Thames Tributory -Shuttle flowing to the Cray. Eltham
River Shuttle, tributary to the Cray, which is a tributary to Darent, itself a Thames Tributary
The Shuttle rises here and flows eastwards.
Suburban area to the south of Eltham Centre, lots of churches, and nature
Post to the east Avery Hill
Post to the south New Eltham
Poat to the west Eltham Town Centre
Beechhill Road
Built by Corbett c.1903
Bexley Road
This stands south of the band of Blackheath and Woolwich beds and is 30-50m above sea level
Pippen Hall Farm
Pippenhall Stables; Henley's field is the site of John de Henley’s manor house 1290
Pippenhall Meadow. Originally part of Pippin Hall Farm, the fields became part of the Avery Hill Estate in the 1890s and are now used by riding stables. There are five meadows; flanked by tall, ancient hedgerows with grassland which supports field woodrush and the hedges have foxgloves. The damp environment supports wetland plants but the central pastures are drier. It is the only London site for pyramidal orchids. The damp central area is caused by a natural spring and a pond and a brook which eventually feeds into the River Shuttle. Watercress beds were once fed by this spring. Area of ridge and furrow.
Blunts Road
Fifteenpenny Fields. A group of buildings, belonging to an old charity. The central house is classical building built in 1963. One-storey terrace, 1963, fronting a green, in the middle of which is a water pump.
3/7 almshouses of the Philipot charity built in 1872.
Butterfly Lane
Leads to Conduit Meadow.
Conduit Meadow. Low-lying area. An area of wetland contains the headwaters of the Shuttle. The sports grounds here follow the medieval field pattern.
River Shuttle flows from here as a narrow stream. There were Anglo Saxon settlements by the River and it ran through the lands of Archbishop Wulfred in 814. The alder woods along the banks are amongst the best in London and their fine root systems penetrate below the water level preventing bank erosion. Other bank side vegetation consists of nettles, brambles and coarse grasses which provide cover and shelter for animals and food for insects. There is watercress and fool's watercress, as well as reed canary-grass, pendulous sedge and soft rush. On the water’s edge are water figwort and marsh marigold.
Conduit Head. A vaulted structure Tudor structure in red brick which housed sluices controlling the water supply for Eltham Palace and its moat using springs from what is now Eltham Warren Golf Course.
Corbett Estate
The Corbett Estate is the area between Archery Road and Eltham Park to the east. Cameron Corbett was a former Liberal MP for Glasgow. He bought the land and built the houses. Corbett, who was a strict Church of Scotland temperance campaigner, gave all the streets Scottish names and put restrictive clauses in the sale of the houses preventing the sale of alcohol anywhere on the estate intending to replicate his father’s estates north of the Thames,
Eltham High Street
Weatherboarded cottage
Reservoirs
K2 type red cast-iron telephone kiosk, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1927 outside the reservoir at the eastern end of the Street.
226/8 Eltham Fire Station, classical brick building 1904.
Man of Kent, a pub of 1888, with a corner spire
32 Christ Church Presbytery. Early 19th front of house once called Eagle House. later additions. The part to the east is red brick early 18th and that to the west is yellow brick and early 19th. Red brick garden wall largely 18th.
Christchurch R.C., 1890 by Scales & Raymond. Priory buildings 1963 by F. G. Broadbent & Partners. Sculpture of Christ in Glory on the gable wall by James Butler.
Eltham Park
Young children's playground in Eltham Park as well as sporting facilities. The Park has some old trees, although many were damaged by the great gale of 1987.
Shaft and chamber discovered in 1878 by workmen trying to trace a leak and broke into a brick drain.
Eltham Park Estate
Corbett built
Eltham Warren
Eltham Warren Golf Course. Originally a source of spring water for Eltham Palace. The area covering the golf course and the south park was known as The Warren. There are areas of acid grassland with harebells and daisies. Old hedges cross the golf course along with areas of broom and gorse. . Used for rifle practice by Eltham Volunteer Corps
Footscray Road
Footscray means clean and fresh river. Or is it the Godwine Fot mentioned in the Doomsday book.
48/60 office development of 1985-90 in front of an old motor coach garage
33/59 decorative features.
59 one of a group of tall Victorian 1870s houses. Blue plaque to Richard Jefferies, 1841 1887, naturalist and writer. He lived here 1884-85. Plaque erected 1986.
188 brick barn, 18th
141 Southend House. The west front, facing the road, of this red brick house is of early 18th appearance but parts of the walls including the gables over the entrance may be 17th. The house was extended in the early 19th and restored in 1988 to form the central feature of a housing development. The portico is a replica.
Stables at the back 19th and also part of the development
147 lodge to Southend house. Chimneys with diagonal stacks
Milestone. Late 18th for the New Cross Turnpike Trust, with 19th iron plates reading '9 miles to London Bridge, 3 miles to Foots Cray'.
DIY store is site of Grafton’s Engineering Factory,
Grafton's Engineering Factory. They made spools for typewriter ribbons, adding machines, zip fasteners and radio valve pins. The factory was hidden behind a façade purpose built to look like a large country house. In front of the building was a large garden with a tennis court to create the impression of 'gracious living'. Built in 1919 and demolished in 1988. They had in use in the works an important 19th planing machine made by Whitworths of Manchester c.1866. It is thought to have been bought by Graftons c. 1900 from Arthur Martin of Westcombe Park.
Glenesk Road
14 Romanland where Roman remains found in the garden when it was built in 1913
Deansfield School
Glenhouse Road
Corbett built c.1903
Glenure Road
St. Mary's School was Eltham Park House
Gourock Road
Cornett built c. 1903
Greenholm Road
Corbett built c. 1900
1a by Edward Cullinan 1966. On a long narrow site. It has a glazed upper floor, a sheer brick wall to the south, and a pitched roof. At the back a garden room is linked to it by a corridor with a transparent curved roof.
Daisy Munns House. By the Borough Architect's Department, Everson and Searles, 1976-8, with a carefully designed rounded corner and hipped roof
Motorway
Opened March 1988
Philpott Path
This lane makes its way parallel to the High Street for a third of mile, between Court Yard and Elm Terrace; it crosses roads and passes through shopping developments. It is named after a 17th resident who founded the Eltham Almshouses.
Thomas Philipot Almshouse .A tablet of 1694 which was removed from the original almshouses is on the wall.
4 an early 19th timber house .
23/24 c1840 and similar to Elizabeth Terrace
St.Mary's RC Primary School
Pound Place
Metcalfe's Forge
Arcade. Supposed to be part of larger development.
Sports Centre
Southend
Separate village from Eltham.
Southend Crescent
2-14 villas 1840 indicate the first merging of Southend and Eltham. The group follows the curve of the road.
Holy Trinity Church, A Victorian Gothic church of 1869 by George Street plus alterations by the firm of Sir Arthur Blomfield & Son in 1909. Very little of Street's work survives. The apse from 1909 was built in memory of John North of Avery Hill. In 1923 a chapel was converted as a Gallipoli memorial and dedicated to those who died in the 1915 campaign. Stained glass by Kempe & Co. and Powell.
Vicarage behind the church 1869, with later extensions, and in similar style to the church.
Source of the River Shuttle. Another source was just to the east of Holy Trinity Church, which is on the boundary between two gravel beds.
Westmount Road
St Luke. A red brick church by Temple Moore 1907 plus additions of 1933. The altar came from a chapel in Well Hall Road built for munitions workers.
Vicarage on the site of Park House. Used by Corbett as an estate office
Hut alongside the church used for many purposes. Maisonettes on the site 1957
Sources
Chelsea Speleological Society. Newsletter
Christchurch. Web site
GLIAS Newsletter
Goldsmiths. South East London Industrial Archaeology
Holy Trinity. Web site
London Borough of Greenwich. Web site
Nature Conservation in Greenwich
Pevsner and Cherry. South London
Spurgeon. Discover Eltham
St.Luke. Web site
Wilson. London's Industrial Archaeology
The Shuttle rises here and flows eastwards.
Suburban area to the south of Eltham Centre, lots of churches, and nature
Post to the east Avery Hill
Post to the south New Eltham
Poat to the west Eltham Town Centre
Beechhill Road
Built by Corbett c.1903
Bexley Road
This stands south of the band of Blackheath and Woolwich beds and is 30-50m above sea level
Pippen Hall Farm
Pippenhall Stables; Henley's field is the site of John de Henley’s manor house 1290
Pippenhall Meadow. Originally part of Pippin Hall Farm, the fields became part of the Avery Hill Estate in the 1890s and are now used by riding stables. There are five meadows; flanked by tall, ancient hedgerows with grassland which supports field woodrush and the hedges have foxgloves. The damp environment supports wetland plants but the central pastures are drier. It is the only London site for pyramidal orchids. The damp central area is caused by a natural spring and a pond and a brook which eventually feeds into the River Shuttle. Watercress beds were once fed by this spring. Area of ridge and furrow.
Blunts Road
Fifteenpenny Fields. A group of buildings, belonging to an old charity. The central house is classical building built in 1963. One-storey terrace, 1963, fronting a green, in the middle of which is a water pump.
3/7 almshouses of the Philipot charity built in 1872.
Butterfly Lane
Leads to Conduit Meadow.
Conduit Meadow. Low-lying area. An area of wetland contains the headwaters of the Shuttle. The sports grounds here follow the medieval field pattern.
River Shuttle flows from here as a narrow stream. There were Anglo Saxon settlements by the River and it ran through the lands of Archbishop Wulfred in 814. The alder woods along the banks are amongst the best in London and their fine root systems penetrate below the water level preventing bank erosion. Other bank side vegetation consists of nettles, brambles and coarse grasses which provide cover and shelter for animals and food for insects. There is watercress and fool's watercress, as well as reed canary-grass, pendulous sedge and soft rush. On the water’s edge are water figwort and marsh marigold.
Conduit Head. A vaulted structure Tudor structure in red brick which housed sluices controlling the water supply for Eltham Palace and its moat using springs from what is now Eltham Warren Golf Course.
Corbett Estate
The Corbett Estate is the area between Archery Road and Eltham Park to the east. Cameron Corbett was a former Liberal MP for Glasgow. He bought the land and built the houses. Corbett, who was a strict Church of Scotland temperance campaigner, gave all the streets Scottish names and put restrictive clauses in the sale of the houses preventing the sale of alcohol anywhere on the estate intending to replicate his father’s estates north of the Thames,
Eltham High Street
Weatherboarded cottage
Reservoirs
K2 type red cast-iron telephone kiosk, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1927 outside the reservoir at the eastern end of the Street.
226/8 Eltham Fire Station, classical brick building 1904.
Man of Kent, a pub of 1888, with a corner spire
32 Christ Church Presbytery. Early 19th front of house once called Eagle House. later additions. The part to the east is red brick early 18th and that to the west is yellow brick and early 19th. Red brick garden wall largely 18th.
Christchurch R.C., 1890 by Scales & Raymond. Priory buildings 1963 by F. G. Broadbent & Partners. Sculpture of Christ in Glory on the gable wall by James Butler.
Eltham Park
Young children's playground in Eltham Park as well as sporting facilities. The Park has some old trees, although many were damaged by the great gale of 1987.
Shaft and chamber discovered in 1878 by workmen trying to trace a leak and broke into a brick drain.
Eltham Park Estate
Corbett built
Eltham Warren
Eltham Warren Golf Course. Originally a source of spring water for Eltham Palace. The area covering the golf course and the south park was known as The Warren. There are areas of acid grassland with harebells and daisies. Old hedges cross the golf course along with areas of broom and gorse. . Used for rifle practice by Eltham Volunteer Corps
Footscray Road
Footscray means clean and fresh river. Or is it the Godwine Fot mentioned in the Doomsday book.
48/60 office development of 1985-90 in front of an old motor coach garage
33/59 decorative features.
59 one of a group of tall Victorian 1870s houses. Blue plaque to Richard Jefferies, 1841 1887, naturalist and writer. He lived here 1884-85. Plaque erected 1986.
188 brick barn, 18th
141 Southend House. The west front, facing the road, of this red brick house is of early 18th appearance but parts of the walls including the gables over the entrance may be 17th. The house was extended in the early 19th and restored in 1988 to form the central feature of a housing development. The portico is a replica.
Stables at the back 19th and also part of the development
147 lodge to Southend house. Chimneys with diagonal stacks
Milestone. Late 18th for the New Cross Turnpike Trust, with 19th iron plates reading '9 miles to London Bridge, 3 miles to Foots Cray'.
DIY store is site of Grafton’s Engineering Factory,
Grafton's Engineering Factory. They made spools for typewriter ribbons, adding machines, zip fasteners and radio valve pins. The factory was hidden behind a façade purpose built to look like a large country house. In front of the building was a large garden with a tennis court to create the impression of 'gracious living'. Built in 1919 and demolished in 1988. They had in use in the works an important 19th planing machine made by Whitworths of Manchester c.1866. It is thought to have been bought by Graftons c. 1900 from Arthur Martin of Westcombe Park.
Glenesk Road
14 Romanland where Roman remains found in the garden when it was built in 1913
Deansfield School
Glenhouse Road
Corbett built c.1903
Glenure Road
St. Mary's School was Eltham Park House
Gourock Road
Cornett built c. 1903
Greenholm Road
Corbett built c. 1900
1a by Edward Cullinan 1966. On a long narrow site. It has a glazed upper floor, a sheer brick wall to the south, and a pitched roof. At the back a garden room is linked to it by a corridor with a transparent curved roof.
Daisy Munns House. By the Borough Architect's Department, Everson and Searles, 1976-8, with a carefully designed rounded corner and hipped roof
Motorway
Opened March 1988
Philpott Path
This lane makes its way parallel to the High Street for a third of mile, between Court Yard and Elm Terrace; it crosses roads and passes through shopping developments. It is named after a 17th resident who founded the Eltham Almshouses.
Thomas Philipot Almshouse .A tablet of 1694 which was removed from the original almshouses is on the wall.
4 an early 19th timber house .
23/24 c1840 and similar to Elizabeth Terrace
St.Mary's RC Primary School
Pound Place
Metcalfe's Forge
Arcade. Supposed to be part of larger development.
Sports Centre
Southend
Separate village from Eltham.
Southend Crescent
2-14 villas 1840 indicate the first merging of Southend and Eltham. The group follows the curve of the road.
Holy Trinity Church, A Victorian Gothic church of 1869 by George Street plus alterations by the firm of Sir Arthur Blomfield & Son in 1909. Very little of Street's work survives. The apse from 1909 was built in memory of John North of Avery Hill. In 1923 a chapel was converted as a Gallipoli memorial and dedicated to those who died in the 1915 campaign. Stained glass by Kempe & Co. and Powell.
Vicarage behind the church 1869, with later extensions, and in similar style to the church.
Source of the River Shuttle. Another source was just to the east of Holy Trinity Church, which is on the boundary between two gravel beds.
Westmount Road
St Luke. A red brick church by Temple Moore 1907 plus additions of 1933. The altar came from a chapel in Well Hall Road built for munitions workers.
Vicarage on the site of Park House. Used by Corbett as an estate office
Hut alongside the church used for many purposes. Maisonettes on the site 1957
Sources
Chelsea Speleological Society. Newsletter
Christchurch. Web site
GLIAS Newsletter
Goldsmiths. South East London Industrial Archaeology
Holy Trinity. Web site
London Borough of Greenwich. Web site
Nature Conservation in Greenwich
Pevsner and Cherry. South London
Spurgeon. Discover Eltham
St.Luke. Web site
Wilson. London's Industrial Archaeology
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