each shop until redevelopment happened in the 1960s.

183 Lee High Road

183 was the shop next door to the Woodman; at the end of Victoria’s reign it was an Oil and Colourman, a paint seller, run by Frank Attfield. Frank Attfield’s name was to remain over the window until the late 1920s. Frank had retired by 1911 and the business was being run by his son, William, born in 1881. Both were living at 247 Lee High Road a house that was close to the corner of Lee Park – they had lived there since 1901. It is visible from Frank’s era in the postcard below.

Frank died in in 1938, he was buried at Hither Green Cemetery. At the time he was living at 14 Southbrook Road and left an estate of £15072 to William and his brother Edwin. It was a house he bought a couple of decades before.

William’s name stayed over the window until around 1950, when he would have been 69. However, other than his marriage to Dorothy in 1919, the trail goes cold on him.

Electrical Contractor Sidney Folkard was briefly there in the early 1960s, but the shop seems to have been empty after that.

185 Lee High Road

We’d left 185 with the name John Henry Churcher over the window of a carving and gilding business – essentially a picture framer. Living above the shop in 1901 though were Frederick Morse from Camberwell (41), his wife Marian and 7 children, the oldest (15) was also Frederick and worked the business too. Presumably Morse was Churcher’s manager as his name was above the window by 1911, with Churcher trading in Lewisham High Street by then.

The shop was empty in 1920. It had become a confectioner by 1925, known as Cox and Son – a trade that it continued in for most of the rest of the life. By 1939 Kathleen Latter lived there with husband Arthur who was a clerk elsewhere. She had gone before the end of the war – like a lot of confectioners seeming to struggle due to rationing. A series of names were over the window post World War Two – James Day in the 1950s, George Moiler by 1960, and J Atkinson in the 1960s. After that only Glenview Driving School got a mention in the depleted Kelly’s Directories.

187 Lee High Road

187 was a shop that stayed in the same trade, a butchers, throughout its history. Thomas Spearing straddled the turning of the centuries. He had been born in Redhill, Surrey in 1875, but he only lasted until few years into the new century before moving to south west London. In 1911 James Plummer (33) from Croydon was there; he had probably moved there by 1907 as all four of his young children were born in Lee.

Following James Plummer were Joseph Moore and Ernest Knifton, but they only lasted a few years each. Frederick Roy Nicholls was there by the time war broke out with wife Lilian assisting in the shop. Frederick died in 1962, when he was 66, and was probably running the shop until his death. Nothing obvious replaced the business.

189 Lee High Road

We’d left 189 with the name Harry Willson and Co, tailors, over the window.  The Wilsons had moved on by 1900 and there was a new trade – a boot and shoe dealer run by Louis George Brunning.  This was an expansion from the final shop in the parade at the corner of Lee Church Street, 205, where they ran an outfitters.  We will cover the Brunnings there.  J H Dodd took over the boot and shoe shop by 1911, although they were gone by the time World War 1 broke out and the shop was closed until the early 1920s.

There was a new trade by 1925, Pianoforte maker, which seems to have sold classical records too (1). The business was run by William Salisbury who had been carrying out the same business from 191 for at least a decade. Salisbury was born in 1868 and seems to have stayed at 189 until his death in 1942. Three years before he was there with wife Ethel, born in 1885; also there in 1939 was their son, also William (25); who was listed as ‘student, seeking work’ and Kate Bunyan who assisted in the shop. Kate was Ethel’s sister and later married James Salisbury who was presumably her nephew. The business continued until the end of the war, but the shop was empty in 1950 and remained so, seemingly for the rest of the building’s life.

191 Lee High Road

By the beginning of the century, Robert Oates’ drapers had expanded into the shop, that business is covered at 193, but pictured above, 191 is at the very left of the postcard.

The shop was empty in 1911 as Robert Oates sold up and the incoming draper, A Seymour, went back to two shops, which we’ll cover below. In 1915 a piano maker moved in, William Salisbury, it is a name that have already been covered – William spent most of their time on the parade next door at 189. The musical chairs of shop leases continued, no doubt accompanied by William Salisbury at the piano. Seymour’s took over 191 again when Salisbury moved next door – we’ll cover them at 193.

When Seymour sold up in the 1930s, 191 but not the rest of their mini empire, was taken over by the builder and plumber Benjamin Chapman who has been born in 1895. In 1939 he lived there with his wife Lilian and two others, whose entries were redacted – maybe young children who hadn’t been evacuated. The Chapmans had moved on before the end of the war and the shop was empty in 1945. Model Aircraft dealers, Prendergast and Co, took up residence for the sale of Airfix by 1950 and remained there into the 1970s.

193 & 195 Lee High Road

The drapers of Robert Oates had been a feature of this part of Lee High Road since 1881, like many well to do shopkeepers they had ceased living over the shop and had moved to 239 Lee High Road – a house that was between Lee Park and Dacre Park (then Turner Road).  They had expanded into 191 and in the 1901 census 191-195 was home to Sarah Gilham and Blanche Wallis who worked in the shop, plus three servants – presumably for the family home.

In 1910, Oates seems to have sold the lease up to Edwin Seymour (also referred to by his middle name Augustus); Oates remained in the area until his death in 1921. Oddly, Oates didn’t sell the stock to Seymour – that was bought up by Chiesmans in Lewisham for a very precise 43.875% off list price by tender, presumably Seymour had offered less and was offered for sale in their Lewisham town centre shop in April (2).

Seymour would have been in his last 20s when he took over the business – he initially contracted a little, focussing the business on 193 and 195 with 191 being empty in 1911.

Seymour came from Spalding in Lincolnshire and in 1911 he was living over the shops with his wife Ellen; her parents; a servant, Rose Hardey, Carrie Simmonds who worked in the shop, and the Seymour’s young son Jack, born in Lee in 1908.

The Seymours’ business had expanded back into 191 by 1925. Seymour’s father, also Edwin Augustus, was living over the shop when he died in 1932. Perhaps soon after they moved home although not the business, as by the time the 1939 Register was compiled they were living at 21 Manor Lane, with a draper’s assistant. However, it seems that the shop wasn’t to last much longer when the 1940 Kelly’s Directory was compiled the shop was empty – maybe an early victim of rationing. It remained empty until the late 1940s when Builders Merchants William Ashby and Son moved in, taking on 193-201. They had gone by 1960 and seem to have been the last tenants.

197 & 199 Lee High Road

Charles Hopwood was running a long standing ironmongers at the beginning of the 1900s, although he seems to have extended his business and in the 1901 census was listed as a Sports Good Manufacturer living in Brandram Road. He seems to have moved to 61 Eltham Road – now part of the Ravens Way estate and opposite Leybridge Court – but died just before the census of 1911.

Presumably the new business was why he sold up as by 1905 there was a new name at 197 & 199, but same business – Percy Winkworth’s name was over the window of the iornmongers; it wasn’t a name to last long – the shop was trading as Lee General and Furnishing, still basically an ironmonger a couple of years later but by 1916 it was empty. It is pictured above from the corner of Bankwell Road (built 1907) next to development which included the short lived cinema Lee Picture Palace, which opened in 1910.

By the mid-1920s there was a timber merchant, trading as Woodworkers Supply Company which lasted into World War 2, but empty again by the end of it.

During the 1950s, it was used by the sprawling empire of William Ashby’s Builders Merchants. However, that was closed by 1960 and 197 was home to Vanguard Engineering, although that had gone by 1965. For a while, the business premises were shared with the printers Dickson and Scudamore. The Scudamore was George who was the younger son of Cornelius Scudamore, who was the architect for the large-scale local builder, W J Scudamore. The Dickson was George’s brother in law, Maxwell.

201 Lee High Road

William Button had been selling sweets to the people of Lee since around 1894 though, born in Greenwich around 1853 he was there with his wife Sarah and three daughters when the 1901 census was collected.

Button was replaced by John Moors by 1911, although he was not listing as living over the shop (or seemingly anywhere else for that matter). The name remained over the window until the 1930s – although by the outbreak of the war he seems to have been listed as a Snack Bar Manager living in Forest Hill.  Maybe the parade couldn’t cope with two confectioners after Cox and Son opened at 185 in the mid-1920s.

In the mid 1930s someone called Newson was running the shop as a greengrocers – but was seeking offers in the region of £150 for the business, noting an annual rent of £70 (3).

By 1939 James Moulden was selling fruit– it wasn’t a business that lasted long as by the time the war ended, it was part of Ainslie and Sons based at 199. Like 199 it became part of William Ashby’s Builders Merchants, but when that closed in the 1950s, it seems to have remained empty thereafter.

205 Lee High Road

We had left 205 in 1901 when it was being run as an outfitter by Louis Brunning, he’d been there from the 1880s. By 1911 Louis had retired and was living in Bromley; his name still appeared over the shop window but it was his sons Herbert Welford and Leonard Godfrey Brunning who were running the business. Louis died in 1927, but by 1925 the brothers’ names appeared. Leonard died in 1934 and his name disappeared in subsequent Kelly’s Directories soon after.

The business seems to have remained in the family until Herbert’s death in 1956. The shop was empty in 1960.

Lee Service Station and Costcutter

It was clear that the parade had been on the decline since the end of World War One something probably exacerbated by the shiny new shops of Market Parade opposite which had opened in the 1930s.

Kelly’s Directories listed very few of the shops from around 1965, in a way that wasn’t the case with the parades on the south of Lee High Road, notably Market Parade opposite. This was probably because the shops were not let – perhaps beyond their useful life; requirements to pay to go into Kelly’s didn’t happen until the 1980s. The exceptions were J Atkinson, the confectioners at 185 and Prendergast & Co., Model Aircraft Dealers at 191 that lasted until around 1970.

By this stage the eastern end of the parade had presumably been demolished – it was listed as Carris Service Station from 1965, perhaps trading a year or two earlier. Carris Motors had been around for a while, there were several members of the Pilmore Bedford family who owned and ran the firm listed as running motor trade businesses in the 1939 Register, including a couple in adjacent houses in Bromley Road. The company Carris Motors was first registered in 1946. By 1953 they were based at Lewisham Bridge, where the DLR station is now situated, selling cars and light commercial vehicles as well as servicing and repairs. They seem to have sold Hillman, Humber and Sunbeam at that stage, all part of the Rootes Group.

The operation in Lee High Road is listed in Kelly’s ‘Carris Service Stations Ltd. – Motor Garage & Service Station.’ So it isn’t clear which elements of the business it included, but probably not sales. That moved on to Bromley Road in the 1960s, initially with the same Rootes brands, but by the late 1980s it had becomea Vauxhall dealership, then in competition with Lee Green’s Penfolds. They seem to have made the mistake of switching to the post British Leyland Rover by 1995 and had ceased trading by 1999.

By 1970 it seems that either Carris had sold up or it had been re-badged as Lee Filling Station.  While it is has gone through various incarnations in terms of names it has been a BP garage for most of that time, surviving in a market that the supermarkets have muscled into.  During the 1990s it expanded its range of goods initially selling newspapers and related goods and then becoming a Marks and Spencer food franchise, the current buildings being constructed in the early 2000s. Ironically, as we saw in relation to Market Terrace whose completion had caused problems for the older shops on the north of Lee High Road, itself suffered from the Marks and Spencer franchise.

At the other end of the former parade, 183-185, next to the Woodman is a block that received planning permission in 1993, but completed in 1999.  Since then it has always been a Costcutter Supermarket.  It has three stories of flats above it – significantly higher than the shops that preceded it but similar to the adjacent former Woodman.

Notes

1. Norwood News 16 December 1927
2. Kentish Mercury 22 April 1910
3. Sheffield Independent 10 March 1936

Credits

• The postcard of the parade showing Oates drapers is from the authors own ‘collection’
• Kelly’s Directories are via the always helpful Lewisham and Southwark Archives
• Census and related data is via Find My Past (subscription required)
• The postcard of the Woodman is via eBay in October 2016
• The postcard from the corner of Bankwell Road is courtesy of Luke Anthony Briscoe on Facebook

Market Terrace – The History of a 1930s Shopping Parade

Market Terrace is a 1930s shopping parade which seems slightly out of place in an area where Victorian and Edwardian housing still predominates, it is Arts and Crafts in style with its mock Tudor beams.  The reason for this seemingly suburban outlier on the SE12/13 borders was that the land it was built on remained an orchard and kitchen garden for one of the larger houses in the area Pentland House until sold by Goldsmiths College in the early 1930s.

In addition to the black and white painted first floors, one of the other features of the parade is the fancy wrought iron brackets from which signs are displayed at right angles to the pavement.  There are now quite a few ‘ghosts’ of departed shops.

The Terrace has been my local shopping parade for the best part of three decades, in that time there has been a gradual evolution, changes often not noticed, unless it was a business that I used regularly. The ‘bookends’ of the Launderette and Lee Green Glass remained constants but much has changed in between.  This post explores not only the changes that I have seen but over the period since Market Terrace was built in the mid-1930s.

As we’ll see, for much of its life Market Terrace was the home to traditional shop types – butcher, baker (alas, there was no candlestick maker), grocer, greengrocer and hairdressers.  As was found in the post on Staplehurst Road shops it wasn’t really until the 1970s that this changed significantly.

The launderette is at the Old Road end; oddly it isn’t the long term feature that I had envisaged.  It had only been there a few years when we arrived – If it had coincided with the release of ‘My Beautiful Launderette’ around 1985, it was probably co-incidental.  More likely it was a move of an existing launderette from a little further up Lee High Road towards Lee Green which was there from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s – initially called McClary Easy Self Service Laundry, but latterly, more prosaically, Coin Laundry.

For its first 30 years, the current launderette site was a bakers, initially run by the Fyson family – for most of it was named ‘Bertram Fyson’.    While the name was kept on, Lewisham born Bertrand Fyson had died serving in the RAF in 1942, he had received the Distinguished Flying Cross. From the mid-1960s, it was a second hand car showroom, going through different incarnations each time the Kelly’s Directory was checked.  Before the launderette it seems to have briefly been a Motorcycle showroom – Myers.

272 next door saw only limited variety in its shop types until the early 21^st century. It seems to have opened as a confectioner run by a Mrs Wilson until the early 1940s. It became a newsagent just after World War 2 but was listed then listed as a tobacconist until 1980 run by a steady flow of proprietors, none seeming to stay for more than a few years.  This changed in the late 1970s when the shop was taken over by J C Amin, who almost certainly renamed it ‘Jit’s News’ by 1985.  It was probably the first of several Asian-run businesses on the parade, predating the various take-away food shops by perhaps a decade.

It is where we bought our papers (other than an interlude with a shop in Brandram Road which promised to deliver, but frequently didn’t). They were a pleasant couple that ran the shop expanding the sweets, cigarettes and newspapers to the standard local convenience shop fayre. They sold up early in the new millennium, maybe they felt the days of the paper shop were limited; certainly by that stage our reading habits had changed – cutting out local and mid-week papers and a little later moving on line.  Our change in habits was no doubt mirrored by many others, pressure too came from the revamped petrol station over the road which started to sell newspapers and Marks & Spencer branded convenience food.

272 then was home to Gibneys, who stocked similar lines to their predecessors, but they seem to have moved on and by 2012, probably a few years earlier, it was a Polski Sklep – Polish Shop. As it had been over 30 years before, the shop was something of a bellwether, reflecting changes in Lewisham. Since the enlargement of the European Union in 2004 lots of Poles had moved to the Borough, by 2011 there were 4347 Poles here, with Polish the second most frequently spoken language in Lewisham.  While Lee wasn’t one of the major concentrations of Poles, it is not surprising that shops started to open catering to a significant group. During 2018, what appears to be the same shop has been re-branded.

Next door at 274, the shop was a butcher for much of its life – Stendt and Linton, pre-World War 2, R C Hamnett after the end of hostilities – the latter had moved from the next parade of shops up the road at 324 (nearer Lee Green)  where they had been selling meat since 1930.  Hamnetts were part of the Dewhurst Group and remained at 274 until the late 1960s, when it became another butcher, ‘Good Enuf.’  By 1985, possibly a year or two before, the shop front had been split,one side was to become Canton Kitchen – a business that still remains.  The other ‘side’ was a minicab office, Cars of Lee, for many years.  In recent years, though, it has gone through several incarnations – a barber (2012), an international food shop (2014/16) and a beauty salon since then.

No out of town centre shopping parade in South London is now complete without a Southern-US-State Fried Chicken shop of some variety, Market Terrace doesn’t buck this trend.  The first seems to have been one of the south London pioneers of this, Morley’s, set up by a Sri Lankan ‘ex pat’ who lived in Brockley. It may well have been a franchise as it was quickly re-branded as Taste of Tennessee, which it has been there for around a decade.

The shop had started life as a grocer – run initially by the inappropriately named Stanley Butcher, then presumably his son Edgar after World War 2; it changed hands several times after Edgar’s death in the early 1950s.

One of the longstanding shops in the parade was Homesales at 278, the shop had not had tenants for much of its early years but Homesales moved in around 1951, initially trading as furniture dealers, before moving into domestic appliance sales by the mid-1960s and then heating and plumbing. They moved out around the end of the 2000s, their linked building business continued a little further up Lee High Road, on the corner of Lampmead Road until around 2017.

By 2012, probably a little earlier, and the shop front was taken over by Ikinci Adres, a private Turkish club. Behind its black facade it is difficult to know whether the club is still operational.

Next door on the Terrace, 280, started life as what seems to have been a fish and chip shop, in 1936 it had the wonderful name Crusoe’s Modern Fish Buffets, run by the Allaways in 1939, after the war while the fish theme continued it was just as a fishmonger. The trend of supplying cold-blooded animals that live in water, breathe with gills and usually have fins and scales continued into the late 1960s as the shop became Lee Corn Stores. While it isn’t totally clear from the name, it was a pet shop which according to a neighbour who lived above; they described it as ‘very smelly’. While the name continued, Kelly’s Directories from the mid-1970s referred to it as hardware stores.

280 was an off-licence for a while in the 1980s but had become a café by the early 1990s.  It initially traded as Sonny’s Burger hut – from the outside, at least, this seemed to be a bright traditional café – when a café was a caff rather than a purveyor of skinny lattes. It had changed hands by 2012 and had become the ‘Greedy Pig’ although the signage of ‘Awesome Café’ was there by 2014. The cafe was a business that disappeared during the COIVD pandemic, by the end of 2021 work was going on change the business with new shutters in place. There were also preparations for new signage by removing the old Awesome Café sign – these revealed a sign of the occupants 55 years before.

It its early days, 282 was a greengrocer, run by Alice Flanagan who was a 64 year old widow when the 1939 Register was complied. After the war, and probably Alice’s death in 1950, the shop front became a cleaners trading for a while as Kwik Lee Kleaners.  After a short period as car accessories shop, it was taken over by the next door neighbours, Lee Corn Stores.

It was probably separated when 280 became a café and for a while was home to a small supermarkets or convenience store, similar to Jits News lower down, but replacing newspapers for vegetables which were displayed outside the shop – it traded as Grants for much of that time. After being empty for several years it became a seemingly only patchily used gym – Evolve.

Gambling had been illegal on the ‘High Street’ until 1961, and while the change in legislation sounded the death knell for local greyhound tracks such as Charlton and New Cross, betting shops  started to appeared on shopping parades quite quickly.  A firm called Billy White moved into Market Terrace at 284 but the shop was soon taken over by E Coombes, who remained there until around 2011, when they sold some of their more profitable shops to Jennings, who still run the shop.

When 286 first opened, it was a tailor, Reg Collins.  After the Second World War and a brief period as a private lending library, Lee Surplus Stores, an army surplus and camping supplies shop opened in the early to mid-1950s.  It was briefly a foam shop and then a showroom for Young’s Cycles (see below) for a few years.  By the early 1990s, it had become an angling supplies shop which has traded under several names including Lee Angling, Mat’s Angling and currently South London Angling – all have also sold fireworks in the autumn both for those celebrating Bonfire Night and, more recently, Diwali and around the New Year.

One of the longest lasting shops on the parade was the cycle shop opened by Ernie (E. H.)Young in the early 1950s.  Ernie, a keen cyclist, had been operating out of split shopfront at 248 Lee High Road (now Billy Vee) since 1946, when  he was 16,; the shop had been funded by a £20 loan from his father. The shop that he moved into, 290, seems to have been empty for much of its life before – although a greengrocer, Charles Hayden, was there in 1951.

Ernie’s brothers George and Ray became involved in the business and shops were soon opened in Southend Lane, Lower Sydenham, and two locations in Trafalgar Road in Greenwich.  All the shops specialised in lightweight racing bike frames, some built by the brothers.

Ernie expanded into 288 in the early 1960s, that shop had been a ladies hairdresser for virtually all of its previous existence – run in the 1930s by ‘Lynn’ and then Charles Forte and latterly Charles and Lenore.  In the 1980s they also used 286, mainly as a showroom, but I don’t recall it being still there in the early 1990s. The other shops seem to have closed down by the 1980s although they took over a shop in Coney Hall on the Croydon/Bromley borders.

The shop became a well-known part of the community, offering a wide range of cycles, not just the lightweight racing bikes that they started with but children’s bikes (my first contact with Ernie), second-hand bikes, servicing and accessories.  On days that I didn’t run to work, I would often see Ernie cycling in the opposite direction down Verdant Lane, heading towards the shop.  The business was passed onto his son who sold it on in the late 1990s to Bob Donnington who had worked for another well-known local cycling name, Holdsworth.  The Young’s name lived on until the early 2000s, when it was renamed The Bike Shop. It is still a cycle shop, Pedal It, who still tries to emulate the business ethos that Ernie created, although has retreated back into a single shop front – 288 was used briefly as a printers but opened at the end of 2018 as a hair and beauty salon.

Ernie died in 2015 but the ‘ghost’ of the original shop lived on until late 2018, until then, there was the small sign of a departed shopkeeper hanging from a wrought iron bracket .  The name lives on too in Coney Hall, although the business is no longer in the family,

The last shop on the parade is currently Lee Green Glass which has been there since the early 1980s, along with workshops behind.  It had started life as a wallpaper retailer, Lilias, that had evolved into an ironmonger then a builder’s merchant by the mid-1950s.  It was then Crawford’s Domestic Stores for two decades before Lee Green Glass took over.  While not picked up during the trawls through the Kelly’s Directories, it appears that latterly Crawfords was a skateboard shop.

The ‘story’ of the Market Terrace has been pieced together using Kelly’s Directories held by the Lewisham Archives – generally looking at every 5^th year since the Parade opened for business around 1936.  These Directories go up to the mid-1980s.  More recent jogging of memories has been via the ‘back catalogue’ of Google’s StreetView which has passed Market Terrace several times since 2008.

If you think that I have got anything wrong or have memories of any of the shops please use the comments field below or in Facebook thread or Twitter post you reached here from. I’ll include some of them when I update the post.

Thanks and Credits

Thank you to Peter Underwood from the Classic Lightweights cycling website for the use of the early photograph of Ernie Young’s shop– if you want to know more about Ernie Young, and more particularly the bikes he built- it is a fascinating read. But more generally is an interesting site about racing cycling brands and shops from that era.

Thank you to the always helpful Lewisham Archives, particularly Julie Robinson, for access to the Kelly’s Directories.

Census, 1939 Register  and related data comes via Find my Past