Falconwood

Post to the south Avery Hill



Crown Woods Way
Eltham Cemetery and Eltham Cematorium: The cemetery was opened in 1935 and laid out by the Borough Engineer. It was flat site with a grid of plots with trees. Trees were planted along the paths, very densely along the boundary with Rochester Way.
The Crematorium was added in 1956. It has two chapels said to be like Liverpool's Roman Catholic Cathedral. Three is a Garden of Remembrance, a pergola walk and lake with small waterfall. There is a more recent series of Memorial Courts.

Eastcote Road
Eastcote Primary School. This Primary School is now an ‘academy’ in the Leigh Academies Trust business.  The school was rebuilt in 2008 replacing a building from 1935
Falconwood,
Wimpey, Wates and Ideal Homesteads laid out the area in the, 1930s, for the cheaper end of the market. It was thought people would work in London but would not be able to afford a car. Tit was built on the site of West Wood.

Falconwood Field
Green open space bordered by a running track

Lingfield Crescent
The Falcon. This is a large roadside pub next to Falconwood station.  It is now one of the Harvester chain.
Falconwood Station. Opened in 1936 to lies between Welling and Eltham on South Eastern Trains, Bexleyheath Line.  New Ideal Homesteads gave South Eastern Railway the money to build it plus a lump sum for development.  A ‘Cinema style’ passimeter booking hall faces the road and leads to a covered footbridge across both tracks with covered stairways to canopied platforms in a cutting.   The signage ‘Falconwood’ over the street entrance covers the Southern Railway sign. In 1953 and 1972 the Platforms were extended and in 1978 the booking hall was renewed
The railway line from Blackheath to Falconwood is a green corridor with cuttings and embankments with sycamore and oak woodland.  Hawthorn and bramble providing habitat for birds and animals.

Oxleas Wood
From 1311 the wood were part of the Royal manor of Eltham and leased to Sir John Shaw from 1679 to 1811, when they were taken over by the War Department. They were acquired by the London County Council and opened to the public in the early 1930s and passed to the London Borough of Greenwich in 1986. The wood is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and parts are regarded as being Ancient Woodland, Most of Oxleas Wood itself is on the southern slope of the hill itself which at it is a significant London landmark. The hill is formed of London Clay with exposed gravel terraces, and the soil is mainly acidic.  Thus there are many mature oak trees, but also sweet chestnut, hazel, ash, aspen, wild cherry, alder, birch and wild service trees as well as abundant holly.  Sycamore and rhododendron are also present. In the understorey bramble predominates in plus bracken but the ground cover also contains some Ancient Woodland indicator species, like butchers broom and southern wood-rush. The woods are home to a wide range of wildlife including spotted and green woodpeckers, as well as ring-necked parakeets. bats can be seen hunting along the fringes of the meadows and wood warblers and firecrests have been seen. foxes are common and there is a population of hedgehogs. There is an apiary in the woods and there is a Friends group

Rochester Way
This is a rebuild of the A2 which follows a similar route to that of an ancient trackway, then a Roman road and Watling Street and eventually this scheme as Rochester Way. At Shooter's Hill, Watling Street and the A2 part company, and Watling Street continues along up Shooters Hill Road. From the 1920s a bypass road called Rochester Way diverged from this road at the Sun in the Sands Pub. This section has now been upgraded and the old Rochester Way remains between Kidbrooke and Falconwood. This was built as a bypass to the main Dover Road which went over Shooters Hill in and was thus until 1988 the A2 London-Dover Road. The final allocation of the route was in 1923, when construction began and the road was given the reference A2 within the Great Britain road numbering scheme in the 1920s. Like all these early improvements it was a wide single carriageway road. But the section of road in this square starts some distance east of the Well Hall Roundabout and goes to the Falconwood Junction.
737 Falconwood Depot. UK Power Networks.  Eltham Grid Sub Station
Falconwood Model railway. They are based in the field to the rear of the Sub-Station, The Welling and District Model Engineering Society was founded in 1945. They have a 1268 feet 3.5" and 5" gauge raised steel track which is electronically signalled, and features a full anti-tip rail, level crossing, footbridges, mini-viaduct, signal box and tunnel. The 9 bay steaming bay is equipped with power and has a water tower and coal bunker.

Rochester Way Relief Road
This the latest rebuild of the A2 which follows a similar route to that of an ancient trackway, then a Roman road and Watling Street and eventually this section as Rochester Way also on this square. This new section of Rochester Way Relief Road, by-passing Kidbrooke and Eltham, was opened in 1988 starting at the Sun in the Sands pub in Shooters Hill Road. On this square the section of road shown runs from near Eltham Park North to the eastern end of the Crematorium going through the Falconwood Junction. At Falconwood, the road becomes the East Rochester Way and this point was once the westbound terminus of the dual carriageway.
Falconwood Junction.  Falconwood is the junction on the A2 where the 1988 Rochester Way Relief Road has its eastern end onto Rochester Way. The junction is a half diamond and is a congestion blackspot. This was to be where the link road from the East London River Crossing was to end which explains the design.
Welling Way
This was built as part of the Rochester Way scheme in the 1920s to connect the new Shooters Hill by pass with the old road on the east side of Shooters Hill.

Sources
Barr-Hamilton & Reilly. Country to Suburb
Course. The Bexleyheath Line
Field. London Place Names
Friends of Oxleas Woodlands. Web site
Eastcote Primary Academy. Web site
London Borough of Greenwich, Web site
London Railway Record
Lyne. Military Railways in Kent
Nature Conservation in Greenwich
News Shopper. Web site
Parks and Gardens, Web site
SABRE.  Web sit
Spurgeon. Eltham
Spurgeon. Woolwich,