Thames Tributary Ravensbourne - Pool River - Crystal Palace

Thames Tributary Ravensbourne
A tributary from the area of Fox Hill flows south and east to join others which eventually become the Pool River which feeds into the others which feed into the Ravensbourne.
A tributary from the Church Road area flows north to join the Effra. It flows downhill from near the Westow House pub at the eastern end of Westow Hill going via Jasper Passage to Gipsy Hill.

TQ 3347870593

Part of the urban area and town centre adjacent to the park and site of the palace. An interesting and attractive area.

Post to the west Upper Norwood
Post to the north Gipsy Hill
Post to the south Bealieu Heights
Post to the east Crystal Palace

Anerley
Anerley. First noted on an Ordnance Survey map of 1904. It is said to be named from the first house built on this part of Penge Common by a Scotsman William Sanderson in the mid-19th, which he called by the Scottish word 'anerly' - 'solitary, lonely'.

Anerley Hill,
Used to be called Gravelly Lane – and hill was Gravel Hill. John Evelyn was robbed here in 1652. It is shown as the approach road to Crystal Palace. It was the route down which the vicar went to beat the bounds
Emancipation Garage. This celebrated that in 1896 they stopped the speed limit of 14 mph and there was no longer the need for the man with a red flag in front.also called Robin Wood Garage. Wood was the gypsy son of a ganger at the palace.
Trams ran on hill, going to West Croydon. At first a stationary engine was used to haul them up but later special gearing was used just for this route. The trams were replaced by trolley buses which needed special brakes.
Crystal Palace Museum. Housed in the only remaining building of the Crystal palace company, built in the 1880 as an engineering school.
2 Grape and Grain pub, previously called Jack Beard's at the Palace, Sportsman, Crystal Palace Tavern
52 Paxton Arms rebuilt following bombing,

Auckland Road
Named after Lord Auckland who was a resident of Norwood at one time. He was First Lord of Admiralty – born 1846
134, 136, 142 houses designed by C. J. C. Pawley. 1883-4. They are red brick with large Gothic staircase windows and stained glass. Shows the effect of church architecture on domestic dwellings in that period
139, 141, 143 large Victorian villas.
151 -153, Victorian villas set back in their own grounds.
153 leased to the Salvation Army as a residence for people from their world-wide organisation
155-161 ecclesiastical theme of Gothic windows and doorways.
167 has unusual roof tiling and timbered balcony.
Auckland Hotel. Named after Lord Auckland. This is another large house set back behind a double drive

Belvedere Road
Covers the area of what was Ridgewood Coppice. With smaller houses
Almshouses. A terrace of stuccoed cottages. Built around 1840 as almshouses for stevedores but never used for that.
22 Fossil Villa. Glazed brick prospect towers. Victorian folly. This was the home of sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins who made the dinosaurs in Crystal Palace Park.
A Penfold hexagonal pillar box.

Carberry Road
Named after a local butcher, Mr. Carberry.
Former dairy premises

Central Hill
Housing development for Lambeth. 374 dwellings, in white brick terraces on a steep slope. glass balconies, floor to ceiling glazing. There are alson terraced houses. in the International Modern tradition. All the flats have front doors at ground level, reached by paths along the the hill. and each living room has a distant view. masterminded by Edward Hollomby. Designed by Rosemary Stjernstedt.
71 narrow, unmade road. at the bottom are cast iron gates and a 'secret garden'. Once a Victorian nursery it has traditional herbaceous beds, wildlife pond, formal pond and objects of 19th architectural salvage.

Church Road
Was in Bromley but the frontages are in Croydon because the Croydon vicar wouldn't walk down the hill. The road was at one time known as Vicar's Oak Road because the ‘Vicar's Oak stood at its Northern end. When Crystal Palace was built it formed a grand approach road and by 1860 houses lined both sides.
A spring rises here to join the Effra
112, Old House, with an early 19th stucco exterior; veranda, and glazed passage to the street. Lead canopies, ironwork, and brick finish.
114-116 Victorian houses.
117 Rosebank. The front door is on the first floor
122 Queen's Hotel, built for visitors to the Crystal Palace. Altered building from1853-4 by F. Pouget. The Original centre with four storeys had colonnaded links which are now built up as wings. One wing was rebuilt after a fire in 1975. Famous people who stayed there include the Emperor Frederick of Prussia, Emille Zola during the Dreyfus case. Additions include the Crystal Restaurant at the "Norwood Bar",
124, fretted bargeboards and upper balconies. Stucco with shuttered windows. Listed.
126, Westow Lodge, an early 19th stuccoed house with a tall pedimented centre, trellised bowed veranda and a semicircular porch. Listed.
128, Rockmount, a tall villa of 1880, with elaborately detailed woodwork.
140 Lyndhurst House. Fitzroy Captain of the Beagle. He committed suicide there.
146 Angloschool - a modern language school for students from all over the world.
187 Gothic suburban villa symmetrically laid out with 193.
193 Gothic suburban villa . Symmetrically laid out with 187.
197, much altered
2 Cambridge Pub. On site of St.Aubyn’s school’ where iron gates formed the main entrance.
207 All Saints former vicarage. White brick with simple Tudor details, c. 1840. This vicarage was in the wrong parish and the boundaries had to be redrawn to include it is like the great rural parsonages.
25 Gala bingo hall now an evangelical church. Art deco building from 1928 designed by George Coles and called Rialto.
71-73 a group of Victorian red brick houses
75 home of Ronnie Corbett the TV comedian.
77-81 Victorian Houses
95 Alma. Dates from the Battle of the Alma at the Crimea
96 White Hart. The present building is 1868 in a Tyrolean style but it is an old pub and old photographs show it was originally built of wood with a pump on the pavement outside where water was sold to the locals by the bucket. White Hart tea garden across the road on entered through the jawbones of a whale. Thomas Doggett's Coat and Badge race met there after the race Corner house. Offices for a chain of "local" newspapers, including The Crystal Palace and Norwood Advertiser is one.
Cottages -Two Georgian cottages.
Drive which led back to further houses
Estate of modern council flats
Farmers Wife Garage. A modern garage
Flats. On the site of St Aubyn's church, four-storey flats for the Croydon Churches Housing Association; with coloured brickwork, 1981-2 by Pinchin & Kellow.
Lane. At the entrance was a notice on the brickwork saying that this was a path to the Royal College for the Blind?
Livingstone Telephone Exchange. Built in 1929
Ly-ee-moon after the racing steam ship of the 1850s - Captain Norman Hill.
Royal Crystal Palace Hotel, Now shops but it was originally the wing of a hotel which was where the Crystal Palace pub now stands. Paxton stayed there
St.Aubyn's Church
School set up 1819-2, as an “establishment for the infant poor of both sexes” at the corner of Church Road and Westow Hill. In 1825, taken over by Frederick Aubin for poor children from City of London; St Saviour’s, Southwark and St Martin-in-the-Fields. Some scandal on conditions and standards and there were a number of enquiries but it continued to expand. Following the arrival of the Crystal Palace it was moved to Hanwell and the buildings demolished.
Stephens Tool Makers closed.

Cintra Park
Covers the area of what was Ridgewood Coppice

Fitzroy Gardens
Named after Admiral Fitzroy who lived in Church Road,

Fox Hill
The Croydon boundary runs through the corner of Tudor Road and Fox Hill. Was once called Fox's Lane and led to a farm owned by a man called Fox.
Fox Farm at the foot of the hill
A stream that rises somewhere near the site of Fox Farm at the foot of Fox Hill, flows through the open space between Maberley Road and South Norwood Lake, and eventually forms part of the Pool River
Hexagonal pillar box
12 & 14 Victorian houses.
1 & 3 cottages smaller
Wall plate on the Bromley side of the boundary fixed to a wall and referring to the "Hamlet of Penge 1875.”
15 'Penbryn' boyhood home of Eric Temple Bell. After emigrating to America in 1902 he became a mathematician and science fiction writer under the name of John Taine. thought to be the house in a painting by Pissaro called "Lower Norwood - snow effect.”

Fox Hill Gardens,
Circle of detached villas

Hamlet Road
20 -22 Listed Grade II, Conservation Area Semi detached houses, mid 19th.

Haynes Lane
A very old Norwood road. Named after a local resident

Homelands Drive
Site of a house called Ly-ee-Moon after a ship, gone now. The Ly-ee-Moon was a paddle steamer 1859 by the Thames Shipbuilding Company of Blackwall, London, England. She was designed by J. Ash specifically for use in the opium trade for Dent & Co.

Lunham Road
Nuclear Bunker built 1963 and 1966 as part of Pear Tree House flats

Paddock Gardens
Stables behind here

Paddock Place
Name derived from stables which once stood here

Paddock Passage
Name derived from stables which once stood here,

South Norwood

St.Aubyn's Road
Mr. Aubyn ran the pauper boys school; which covered this land.

Sylvan Hill
Housing by Riches and Blythen 1975-81 for Barratts.

Tudor Road
84 garden with shrubs and trees including a Japanese maple tree. Water feature and a pergola
88 long, narrow garden at the rear. Rose arbour, weeping cherry tree, pond and small vegetable plot.

Vicars Oak
The junction formed by Crystal Palace Parade, Westow Hill, Church Road and Anerley Hill. For centuries the bounds were beaten from the Vicar's Oak which stood here. Four parishes met her and it is still the boundary of Lambeth, Croydon, Bromley and Southwark. The tree was still there in 1647 but was probably felled in 1678. Its position is now occupied by a roundabout.

Waldegrave Road
New Swedborgian church. Now flats. Built 1883 in Portland Cement and pink pigment by W. J. E. Henley, manager of the Concrete Building Company. It is a robust material, which has weathered well.

Westow Hill
Unclear where the name ’Westow’ comes from.
2 Holly Bush pub, the present building is not the original and in 1852 it stood back from the road and had a small holly bush just inside the door.
15-17 built for the David Grieg supermarket chain. Became a Macdonalds in 1980
19-21 with flats above, built as a Tesco store in 1964 on the site of a demolished Wesleyan Church itself built in 1874
23 Queen's Arms with a royal coat of arms. Used to be the "The Queens Alms,” later became Holborn Bars, and then changed again to the Orange Kipper. . Single storey extension built out over what was probably a large front garden
25-27 retains part of original Victorian shop front
42 Royal Albert pre-war pub architecture. Extensive collection of china jugs.
Passage by the Royal Albert, site of an early 19th windmill and Mill Cottages, demolished in 1980.
77a solicitor’s office. Nat West Bank converted to offices. Plaque to artist Camille Pissarro. Who lived in the dairy which stood on the site before the bank was built. Two chimney stacks rising above the parapet and a stone plaque commemorating the date the building was erected - 1884.
Plumbase. Originally Art Deco building for Burton's Tailors
Joanna’s. Site of the Woodman pub. It was said that the steps to the Woodman were the same height as the Dome of St.Paul’s
Lane that would have led to the Woodman’s stables. Cobbles.
Freeman Hardy and Willis
63 two half oil jars
Upper Norwood Library. Serves people from both the Lambeth and Croydon areas of Upper Norwood and controlled by a library committee on which both boroughs are represented. Dates from 1899. And is an example of late Victorian municipal architecture. Red brick with carved stone heraldic shields of the two boroughs. Redbrick extension built in 1936 for the junior library and a lecture hall and another extension built in 1966.
49 Woolworth’s typical of pre-war store architecture. Plus a plain stock brick warehouse. Thus was built c1990 following the burning down of their art deco style store of 1925?
45-47 - a simple brick box c1970’s for the Woolwich Building Society.
Adjoining the Woolworth store is a dignified early Victorian three storey terrace
Windmill Tea Gardens were near the Norwood Windmill. , they were attached to White Swan and White Hart. Skittles
Windmill foundations behind Squire's printing works near the Royal Albert
79 White Swan
Sydenham gas works – a holder was put here to serve Crystal Palace
49- 55 early Victorian three storey terrace brick buildings with original chimney stacks and pots
55 Woolwich estate agents, with 19th shop front
57 brick building for an hardware store with n array of goods displayed outside the shop
Barclays bank dates from late 1850’s A flight of old stone steps leads down beside it go nowhere, but once accessed a very early cinema at the foot of the steps - the Electra Picture Palace

Westow Park
The Park has been carved out of private estates. It is often wet with water from some of the springs which feed the Effra and flowing towards Orleans Road.
Walmur House, and a large house stood behind the wall facing Church Road. It became a council home for men. The entrance arch was retained and built into the park wall.
Modern bungalow within the park was built for the caretaker of the home
Remains of the Royal Normal College. A building at the lower level of Westow Park, which once contained the piano rooms.

Westow Street
Ancient Order of Foresters building with 'Law Courts' on it.Foresters Hall - Law with a clock. This was the meeting place for the Ancient Order of Foresters.
Greek Orthodox Church. The Greek Orthodox Church of Ss. Constantine and Helen Formerly United Reformed. 1878, probably by E. Power. Ragstone, early Gothic
72 Windermere House. Rehabilitation Centre run by Barnardo’s. Built by Sir M. D. Wyatt as a private house, called The Mount, and converted and enlarged by John Norton in 1873-6 into the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music for the Blind. Dr Campbell’s house and the college, hall for 500 and lots more. Big organ The College moved out at the start of the Second World War
Car park. The car park was the site of a house called The Mount, which became the first building to be purchased for the establishment of the Royal Normal College for the Blind.
The Lodge by Sextus Dyball, 1880
Croydon Churches HA flats
Supermarket complex on the site of the Salvation Army Citadel and of Barkers Piano Store and Factory.
The Postal Order. Wetherspoon's pub – on the site of the Sorting office exterior ironwork and plasterwork covered
Post Office. Nice behind the facade, converted to a restaurant
Methodist Church, Coopers Yard. By E. D. Mills & Partners, 1964, replacing a church of 1874. tucked away behind a supermarket. It is part of a commercial and residential development replacing a Gothic building. Glass in an advertisement
Housing. Denser c 19 building, partly replaced by private housing of 1975-81 by Clifford Davies Partnership for Barratts, tightly knit terraces of plain brick, with taller flats along Westow Street
War memorial. It was previously in the centre of the road at the Church Road junction

Sources
Blue Plaque Guide
Clunn. The Face of London
Darby. Dulwich
Field. London Place Names, 
Goldsmiths Group. South East London Industrial Archaeology
Green. Dulwich Story
Lewisham Local History Society, Newsletter
London Encyclopaedia
Norwood Trail
Pevsner and Cherry. South London
Screaming Alice
Thames Basin Archaeology of Industry Group. Report
Warwick. The Phoenix Suburb
Wheatley and Meulenkamp. Follies

White Hart. Web site

Comments

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Chris
Anonymous said…
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