WELL HALL STATION

 A couple of weeks ago I did an article on Kidbrooke Station to supplement some of the other pieces I’ve been putting here about Kidbrooke. But anyway, now, I thought it might be worth moving on down the line and looking at the other stations within Greenwich Borough which are on the Bexleyheath Line. One of them, Eltham, replaces two old stations which were closed and removed.  To my surprise no-one that I’ve mentioned these old stations to recently can remember them -  although they were there until 1985. Do people really have such poor memories? Anyway that means there are three stations for me to take on and write up – Eltham Well Hall, Eltham Park and Eltham.

Eltham Well Hall was the next station after Kidbrooke when the line opened in 1895. Clearly it was named for the adjacent Well Hall manor house, once home to the Tudor Roper family - but in the 1890s when the station opened it was  in use as a school. :Later there some famous residents and today only the ‘Tudor Barn’ remains in the ‘Pleasaunce’ which is a public park..When Well Hall station closed I don’t remember anybody saying that the Railway Children had lost their local station.

The Bexleyheath rail line was promoted in the late 19^th century to open up areas of north west Kent for suburban housing .Alongside reports of the new Well Hall Station was a widely advertised property close by which  had ten  bedrooms and a billiard room  with ‘capital hunting and shooting’ as attractions in the local area. If that is too expensive and you want somewhere more modest you were advised to consult Mr Snelling,  station master at the new station.   It’s unclear advice on local properties for sale is a railway company service or if it’s a bit of private enterprise by their staff. Nothing would ever surprise me!

It was pointed out that in the neighbourhood of this station there were hundreds of acres available , sufficient to allow the London County Council to build more than one ‘municipal village’.  Trouble was they might come from Deptford with radical ideas.  As the West Kent Argus said ...”There are also a few people of rather extreme views, employed in the building trades, or as shoemakers and tailors, who call themselves Socialist Communists. Their idea is to take one of the largest houses in the above mentioned neighbourhoods, and establish a communistic home, with a common kitchen, dining, reading, smoking rooms. etc. They contemplate having social meetings, and garden parties on Sundays, to which their comrades from London would come in brakes and other vehicles. And it is extremely probable that bands of music and banners would also be introduced.”

Well Hall Station was nine miles down the line from Charing Cross. Like at Kidbrook the new station buildings were designed to a standard pattern – an example only surviving at Pluckley today. They consisted of a single-storey timber building with a timber shelter on the "down" platform. There was a goods yard behind the "up" platform, with two sidings. A signal box stood beyond the end of the "down" platform.

One local institution which made  major use of the station was the military hospital - the Herbert Hospital up in Shooters Hill Road.  The buildings now stand, converted to housing. It was to be renamed ‘Royal Herbert’ following a grant of Royal Patronage during Queen Victoria’s visit in 1900 when she came to see soldiers injured in South Africa. She arrived and departed through Well Hall Station – and for weeks before and after the event the local press reported every fussy arrangement made for the visit.  The day itself was a local holiday with crowds gathering to see the very elderly Queen who is pictured in a wheel chair.

Three years later, in 1903, Victoria’s son, by then King Edward  VII, and his wife, Queen Alexandra visited with perhaps marginally less fuss but still using Well Hall Station. They also saw men wounded in South Africa and the Queen opened a new nursing department.

It was reported in 1900 that there were about 500 sick in the hospital and ‘150 came in yesterday from off the SS Winifredian’ – used as a troop ship it was brand new  and built as a livestock carrier. They had arrived at Well Hall Station, and were met there by ambulances. ‘Most of the men are either wounded or have enteric fever ....there is accommodation for 700’.

Other military uses include transfer of supplies. ‘The steamship Umtati left the Thames with 200 tons of war stores, including a  large number of bales of military clothing from Pimlico’. And ‘One hundred remounts for the Royal Artillery will be taken from Woolwich to Well Hall  Station, at 5.15 a.m. to-morrow morning, and  conveyed by special train to Gravesend Pier,  where they will cross by ferry to Tilbury Dock, and embark for conveyance to  South Africa’.

So transfers of men  and goods had been made easier and although the hospital was a distance away from the new station, there was a door to door road.  Until  1905, what we now know as Well Hall  Road was a narrow, winding, tree-lined lane but clearly it was better than available alternatives.  In 1905 the Council widened  and improved the road, and in 1910 a tramway  was constructed, powered by overhead wires . The age of  mechanisation had reached the Well Hall area,  but, said Country Life in 1981, because of the enlightened attitude of the  Council in the 1930s “some small remnant of the  hamlet's rural past has been preserved.”

In 1907 workmen’s tickets were introduced following a campaign, while new tram routes accessed the station.  Then, a second new station opened nearby "Shooters Hill & Eltham Park" which was intended as a replacement for Well Hall, which would be closed.: However "it was discovered they were under a statutory obligation to keep Well Hall Station open’ – part of an agreement with local property owners.  From 1916, the station was called “Well Hall and North Eltham” and then from. 1927 ‘Eltham (Well Hall)”.  Around the same time, the goods yard acquired a five-ton crane. In 1926 the railway was converted to third rail electrical supply. In 1931 the station had acquired a new main building and concrete lampposts with hexagonal lampshades.

The station survived the Second World War but lost its tram service in 1952. In 1955 the platforms were lengthened and a new entrance was opened with a staircase on the embankment. The goods facilities closed in 1968 and the signal box in 1970.  Also in 1970 ‘a check rail’ was laid along what was known as the ‘Well Hall Curve’ and which had permanent speed restriction of 20 mph. This had been installed following opposition to the building of the line by Sir Henry Barron and the necessity to meet his requirements made in their Parliamentary Bills which he had would otherwise have opposed.

 In June 1972 a diesel hauled excursion train, travelling between Margate and Kentish  Town came up the line. The driver failed to take any braking action to reduce his train's speed on the steeply falling gradient and as a result the locomotive entered the curve at 65 mph, distorting the track and sharpening the curve immediately ahead of its wheels. It overturned to the left and dragged the train after it into almost total derailment.  The driver had been drinking  a considerable quantity of alcohol both before and after booking on duty, including some shortly before leaving Margate, and some more in his cab during the journey.  He died along with six passengers. 126 people, including the second man on the locomotive, were taken to hospital. 40 were ‘kept in’, some  being very seriously injured

In 1981 the Greater London Council published plans for the “Rochester Way Relief Road” running in the ‘railway corridor’.  Country Life commented in 1981 “By imperilling the preserved serenity of Well Hall and its environs, the lorry has succeeded where other pressures for change have failed. It is a pity that the present Borough Council does not appear to possess the sensibilities of its predecessor 51 years ago.”  It required the demolition of Well Hall station which was on its path. A single station to replace the two then current would save vast sums and include a bus interchange.  Closure of Eltham Well Hall and Eltham Park stations was scheduled for 2nd March 1985, but bad weather held things up. The last train to call at Well Hall station was the 23:43 Charing Cross to Dartford on 16th March 1985.

There is now no trace of the station.  I have looked and failed to find any press coverage of its closure.  I am however grateful to the 1981 edition of Country Life which tells me of the difficulties the station had in relationships with the local land owner, Cator,  ‘following his certification  .....everything to be agreed by the commisdsdioner in lunacy". 

Wire Mills

 

Well, I thought that this week I ought to get back to writing about Greenwich industries and  individual small industrial sites. That means I need to get back to Ted Barr’s list in Greenwich Industrial History Newsletter. The industry which is now at the top of the list is ‘Holbrook Lathes’.

When the list of old firms was first published in the Greenwich Industrial History newsletter in the 1990s various men got in touch with their memories and told us about Hlbrook. One says “I have no personal knowledge or experience of this make of machine but our Chairman, Jack, may be able to help”   Another. A recent contact tells me that he has a 4½” Holbrook tool room machine ...apparently of massive design and built with great rigidity, weighing over 1½ tons“.  And another “There was a former member of Dockland and East London Model Engineering Society who had been a time served machine tool maker at Holbrook’s and might be of assistance. .... He had built a ⅛” scale model of a Holbrook which has been on show at National Exhibitions at Wembley and Castle Donington.”

So. Holbrook  made very bi lathes and at least one is on display - at Crossness. There are others on display around the country.,  But I don’t think that Holbrook made their lathes in Greenwich. As far as I can see from numerous websites they were in Stratford and there are quite a number of advertisements and so on and they eventually seemed to move to Coventry. https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Holbrook_Machine_Tool_Co

Totally irrelevantly  but ‘Holbrook’ is a word  which does have a bit of resonance in Greenwich in that it is the name of the school just outside Ipswich which The Royal Hospital has apparently recently sold.

Hudson Opticians

Hudson, opticians of South Street is the next firm which Ted mentions and its a bit more complicated.   He says ”Hudson, 1 South Street. I never knew what they did but No.1. was at one time occupied by Thompson of Endyne.” Thompsons are really not relevant here, and I will get to them eventually if I stick to Ted’s list.  I don’t know why he mentioned them – and that is a worry.

It turns out that there is a very good history of Hudsons on a specialist website https://microscopist.net/HudsonSon.html.  This is a very, very impressive website with a list of hundreds and hundreds of optical equipment  manufacturers and specialists who made and used microscopical slides. Quite honestly, if you want to know about Hudsons please look them  up there.  I’m just going to put a very brief summary of the introduction here and taken from the website,

F.T. Hudson began his Greenwich, London, optical business in 1828. It appears that his major products were eyeglasses, expanding to include magnifiers. His notebook is full of references to slide making and contains several records of his donating slides to the (Microscopist) Society. Frederick exhibited microscope slides only at the 1851 London Exhibition, as did also the father-son partnership at the 1862 London Exhibition. Hudson and Son was in business from about 1860 until after the turn of the twentieth century.....the variety of items retailed by Hudson and Son suggests that they were competent manufacturers of scientific equipment, and quite likely manufactured the microscopes and other instruments that they sold.”

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Kent Wireworks

The next on Ted’s  list is the ‘Kent Wireworks’. This has proved to be another bit of a mystery. Ted gave the address as 18 King William Street in Greenwich -which is now the Pho Street restaurant. I have another address which is 64 Thames Street – an address which would have been near the junction with Horseferry Road and before the recent ubiquitous flats the site was an adventure playground. There is a photograph of a derelict building here with a sign on it which says ‘Kent Wireworks’. I very vaguely remember the building  but I can't place it well enough to remember exactly where it was. I think it may have been on the Riverside on Dreadnought Wharf. But I have nothing to back that up.  I've always thought that the old industrial riverside was destroyed so comprehensively and with no structured record that it would be completely irretrievable and forgotten. I cannot reproduce the photograph here because it is owned by a commercial agency, effectively preventing its use. That is all I can find about this works.

There is however something which may be more information about this works or more likely a bizarre coincidence .  The most recent date we have for this Kent Wire Works in Greenwich is 1954. Now strangely in 1954 a Kent Electric Wireworks was set up by two brothers by the name of ‘Kent’  who moved their works to Bracknell –where it became a large and successful business and part of GEC.  They were moved through the work of a Vincent Phillips who was on the GEC board and came from Eltham.  A company history which appeared in a local newspaper says that the Kent brothers original works was in ‘Kew’ and it was that which moved to Bracknell. I honestly don't know what to make of this.

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Moss Wire Mills

Moss Wire Mills Ltd. The address given by Ted is 123 South Street. That is on the corner of  Lindsell Street where there are new flats on what was the Majestic Wine Warehouse. The Heritage Statement included in the documentation for the planning application for the current building , I'm afraid, quotes Ted Barr’s comments from the Greenwich Industrial History newsletter for the past history of the site. It adds that the Majestic Wine buildings were built around 1970 and the courtyard cleared of its industrial buildings then.

The business dated from 1900 when it was set up by Frederick Thomas Moss to take over the business of the Surrey Wire Works who were at 18 Blackheath Hill and also had an earlier site in Kilburn Road in Rotherhithe. They were in the business of ‘working, drawing, tinning, coppering, galvanising and covering wire and metals of any sort, and steel, copper, iron, tin, silk, cotton, wool.’  They eventually moved - probably in the 1930s from Blackheath Hill to Greenwich South Street. described  as ‘wire drawers, spring makers, and wire workers’ . In the 1950s, the company also specialized in ‘audio frequency (R.F.) coils, coil packs, and prototype/bulk wave-winding for electronics and hobbyist circuits’.

Moss ' Wire Mills Ltd. , were still at work in the 1950s. A story in the local press includes that ‘for many years they been a member of The Spencer Group of Companies ’. I have no idea what that means. Today’s Spencer Group - and there are several candidates - were not around in the 1950s. There are many candidates from the past, including a Spencer Wire Works based in Wakefield, but none of them seemed to have a connection to Greenwich or to Moss.  The Wakefield firm merged with Manchester based Richard Johnson & Nephew who were major suppliers to Greenwich based cable makers.

Moss Wireworks were at work throughout the 1950s. I don’t know when they finally closed.

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Greenwich Wire Works

This works does not appear on Ted’s or anybody else's list.  I came across them while I was researching Moss and I thought it might be worth putting a note in about them.

The earliest address I have for Greenwich Wireworks is 70 London Street. That is now the bit of Greenwich High Road between Church Street and South Street. No 70 would have been near the South Street junction, probably one of the shops. Later the address is 13 South Street and I guess that is the same building.  No 13 is now –amazingly coincidentally – a branch of Pho Street.

The works was established, probably, in the 1840s or 1850s as the ‘Moriarty & Greenwich Wire Works, wireworkers, weavers and sieve, screen and blind manufacturers.’  Thus the items they make are small, often domestic items in woven metal threads.  Other items were decorative ‘All kinds of decor and Illuminations for Garden Parties or Fetes for Sale or Hire. Large stock to select from.’ They advertise themselves as contractors to HM Government.

Cornelious Moriarty had manufacturing workshops on nearby Nelson Street (Nelson Road) presumably at the back of the up market shops built a few years earlier. Cornelius was born in Kerry, Ireland around 1808. In Greenwich he became a public figure, elected to serve on the Greenwich District Board.

In 1882 a serious fire led to the closure of the Nelson Road workshops and led to the concentration of the business at the shop premises in South Street ...’Moriarty & Co. are sorry to state that the whole of their premises were burnt out on Saturday.  They trust that under these circumstances their friends will not withhold their kind orders.’ It was later announced that ‘Since the 4th February last, the buildings have been considerably enlarged, and better adapted for the execution of more extensive work, therefore I am prepared to receive all orders, however large, my friends may favour me with.’ They were now to be managed by a Mr Rishton.’

They were still in business in 1903 advertising:  THE CORONATION (JUNE, 1903). ILLUMINATION WIRE DESIGNS. BOOK YOUR ORDERS AT ONCE WITH MORI ARTY & CO., GREENWICH WIRE WORKS, 13, SOUTH STREET, S.E. TRADE SUPPLIED.

So, instead of closing down when Cornelius Moriarty's management ended, the family business was modernised and incorporated, as Moriarty & Co. (1911) Ltd.. However the business quietly disappeared in the 1920s. 

Middle Kid Brook 3

 

I thought I ought to get back to my series on Kidbrooke - because I left the Middle Kid  Brook only half done – but the final stretch  turns out to go through what was once posh estates and is now nice standard housing - and my brief for these articles is really ‘industrial Greenwich’.  Oh, well!

There are also some bits and pieces which I should have used in the previous articles I did on the Middle Kid Brook. I didn’t know about them then - but I do now!.  First I should tell you about a book which has come into my hands since I wrote that article. It’s called ‘No 1. Balloon Centre, Kidbrooke’  by Peter Sydenham, published  2024 by Red Robin Publishing Pty, Urrbrae, South Australia.   It gives a basic history of the balloon centre, including how and why they were set up  with information on some of the other sites, like Cardington. There are also a lot of  shorter items -  -  like the  names on the Roll of Honour and also people who’ve helped with the project.  Interestingly Peter Sydenham may have set up the project because his father was the only survivor of the  V1 attack  on the balloon centre.

{I had better explain – the V1 was a flying bomb - the doodle bug. The Germans are said to have launched  9,521 onto London in 1944. I am adding this piece of information because I am discovering that none of the people I meet every day have any idea what a V1 was and have never heard of barrage balloons......and, goodness, ancient oId me can remember hearing a V1 come down and exploding a few streets away.

I knew about someone writing up the Balloon Centre some years ago when I was approached by the Lewisham based historian, John King, to ask for help with getting a memorial installed.  I got in touch with various local councillors - some of whom I know did quite a bit. I remember having a conversation with Cllr Mariam Lolovar about it.  But then I didn’t hear anything for a long, long time except that a site had been found for a plaque.  So, I’m afraid, I just forgot about it after that -  and I’ve also lost touch with John, which I’m sorry about.

Anyway, I suppose I ought to get on and write about the final stretch of the Middle Kid Brook. Basically  it crossed Kidbrooke Park Road where there’s an open stretch of stream  which runs along the north side of Thomas Tallis School and then flows west along the border of the sports ground of Blackheath High School for Girls.

In the 18^th century and earlier this area was the fields of Upper Farm and Middle Farm –apparently Upper Farm was also Hither Farm or, confusingly, Lower Farm. Lower Farm itself was also known as Stud or Green Farm.  However none of these farms had their farmhouses in these fields west of Kidbrooke Park Road and by the mid 19^th century they were being managed as one unit. It is perhaps worth noting that Middle Farm was eventually owned by Express Dairies, pioneering bottled milk for local deliveries. However, like many farms on the outskirts of London, they were growing for the London vegetable markets. Upper Farm is said to have had 20 Suffolk Punch horses to take produce into London and this included grain deliveries to Whitbread’s Brewery in Chiswell Street.

The stream runs in a conduit  under the Bexleyheath railway soon after the line emerges from the tunnel, which hides it from the residents of the Cator estate. Soon after another stream coming from the Kidbrooke Green area joins the Middle Kid Brook as it runs westward in its underground conduit.  It comes above ground for the pond in the Casterbridge Estate, laid out by the 19^th century land owners.

The next road, Brooklands Park, was called Manor Road until 1911 and was the carriage drive to Brooklands House which still stands, just up the road from where the Kid Brook crosses. It dates from 1827 and I am riveted to learn that it was built for George Smith, the architect who worked for Morden College and the Mercer’s Company and whose buildings are everywhere in Greenwich and Blackheath. In his book about Blackheath Neil Rhind says there was another large pond – Lays Pond -to its rear. In 1936 the water was from it was channelled away into a three-foot brick conduit and it thus disappeared until it emerges at Parkgate.. On what was the lawn  of Brookland’s House is now the Blackheath Bowls Club, which dates from 1926 and apparently boasts a number of international bowls players. Otherwise the area was taken over by a development company in the 1930s.

In Brooklands Park the edge of the Casterbridge Pond along the road has two brick pillars. Between them is a low parapet and a stone block with an Ordnance Survey benchmark on it and the remains of iron railings.  Ken White in his booklet on the Quaggy says this is the remains of a bridge which covered an extension of the pond west of Brooklands Park.  He says he has seen a photograph showing the bridge with the same pillars and parapet on both sides of the road.

It is quite difficult to see the surrounds of the pond today because of the undergrowth and trees. There was at one time an island and a boathouse on the north bank near the eastern end. There was also a hexagonal brick structure which Ken White says contained a hydraulic ram which used power from the water flow to pump the water to a higher level. He includes a drawing of this, along with another drawing of a cute little brick building which he says contained the pump. He writes as if it’s still there in 1996 and given the amount of concealing undergrowth I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t right. What there is in the pond is a statue– ‘Ganges’ by Swiss artist, Rafaelle Monti. It is one of four river statues originally at Crystal Palace and sold off in 1957.

South of the pond there was once a house called Elmsdale  which appears to have been on the site of what was Casterbridge Farm. In the 1920s it became known as Casterbridge House. In 1952 the whole estate was bought by the London County Council and the still current local authority housing built, designed by the LCC’s  Architects Department. A community hall was provided on a green at the south end of the estate. This hall was demolished in 2025 - but inside was a mural commissioned in 1958 for the building in an LCC Patronage of the Arts project. It was by William Mitchell, Design Consultant to the LCC  whose work was focussed on civic spaces.  The mural is made of 13 carved chipboard panels, which Mitchell cut to fit on-site and then drew the initial design onto them. It has been saved, restored and relocated to Brooklands Primary School, just up the road.

Beyond the pond the line of the Middle Kid Brook is paralleled by Brookway built in 1937. North of Brookway is a series of roads and estates with houses built by various developers. Prominent is   ‘Spanland’. Span Developments Ltd was formed in 1957 by architect Eric Lyons and developer Geoffrey Townsend, Leslie Bilsby, and landscape designer Ivor Cunningham 'to span the gap between suburban monotony  .... and architecturally designed’ houses. Its estates were 'modern ..... within the context and traditions of the English suburbs’. The Priory, near Lee Road, was the first built in 1956 with opposition from Greenwich Council and local residents, on the grounds that modern building was inappropriate here.  Other Span estates in this immediate  area include  The Hall, The Lane, Foxes Dale, The Lane and  there are many more.

The Middle Kid Brook disappears after Brooklands Park and on 19^th century maps it can be seen to pass under Brooklands Park with an equally large pond on the west side. It then continues to an even larger square pond which must be what Michael Egan, in his booklet on Kidbtook, says was ‘a larger lake called the Great Canal which can be seen on the Roque map of 1780. I must admit to being a bit confused here. The Lays Pond which I mentioned above and was described by Neil Rhind, doesn’t seem to be shown on of the maps which I have - so is this big square piece of water an early version of that?

On the west side of Park Gate between 22 and 24 the Middle Kid Brooke is open and above ground but screened by foliage and it can be seen flowing on the south side of the back garden of 77 Lee Road. Eventually the water goes into a pipe under Lee Road and can be seen issuing into the Quaggy at the back of the Tiger’s Head.

Ken White gives us an alternative end to the Middle Kid Brook in ‘The Quaggy and its Catchment Area’ -  the only book I have ever seen which is actually handwritten and then photocopied, cut up and assembled into a little booklet. It’s very good and a whole different spin on self publishing.

 He says that it’s possible that at some time in the past the Middle Kid Brook was cut back to Lee Road and then diverted down to the Quaggy at the Tiger’s Head and he gives a possible alternative original flow. He said it could have flowed from Lee Road west across ‘Lewin’s land’ where there were two ‘conduit’ fields. He suggests looking at the lie of the land in Lee Park, Lee Street and Boone Street and where it would have passed Boone’s Almhouses on their north. He says the valley is quite clear here. He thinks it joined the Quaggy near  the pub which used to be called the Rose of Lee, and then for a while was The Hobgoblin and then The Dirty South - now its shuttered and for sale.

Time, in a few weeks time, to take on the Lower Kid Brook and a lot of 1930s new tech.

 

 

 

Greenwich and whaling

 

Over the past week or so I have quite inadvertently been reading quite a bit about whales - I mean whaling--  the slaughter of hapless creatures  in the southern oceans during earlier centuries In order to provide oil for various purposes in our cities.

I thought I could write something about whaling in relation to Greenwich this week. Over the years I’ve seen things which suggest Greenwich was a whaling port – which it absolutely wasn’t!  Those claims are most of them based on the presence of the Enderby family in Greenwich – and I’ll come  back to them in a moment. The other thing is the discovery few years ago by Pre-Construct Archaeology of a whale skeleton down on Bay Wharf on the Peninsula – it was cleaned up and studied and put on exhibition but it was nothing to do with the local industry. Like many others the poor creature was lost, or ill,  and died on the foreshore. I seem to remember that one whale skeleton was an arthritic old lady - and , goodness, I do sympathise! Some beachings in the 17^th century led to some fairly lurid pamphlets -  and please don’t think people were any better behaved towards these creatures then than the worst would be now!   Hundreds of people came to sightsee, climbing all over it, injuring it, tormenting it and behaving badly all round.

I’ve also been reading a book by somebody who was nothing really to do with Greenwich  - just that his brother lived here.  He was a young chap who went out on whaling ships working as a ship’s doctor -and I’ll come to him in due course.

Clearly the most important thing about the whaling industry and Greenwich is the Enderby  family who lived here and who had  factory on the Greenwich peninsula. But their presence here is less to do with whaling than we think .    Some years ago the Docklands History Group had a conference on whaling. London and the Whaling Trade . Thames & Docklands History Group. Events & Publications.   There were several papers given there of great interest but in particular one by Charles Payton. "The Enderby Family and Their World". In it he traces Enderby family business activities through several generations of tanners and later as oil merchants in inner south London and the City.  He also describes their activities and business ownership in pre-independence  America and how it was decided to move the business over into London because of possible instability  in America. He covers much else in a ground breaking account.

In the late 17^th and early 18^th Enderby ships hunted in the southern oceans; opening up new areas, recording them too.  Their Greenwich riverside factory opened in 1830 to make rope – there was an existing high quality rope walk on site -  and canvas - and to explore new technologies. Street lighting by then was increasingly fuelled by gas – with several attempts to found gas works which used various oils rather than coal. And whales were getting scarcer.

Some other works on Enderbys are by Greenwich authors.  Stewart Ash wrote the ‘Eponymous_Enderbys’  while active in the Enderby Group - which had been set up by members of Greenwich  Industrial History Society in order to try and promote the history of the Enderby Wharf site to the public –The book includes a great deal of detail on the work of the Enderbys and the voyages which their ships undertook. Stewart is primarily a historian of the cable industry and a version of his Enderby book is on the incredibly detailed Atlantic Cable website, History of the Atlantic Cable & Submarine Telegraphy - Enderby's Wharf  where there is also a great deal of other information about Enderby Wharf’s  history and what has happened there. Read it for the detail and the gorgeous pictures Stewart has been able to put online.

 

 Eventually  not only did the Enderbys open their groundbreaking factory in Greenwich but  gradually more and more of the  family lived in our area, becoming involved in local communities. It all ended of course with the disastrous attempt to found a colony in the otherwise uninhabited Auckland Islands, deep in the southern hemisphere.  Much of this story was covered by Barbara Ludlow in two important articles published by the Greenwich Historical Society.

 I am sure that many of the people are reading this will probably remember Barbara who was the Senior Assistant at Woodlands Local History Library - in the days when we had a local history library!! She was also very involved in lots of  local history projects and everybody knew her. She came  from a well known local family  (remind me that I have promised to write an article here about her Uncle Charlie sometime!)  She worked very, very hard on her Enderby studies and in fact eventually went to New Zealand to further the research she was doing on them. Her articles are both called ‘Whaling for Oil. The Rise and Fall of the Enterprising Enderbys’. They are in the Journal of the Greenwich Historical Society, Volume nos 5 and 4, 2007 and 2008. Sadly they are not on line, so I honestly can’t tell you how you can get hold of them quickly and easily.  I guess all you can do is book an appointment with Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust.

I’m far from sure how far have much of this information leads us to the realities of the whaling industry. We know a lot about the Enderby family but not about their most famous means of income  The slaughter  of all these creatures is to get oil to use as a fuel. One of things which the Enderbys investigated in Greenwich in the 1830s was the use of coal oil, naphtha,  for lighting and other uses.

Another use which some of their ships were put to was to contract with the government to transport convicts to Australia - and I’ve always understood that they used the same methods of transport  as the slavers. Was this so? And were there really special transports of young women to provide wives for transported convicts?

The Enderbys lived in many beautiful houses in Greenwich and Blackheath- they had big families. One Enderby grandchild became a national hero – Charles ‘General’Gordon.  Their factory at Enderby Wharf was built to make rope and canvas; and where the brothers dabbled in various bits of new tech and it was eventually burnt down in 1845.  They never seem to have returned with any enthusiasm but built Enderby House – now the pub – to live in.  The rope walk, which pre-existed the Enderbys,  seems to have continued  as did Joshua Beale’s foundry on a site next door, which was leased from the Enderbys.  Barbara Ludlow described how Enderby family members took themselves off to the Auckland Islands where soon enough the whole project floundered despite the fancy uniforms. In the end all you could say was that they produced some very interesting additions to Antarctic geographical knowledge.  Enderby wharf went on to become  a groundbreaking cable factory which would transform the world.

So, briefly, to describe how the whales were hunted, there was a young man who did draw attention to the brutalities of the whaling industry.  He did not sail in an Enderby ship - although he appears to have known Charles Enderby, and the firm subscribed for three copies of the book. He sailed in the ships of Thomas Sturge who was a leading figure in the anti-slavery movement, to whose work our young man pays tribute in his preface.  Sturge, by the way ended up in the Northfleet cement industry and I see a Facebook page about saving Sturge wall plaques from developers.  The big house he built became Northfleet Urban District Council Headquarters, where my husband worked for some years. Sturge subscribed for ten copies of the book.

So, this newly qualified  doctor, age 22, with a wife and child took himself off on a whaling ship for some years. He came back to write a very detailed description of the physiology of a whale  - thus making it clear that this was a complicated, sentient creature. I assume he was able to study their anatomy while they were being cut up on board ship in order to be transported back to England. He described the process of hunting them and their terrible deaths.  To this is added  the political background to the employment of these whaling ships

He later describes his travels and adventures in the lands the ship visited him.  I always say I don’t read fiction but  the most popular current novel  is accidentally in my hands – and it does go to considerable lengths to discuss the adjustments needed by professional sailors in the 19^th century when ashore. As well as the ice and uncharted seas.

“ In 1788, the grand mercantile speculation of sending ships around Cape Horn into the Pacific, in order to extend the sperm whale fishery was reserved for the bold and enterprising mind of Mr. Enderby, ... bringing home the enormous cargo of 139 tons of sperm oil     so that several ships both from this country and America immediately followed in her track, .................... ....................If these huge but timid animals happen to see or hear the approach of a ship or boat, their fear is all cases is excessive.” Dr.Thomas Beale. The Natural History of the Sperm Whale.

 

knackers and chargers

 

I thought this week I should get back to my long long list a small factories and workshops in Greenwich borough. I’m still taking them in alphabetical order from the list which Ted Barr published in Greenwich  Industrial History Newsletter and on that list I’ve only reached letter ‘h’.

So , lets start with Harrison Barber slaughterhouse - specifically horse slaughter.  I assume they were extremely busy in the early years of the 20^th century as huge workplaces full of horses were disposed of with the incoming internal combustion engine.  I’m afraid I’m unable to find a map which specifically marks the slaughterhouse site - although I’m sure I’ve seen one in the past. As far as I’m aware it was in Blackwall Lane round about where now the fly-over crosses and then there’s the big roundabout. Charles Booth’s Survey of London Poverty mentions it in his Greenwich section where  he says that it was just south of Marsh Lane – then that was the name of the road the Pilot pub was in. In those days it was a turning off Blackwall Lane, going down to the river. and was later called ‘Riverway’.  The slaughter house site was called ‘Holmdale’ and it included  a house where the site foreman lived.

Before the mid 1880s the site seemed to belong to a family called ‘Ribbins’ who lived in Roan Street. Thomas Ribbins, described as a ‘cat’s meat dealer’ was in his sixties in the 1800s. His son Joseph was described as his ‘assistant’ and as a ‘general dealer’. The family had a business of some sort in Deptford -  I am aware that Trundleys Road was once known as ‘Knackers Lane’. However in the 1880s they had a business seem in Bridge Street. Pressure was being put on them by the Board ofv Works to move out of that area and they eventually gave in and moved down to Marsh Lane at in the 1880s. So, a business considered too rough for Deptford was acceptable in Blackwall Lane!

It must be said that local newspapers seem to have a numerous stories about members of the Ribbins family . This includes numerous prosecutions for pub based petty violence, gambling and so on. There are also several prosecutions for what we could see as the ‘dodgy horse trade’ – buying stolen horses and turning them into cats meat before they could be identified. There are some very upsetting cases of cruelty and so on. They were required by the police to collect any horse  that had died in the street and this also is the subject of some very upsetting press stories. 

In 1874 An Act of Parliament had prohibited  any future horse slaughtering business  to be set up in London. Harrison Barber had operated in east London with manure and glue works at Forest Gate and at Sugar House Lane, Poplar. They were gradually taking over any London slaughter houses which were at risk of closing down.  In 1887 Ribbins along with some others set up a company which could rival Harrison Barber because,they complained, they  would soon ‘take care of everything in London’.  It was a very shortlived organisation and predictably  Harrison Barber soon took over the Marsh Lane works – as it turned out it was one of their smaller works.

 Clearly in the first quarter of the 20^th century vast numbers of horses must have been killed just because their existence was inconvenient. For instance on the site which is now Greenwich Power Station a 1000 horses were once stabled for the horse trams. All of them must have died before  their time. Later they used the captive bolt system – as did also suicidal employees.

The Greenwich  branch advertised itself as selling pet food,  the ground up remains of the unfortunate horses. The Forest Gate branch sold manure and glue.  In 1925 a Harrison Barber  decorated float took part in Greenwich Shopping Week Celebrations. I would be riveted to know what decorations they put on this float.

Clearly their  custom was declining as horse transport  ceased. I don’t know exactly when the site closed  but it I don’t think it functioned after the Second World War. I understand that their  activities were eventually confined to a site in Tottenham and eventually became  foreign owned.

 

The next item on Ted’s list was ‘Haybeerd’ – he said they were somewhere near South Street and made transformers, chargers and other electrical gear.  The only problem was that I could find not a single website which had that name with that weird spelling. After trying many many different alternatives I came up with’Heayberd’ and from then on it was really quite straightforward.

Eventually I discovered Fredric Cecil Heayberd who was born at in Tranmere, near Liverpool, in 1887. His father was apparently a retired sailmaker from Portsmouth. At the age of 24 he was living with his mother, still in the Liverpool area and working for an electrical engineering company as an instrument maker.  He spent the The Great War in the mechanical transport division of the Army Service Corps.  Immediately after the war he married Margaret ,from the Liverpool area, and then they moved south.

Fr ederick Heayberd apparently founded his engineering business in the early 1920s and` for whatever reason he came to London with ideas for an electrical engineering business. I do not know what they were or how he started – he will have needed capital and some skills in getting customers and so on. Initially, in 1922. they had as central London address at 10 Finsbury Street – in an area ofv the City  which in the 19^th century had been used for specialist manufacturing but by the 1900s was let in multiple units to mainly clerical firms. Finsbury Street is a possible location for a new electrical engineering firm, although I would guess expensive and I suspect that this was an accommodation address only .

In the early 1920s he was advertising for sale a ‘safety alarm jewel case’ from a residential address in Manor Park, Lee. The first mentions of his Greenwich factory are from the mid-1930s although they may well have been there  earlier. The address is usually given as ‘Guildford Road’ which was an earlier name for what is now Guildford Grove.  Sometimes the address is 114 Greenwich South Street-  a building still in use as a business premises. Alongside it is a gateway leading through to the back of the shops which in the 1930s will have gone to a site now only accessed from Guilford Grove. This is now a gated housing estate called Admiral’s Gate – which I guess sounds more like maritime Greenwich than ’Battery Charger Gardens’ or something or other.  When the new housing was built the site had been in use by an electronics company called Texel, started by ex employees of Elliott Automation. But I don’t know how long they had been there.

In 1937 Hayberd were at a British Industries Fair  and advertised their products as : ‘Battery Chargers; Rectifier Units and Plant; Transformers; Radio Components; Motor Accessories. Automobile Compasses’. I suspect their main products were electrical chargers of various sorts. They seem to have continued with a central London office although I assume they were bombed out of Finsbury Street. In 1946 they had offices at 28 Russell Square – a property soon to become part of London University.

Frederick Heayberd  died in March 1960 in hospital in Bromley.  I  assume that he ran the company himself until then. It presumably continued in the ownership of his widow, Margaret , forva few years and later closed.  It has not been easy to find out this much about what was obviously a considerable business in West Greenwich and which must have employed numerous people. Was it taken over and moved? ‘’  I guess people still need battery chargers.

.----------------------

The next firm on Ted’s list is Sykes Pumps and they are not a small firm. They are still functioning as far as I’m aware, on a site on the Greenwich /Charlton borders and there is a more than adequate site history on their website . https://www.andrews-sykes.com/about-us/#t1

 

Kidbrook Station

 

 

I thought this week I should do something about Kidbrooke Station.  I’ve been doing these articles about the various Kid Brook streams for months - and I’m halfway through doing the Middle Kid Brook. It struck me that Kidbrooke Station is halfway between the Middle and Lower Kid Brooks and doesn’t really come into the area covered by either of them.   But I clearly should do it.  In the past I’ve done articles on local railway stations – So why not add Kidbrooke to them?

There are three railway lines which go to Dartford from London Bridge. First in 1849  there was the North Kent line which went from Blackheath through the tunnel down to Charlton Station and on to Dartford. Then in 1866 the Dartford Loop Line  going via Sidcup opened. The line which goes through Kidbrook opened in 1895 was the Bexleyheath Railway. That name of the line gives you a clue - it was built to serve the Bexley area and Kidbrooke was just somewhere  you passed through to get there.

The Bexleyheath line resulted from lobbying, and some finance, from prominent people in the Bexleyheath area. Basically it was about land owners in that area trying to raise value of land  holdings suitable for commuter housing. The company got its Enabling Act in 1883 but, as ever, there were various difficulties and work on the line did not start until 1891.

The opening of the line was delayed. According to most histories this was because of a landslip just outside the tunnel which takes the line from Blackheath Station to Kidbrooke. I can find no newspaper report of this land slip and the Board report to shareholders says “the tunnel at Blackheath presented difficulties ...the workmen encountering a large shell bed and considerable quantities of water”. The tunnel goes underneath part of the posh and private Cator Estate. There appears to be minimal information about this tunnel-= it doesn’t appear in lists of rail tunnels in the area, and a webpage apparently devoted to it consists of only three words!. There are some hints that local landowner, the Earl of St Germans, wanted to develop his land and “get even with Cator”. Whatever!  

The line was finally opened on 1st May 1895. The opening day was marked by a brass band at Bexleyheath and there is no mention of Kidbrooke in newspaper reports. By 1900 the Bexleyheath Railway Company had been absorbed into the South Eastern and Chatham Railway Company and thus in 1923 became part of the Southern Railway. The future of the line in the 20^th century was that most of the land around the railway as it went into Kent was used for commuter housing but the land around Kidbrooke Station became a large industrial site owned by the Royal Air Force. I’m covering this site and its multiple uses in various articles here.

So what did Kidbrooke get in the way of a station in 1895?. Somewhat to my surprise the Kent Rail website says it was ‘a delightful country station, demonstrating charm and antiquity”. What!. Sadly there is no sign of any pictures of this station. Kent Rail say the stations along the line were ‘standard wooden constructions and   ‘the main building only featured bricks in the chimney stacks’. It had sash window and an arched roof. There were ‘swan neck’ lamps with ‘barley sugar twist’ posts and Southern Railway "Target" name signs.

 

In its early years the station appears to have been very quiet and, while eventually surrounded by government buildings, remained peaceful. Most of its users would have been workers in the government complex coming to work every day rather than, as everywhere else, local residents going off to work elsewhere. There are newspaper reports of petty crime and reckless behaviour as it’s true of both stations then and now.  In the 1930s the station made national press coverage for some weeks following the discovery of a headless woman’s body on the lines outside the station. This turned out to be a respectable married woman who had been in a first class compartment – screams had been heard by passengers in other compartments.  As far as I’m aware her attacker was never identified despite intensive police work and stories in a wide newspaper coverage.  He had almost certainly left the train at Kidbrooke.

 

The original station buildings remained in place here although other stations serving this area were rebuilt in 1931, where timber main buildings were replaced by ‘sturdy red brick’. The Southern Railway electrified these suburban lines in 1926  on the third rail scheme – which remains in use today. but steam did not entirely disappear from these lines until the early 1960s.. In 1949 in order to meet demand for the increasing number of passengers, double-decker carriages were introduced. They were not a great success – I remember them well and how unsafe and uncomfortable they felt - but they were used until 1971. In 1954 platforms were extended in order to accommodate ten car trains

In 1972 at Kidbrook the main station buildings from 1895 were replaced by ‘dreary CLASP’ prefabricated ones. This in turn was replaced in 1994 by a brown-brick construction with a tiled pitched roof. A new interim station building was opened in 2014 along with a waiting shelter, bike racks, and a toilet, and a brand new station building was opened on 3 April 2021.

Originally passengers could only from one side of the station to the other by walking  over the rails and Kidbrooke’s first footbridge was in prefabricated concrete.  In March 2014  a new metal footbridge was lifted into position.

There was a goods yard, busy, particularly in wartime because of the adjacent military depot. It was closed, along with others on the line in 1968. There was also a signal box built north west of the ‘up’ platform.  It was two-storey with a timber top and a brick base. it was taken out of use in 1970. It had overlooked the only siding, which trailed off the down line.

Extensive sidings and a narrow 2 foot gauge network once served the huge government complex. The depot could only be accessed from the "down" line and the single-track link was protected by a gate, beyond which were a multitude of standard gauge sidings. A locomotive used on the site has survived and is in Leeds Industrial Museum. Its history and some pictures can be found at https://preservedbritishsteamlocomotives.com/manning-wardle-works-no-865-raf-no-111-aldwyth-0-6-0st//  I will try and cover this site in more detail in a future article.

 

APOLOGIES AND CATCH UPS

lead to a lot of additions here

 

I’ve noted the need to do more on the internal rail system on the RAF site as well as its implications for Kidbrooke station and I will put these as part of a future article

I am very grateful to Marion Kennet who wrote to me about the post office site at Kidbrooke, after which Old Post Office Lane is named and which I had to say in last week’s article that I could find very little about. Marion has been kind enough to send some photographs and that again I will write up specially

Quite a bit of last week’s article was about the Kidbrooke Barrage balloon site and I was not aware when I wrote that that Peter Sydenham - who had been in touch with me in some detail about the site = had written a book about it, published in Australia. I have just received a copy and intend to do a brief review of it which will go on the Greenwich Industrial History Facebook Page –once I’ve had time to read it. And I will to add something else on here.

GRAFTONS AND MORE

 

This week I thought I should do this week’s article from the list of small firms  in Greenwich. I had started out a few weeks ago with ones taken from Ted Barr’s list  but I’ve been adding to that from elsewhere and it really is no longer is just his list.  But the ones I’m doing  this week will all be ones that Ted suggested.

EASTCOMBE MEWS

I’m starting with one which is a complete mystery and which is yet another one which I’m asking for help with.  Ted listed it as ‘General Engineers of 156 Eastcombe Mews’.  Now,   number ‘156’ seems to imply quite a big road -156 is a lot of buildings - but I’m totally unable to find anything called ‘Eastcombe Mews. The only hint I have is a couple of directory entries - one for a garage to let - and another for a horse to sell. Both of them say ‘ Eastcombe Mews, Westcombe Hill.’

Neil Rhind’s’ book on Westcombe Park deliberately only covers  the west side of Westcombe Hill - which means that this site is likely to be on the east side and so may have been something destroyed in the 1960s by the  motorway. But I can see nothing relevant on any old map.

There is a small enclave of industrial buildings on the east side top of Westcombe Hill and which I know very little about . Is there anyone out there can confirm that they are actually called Eastcombe  Mews?  Or that there is another place, or was another place, called that?

So, the next one is ....

GRAFTONS

.... And it looks to be quite complex....

The next one is ‘Grafton’s’ which used to be over in Eltham, in Footscray Road, on the site which is now the B&Q Store. They had the most eccentric factory there - designed to look like a battlemented country house building.  It was demolished by B&Q in order to build their store. Graftons has come to the attention of many industrial archaeologists and historians through Aubrey Wilson’s classic 1960s book on ‘London’s Industrial Archaeology’. Wilson highlighted a classic planing machine by Whitworth which he had photographed at Graftons works. It had come from the Westcombe Park works of Arthur Martin – yet another works which has led to me spending quite a bit of time in these columns complaining that I can find nothing about it! Graftons has been a lot easier.

 Finding out about Graftons has taken quite a bit of research and I’m glad to say that I’ve managed to resolve a number of problems, although others have come along. The factory was built and operated by Walter Patrick Grafton who actually died in 1939. He was the youngest of a large family -and I will come to back to them in a moment. The ‘Grafton’ name seems to have been adopted by Walter’s grandfather in the early 19^th century and previously they had names which could be identified as Jewish .

Walter’s father was Henry Grafton - – born Henry Soloman – he is described as a ‘mechanical engineer’ holding several patents and apparently working in the Fulham area of west London’. In an agreement on the tenancy of a property in Chancery Lane in central London he is described as a ‘philosophical instrument maker’. His eldest son was Alexander Grafton who was to manage Appleby Engineers Greenwich works for many years. He eventually founded the Vulcan Engineering Works in Bedford which specialised  in large mobile cranes –initially steam cranes, but later they were the first producers of electric cranes. Four other brothers all seem to have had careers in engineering – Henry, Philip,  William and Hugh.

Walter Patrick, born in 1861, was the youngest of the Grafton brothers and he is listed as a draughtsman in the 1891 census . His Grafton Engineering works was set up before 1901. Like his father and brothers he held a number of patents  –for example his brother Alexander manufactured very large pieces of equipment in a large and successful works.  I wonder how common this was in the 19^th century for a family of several boys to take off individually and found some successful works.  By chance i’m currently rewriting a long piece on Joshua Taylor Beale who had an engineering works on the Greenwich Peninsula. He had four brothers and it was with some surprise that I realised that Dr Thomas Beale who wrote an important book on whales was Joshua’s brother.

Walter Grafton was the youngest of six brothers and he was to specialise in the small and sometimes quirky end of the manufacturing world. For instance in 1907 he patented and manufactured a ‘swinging thermometer’. It was designed to ”achieve a rapid return of mercury to the bulb by the use of centrifugal force and also to avoid the risk of the thermometer slipping through the holder’s fingers.” He held other patents for what were mainly small gadgety things.

As far as I’m aware the building he first used locally as a  factory was the remaining central building of the old Charlton waterworks in Woolwich Road on the corner Penhall Road. I don’t know if this exhibits a  taste for eccentric workplace buildings but he set up home in an unpretentious terraced house in Elliscombe Road. As late as 1950 there was still a Grafton engineering works at 735 Woolwich Road described as ‘ General engineers and cabinetmakers’.

By 1919 he had designed and built the crenulated  factory at 102-142 Footscray Road which became a local landmark. From the road the building looked like an old country seat with a high stone wall, twin gateways, and crescent-shaped driveway.  The facade spread in dignified symmetry on either side of a low, central tower, and the whole of the front elevation was covered with a mass of creeper. The Second World War meant the lawn became allotments, cultivated by employees. I was unable to find a picture of the works to illustrate this article and I’ve come aware during my search of other people who have looked for such a picture and been unable to find one – via Greenwich Industrial History Facebook page. If you have one or know of one please let us know and I’m sure other people would be grateful.

Graftons were Britain’s sole representative in the competitive worldwide business of making precision ribbon spools for all makes of typewriters, time recorders, adding  printing and duplicating machines in the world .They made Zipp fasteners and ‘Compact Efficiency numbering machines with safety devices.

Their trade name was ‘Walligraph’ under which they made, for instance, the ‘ zonalight task lamp’.  Described as ‘wall mounted 'RADIALITE" with a scissor mechanism which gave enormous reach and could be folded away after use. They were produced from steel with an anodised copper finish which  showed a degree of patination to the metal revealing the attractive copper finish beneath and the cast iron of the wall mounts.

Post Second World War the Walligraph Social Club. had its first annual sports meeting. when an ‘extensive programme of events was successfully carried through’.  A free tea was served in a new dining hall, to nearly two hundred people and there was ‘ a hat-trimming competition for men, a tug-of- war for girls, and the catch-the-train and obstacle races. Also a fancy dress parade;

 In 1952 the canteen was turned into a concert hall for the annual staff panto which was ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ -  ‘ as the management tries to keep the employees happy, many forms of entertainment are encouraged.’

They also made  post war metallic Christmas decorations and the ‘shimmering all-silver metal Angel Pine Christmas trees’ for 1965. These fire-resistant trees—some were 14ft. in height—had needles that never dropped off and special facets to reflect light. There are a number of Facebook and reminiscence web sites where residents feature their Christmas trees used annually since the 1950s - often with themselves in period appropriate clothing.

Walter died in 1939 - His wife had died some years previously. By then he was living in a big double fronted house in Eltham  facing the park. It’s a nice house but not nearly as big and grand as I would normally expect a factory owner  to have.   There is also a report of him living in Devon with his housekeeper.

The works was left to his children, Rowena and Eric. who continued to manage it. It closed in 1988 following Eric’s death – and was demolished for B&Q.

 

THE BATHS

The next item on Ted’s list is: “Greenwich new baths, Trafalgar Road, had an engineering workshop driven by our old friends line-shafting, belts and pullies.”  It was people of Ted’s generation who would describe the “old baths” as the “new  baths”. The building  which we would call ‘The Arches Leisure Centre’ would be ‘new’ to them because in the 1920s it replaced the ‘old’ baths built in the 1850s. 

Ted may have been right and there may well have been an engineering workshop there but I think I have no way of knowing or finding this out. I would be grateful if anybody who knew the internal arrangements at the baths would let us know? Post something on the Greenwich Industrial History Facebook page.

I would be surprised if  anything which was there at the which survived through to the days when the baths were actually closed. Although they must have had some sort of technical workshop there I’m not sure of anything on any scale. I would have assumed that for the sake of economy  if any major work was to be done it would be done down at Tunnel Avenue  depot and somebody sent from there to sort out any problems.  I would also expect that when Greenwich Council was taken over by Woolwich in the 1960s that there would be moves to consolidate into  one workshop covering Greenwich. Woolwich, Plumstead and Eltham baths.  

I look forward to hearing from someone who knows about this.