Hello everybody! Now I know that I promised you Lewisham and Southwark today but actually I have decided to give Downham its own entry as during my research I have found there is lot to say about Lewisham and Southwark boroughs, and I ought to include Greenwich too so there is a lot to get through! Also, Downham is the area in which I live with my husband and son so I thought I’d give it some extra attention!

Downham is named after William Hayes Fisher, First Baron Downham (Baron Downham – who knew?!). He was chairman of the London County Council until his death in 1920. Over six years from 1924 the LCC erected a huge estate consisting of six thousand homes on a site that was formerly farmland, part of which had been a popular area for walking known as Seven Fields. A temporary rail link was created that branched off near Grove Park station so that building materials could be delivered. If you wander around Downham (if you are a local like me, you can do so as part of your daily exercise) you can see that the road names were taken from old field names. Not only this but there are road names that come from holiday resorts in Devon, and names from Arthurian legend. In fact, there is a Launcelot Primary School just near Galahad Road and Geraint Road. Later in 1937 seven thousand more homes were added to the estate.

Most of the tenants for the new Downham Estate came from the slums of the East End of London and other decaying city areas including Bermondsey, Deptford and Rotherhithe. This changed the population of the area dramatically, and the previously sleepy farming land with a handful of residents turned into a vastly busy area consisting of over thirty thousand people. For its time these houses were cheap and basic but they were much better and far more preferable to other post First World War council estates. Many of the earlier residents moved away from the estate not being able to afford the twelve shillings a week rent thinking it too much to pay for a one bedroom house. Some moved as they didn’t feel at home in this new semi-rural setting. When the Right-to-Buy legislation was passed, it meant that many new home owners came to the area and many were able to privately own their houses. Some locals say that this then changed the feeling of community in the area and is now popular because of the affordable housing now available to first-time buyers.

I disagree. When walking around the estate, whether it be to take my son to playgroup or just on a walk, I often see neighbours chatting over their fences. I always get a “good morning” or “afternoon” which is uncommon in other parts of London. As an outsider from Somerset this sense of community makes me feel much more at home. The local Tesco has the nicest woman you’ll ever meet working on the tills. She grew up in Bermondsey but moved here when she had her daughter 30 years ago. She was the first person to welcome us to Downham and she cried when she found out I was having a baby. It’s people like that who make a community what it is. Or certainly what it should be.

Now, on a different note, have you ever wondered what the largest pub was in Britain? Well let me enlighten you. Built in 1930 it was (drumroll please) The Downham Tavern, as stated in the Guinness Book of Records. Boasting a capacity of up to one thousand customers, a dance hall, beer garden, two saloon bars, public lounge and lunchroom locals say that it was camouflaged during WWII so the Luftwaffe couldn’t use it as a landmark. In the 1990’s the pub suffered a lack of investment and so the council sold the site to the Courage Brewery who then sold it to the Co-op who demolished the tavern, built a smaller pub and added a Co-op supermarket to the site. The new pub now has a capacity of up to 240 people. Slightly less impressive than the original.

Thanks so much for reading, and stay tuned for the next instalment of History for Lockdown! Until then as always, stay safe and stay home!

Georgie x

Hello everyone. I’ve been a little quiet of late as the Gilbert Household has been a little under the weather! But we are back to feeling ourselves again so I thought it about time I wrote a little something.

Now we are all staying indoors to help stop the spread of this awful virus, as a tour guide I cannot be out there doing my job so I thought I’d bring the history to you! Maybe you’ll find some of these places within reach of your homes so you can add them in to your daily exercise outing. Or you can sit back, relax and enjoy reading about them from the safety of your homes.

So where to start? I live in South East London, specifically Downham which is on the cusp of the Lewisham/Bromley boroughs. We fall into the Lewisham bracket (Lewisham is another story) and we are slap-bang in the middle of Catford and Bromley town. We have lived here for just over 7 years and it wasn’t until recently that I started exploring the history of the area.

Bromley itself was the first big town before reaching London that travellers from Kent, Sussex and other parts of the South East of England would stop at. The Bell Hotel would accommodate those on their way to and from the city. In fact, Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice mentions it to Elizabeth Bennett; “Where shall you change horses? Oh! Bromley, of course. If you mention my name at the Bell, you will be attended to.” (Austen, 1813.) Originally the Bell Hotel, located just North of Bromley Market Square, was a 1666 hostelry but by 1890 the front was falling down and was rebuilt in 1898 along with the rest of the High Street that you can see a lot of today. Jane Austen travelled often from Hampshire to visit her brother in Kent and would most certainly have stopped in Bromley.

But we must start at the beginning. The Romans built a camp at Keston where there is a natural spring, known as Caesar’s Well and is the source of the Ravensbourne. After the Romans left, the Anglo-Saxons built a settlement a few miles away and developed it where today you would find the market square. The name “Bromley” was first recorded in 862 AD as “Bromleag” which means “the place where broom grows” in Anglo-Saxon.

In the 10th century, Bromley was chosen by the Bishops of Rochester to be their base for visitors to London. The most recent Bishop’s Palace, built in 1775 surrounded by a moat, is now part of the Bromley Civic Centre. It took me a long time to find this as it is very well hidden behind the shopping centre’s overflow multi-storey car park. The last Bishop to live here left in 1845. If you know Bromley well, you have most likely seen the oldest building in the town without even realising. Just opposite the Bromley Magistrate’s Court stands the town’s almshouses. A beautiful red brick building called the Bromley and Sheppard’s Colleges. It was founded and built in 1666 by the then Bishop of Rochester John Warner, to provide housing for “twenty poore widowes of orthodoxe and loyall clergiemen.” This particular bishop had been deprived of his beautiful palace and spent his time travelling the West Country staying with different friends and relatives. 17th Century sofa-surfing at its best. Because of this he knew what it was like to be homeless and so used his considerable wealth to provide for the widows of the clergy whose husbands had been killed in the Civil War (while supporting the King of course) just a decade or so before.

It had been intended that the college be built in Rochester but the land was not available. Instead they found land near the Bishop’s Palace in Bromley and built it there. Later, in the 18th Century another Bishop of Rochester (there have been a few, bear with me) had the building extended and added what is known as the “New Quad” and made the chapel larger for the growing number of residents. In 1840, on the same site, Sheppard’s College was then founded for unmarried daughters who had resided in Bromley College with their widowed mothers but were then left homeless when their mothers died. It was named Sheppard’s College after Mrs Sophia Sheppard, widow of Dr Thomas Sheppard who was President of Magdalen College, Oxford. Bromley and Sheppard’s Colleges have always had a close affiliation with Magdelen College, Oxford as Bishop Warner (the man who started this whole tangent and the Bishop I mentioned originally) was a fellow there, as were the early chaplains. The chapel was rebuilt in 1862 to accommodate an even larger number of residents after the opening of Sheppard’s College and the beautiful Victorian stained glass window depicts women from the Bible. It is really a wonderful building to look at, and when not in Coronavirus Lockdown you can arrange to visit. To this day the colleges’s residents are still widows and daughters of the clergy together with retired clergy and their spouses.

The growth of the railway made the northern part of Bromley borough a place for London visitors to stay, or city workers to reside. The southern area still remains mostly countryside. Several literary greats lived in Bromley town, most notably H.G.Wells, author of such works as “The War of the Worlds” and “The Time Machine”. You can find where he went to school on South Street, although the building he would have known was rebuilt some years after his departure. You can also find his birthplace which is located where Primark now stands. During WWII Bromley was badly damaged. The Market Square and the pedestrianised part of the High Street for instance is now mostly unrecognisable to the original. (See the picture at the top of the page.)

Bromley borough is a thriving part of South East London but in the time of Queen Victoria it was a leafy town outside of the city. Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, came up with the scheme of The Great Exhibition, a steel-and-glass palatial exhibition hall that was built in Hyde Park in 1851 and open from May until October that same year. It was visited by six million people during that time. In 1854 it was relocated in enlarged form to a green open space in Penge now known as Crystal Palace (an obvious choice of name now you think of it). However, in 1936 an enormous fire destroyed the building and now only a few columns and walls can be found in Crystal Palace Park. Perhaps you could look for what remnants you can find while walking there.

Here is where I end this brief history of some parts of the Bromley borough. Even if you think you live somewhere new and fairly recently built, the land underneath you holds stories going back thousands of years. Next time, I will be moving further towards the city and will concentrate on the boroughs of Lewisham and Southwark which will include Downham, Dulwich and Peckham. I hope you enjoyed this instalment and I look forward to delving into your local history in the coming weeks. Until then, take care and stay safe.