New Eltham - History

History

New Eltham grew up as a suburb of farmland to the south of Eltham in and around the small hamlet and crossroads of Pope's Street.

The railway station was opened in 1878 as "Pope Street", and acted as a catalyst for growth. Less than a decade later in 1886, the station officially became known as "New Eltham". The redevelopment of land into housing had spread southwards from Eltham, the Pope Street area being rechristened as a new extension. On the main building of Wyborne School (Footscray Road) there is a sign, clearly identifying it as "Pope Street" School, built in 1904.

As part of the Cold War Civil defence, a rectangular windowless blockhouse was built in 1954 behind New Eltham library. It served as the Woolwich Borough Control and when Woolwich merged with Greenwich in 1965 it took over the role as the Greenwich Borough Control. The control was part of the South East London Group reporting to the Regional Group War HQ at Chislehurst and later to Pear Tree House. Further information about the bunker can be found in the Subterranea Britannica, see the External Links section below.

Until the mid 1970s New Eltham had 3 butchers, 2 greengrocers, 3 grocers, 2 toy shops, a shoe repairer, 2 barbers, a radio and television repair shop, a clothing and material store, timber yard, cycle sales and repairs, 2 motor spares, hardware store, 2 dairys and a fishmongers. What is now The Co-operative supermarket was actually composed of smaller separate purpose shops (all CO-OP). From the station end, was a greengrocers, a chemist, butchers then the co-op grocery store. There was a fishmongers that later became a fish and chip shop (and still is as of 2008). Behind this, in what is now the car park was the CO-OP dairy, the other (Unigate) was in Green Lane near Fiveways in what is now a small business park.

In 1974 the bridge (crossing the railway line) at Avery Hill Road was widened to allow buses to cross it. This replaced a narrow iron bridge which only had a separate path on one side for pedestrians.

There has not been any major developments or sprawl in the area. Extra housing has been built where factories were closed and demolished, notably in Hainault Street and more recently on the site of the Stanley factory at the junction of Avery Hill and Lannoy Road.