Greetings!
OLD DEPTFORD HISTORY
This website is dedicated to the past History of Deptford. If you have any stranger than fiction stories about Deptford I would welcome your input. This may include stories of the people, the places still here or long gone, the characters, the war years, ghost stories and haunted places, ancient buildings and bygone memories, long forgotten. You can contact me with your stories at axelgs1@yahoo.co.uk
Thursday 20 June 2024
William Joseph Armitage
Monday 2 October 2023
Help for Tony
Hi,
Memories all the way from Australia
G'day from sunny Queensland.
Whitcher Street.
Hi there,
Thank you very much, and my Lord Jesus bless you and yours,
Friday 30 June 2023
A Bedmaker ... Carrington House.
I have just discovered your Old Deptford web site. I see a lot of comments from 2012, but I hope you are still involved and interested. I have been researching a friend's family history, and found hergrandmother living in Douglas Street Deptford in the 1921 census.She was aged 46, wife and mother, but it was unusual that she had a occupation, which was apparently shared by about 100 other people in the area. She was a "bedmaker" employed by the LCC at Carrington House, Brookmill Road, Deptford. From the information on the web site about this "doss house" it doesn't sound a very congenial job!
Friday 17 March 2023
Emperor of the United States
Hi All
My name is John Lumea. I live in Boston and am the founder of a nonprofit, THE EMPEROR NORTON TRUST, that since 2013 has been working on a variety of fronts — research, education, advocacy — to advance the legacy of a San Francisco eccentric and sometime visionary that declared himself "Emperor of the United States" in 1859 and went on to become a folk hero and patron saint of his adopted city.
Friday 14 October 2022
Deptford Memories by Jeff Manning
My name is Jeff Manning, and I was born and bred in Deptford (1950-1970) and I would like to share my memories of Deptford with other deptfordites.
Deptford had 2 excellent pie and mash shops I remember my brother and me eating in Goddards
(Pie and mash was one shilling and 4d for a Pepsi to wash it down.) Does anyone remember the toy shop on Lamerton Street?
See below a
list of shops I remember:
Edwards the Bakers baked delicious Jam doughnuts they were only a penny each.
Fantos (Does anybody know when Fantos first came to Deptford?)
Mayne’s, Swans Bookstall (Deptford Market Yard), Woolworths
Johnson’s Bakers, Bridges
Fish and Chip shop Douglas Way
Perry’s sweet shop
Douglas Street, Pecry's
Rossi ice cream
shop (Deptford high street and New Cross Road)
Marks and Spencer,
Ovenells (Winkle Stall), Lillie’s (Shere Road)
Shopping in Deptford High Street on a Saturday with my mum in
the fifties used to take a long time before supermarkets you had to queue up at
all the different shops, but it was always busy and vibrant in Deptford then, the
crowds so big sometimes you had to walk in the road.
10 Trickett Co Ltd 1889 160 -162 Rebuilt 1846
45 Red Lion & Wheatsheaf
77 Caxton House?
(Ladies School in the 1820s)
91 Deptford High Street Built in 1898
Corner of Hamilton Street and Deptford High street 2 small
street signs (Hamilton street and Hamilton Place)
thanks all
Jeff
Wednesday 7 September 2022
13 Deptford High Street.
Hello
Sunday 28 August 2022
Help for Warren McIver tracing family History.
Hi All
The story I have is less a story about Deptford and more about a family mystery that led me to Deptford. I live in Auckland New Zealand. My son and his family live in Walthamstow in London and we visit as often as we can to help out with their young family. I have always had the unusual feeling when we visit that I belong here. I hold the name McIver because that was my father’s adopted name. He was adopted by his grandmother and her 3rd husband. His family emigrated to NZ from Northern Ireland in the 1880s. His grandmother’s family was of Shetland Island and Swedish origin, both families emigrating to NZ in the 1870s. My mother’s family is of Scottish heritage, Macerlichs, and MacDonalds. They emigrated to NZ in the 1920s My Dad was born illegitimately and he never knew who his birth father was. He was born in 1920 and died in 1990.
About 15 years ago I started to research his upbringing only to find that the documentary record of who his birth father has never existed and family history ( if it ever existed ) had been lost as those family generations departed. About 3 years ago I decided to use DNA as my research tool. Aided by some experts in this field and some serendipity, including Johnson descendants in England that knew of their grandfather’s lost half-brother who came to NZ but knew some snippets of information, I positively identified John Johnson of Deptford as my ‘lost’ grandfather.
Thursday 30 December 2021
Princess of Wales Pub
Hello,
Hoping the Deptford history community might be able to help me out with something...
My partner recently bought a ground floor flat in the former Princess of Wales pub (88 Grove Street), which was converted into flats in 2006 and I'm keen to hear from anyone who might have photos of the interior of this building when it was still a pub and if not photos, then any kind of description of how it looked inside (the layout, etc), or even any anecdotes or memories of time spent in there.
Sadly, when
the building was converted, all original features and any kind of character were
removed from the ground floor and basement (the upper floors still have some
original fireplaces, ceiling roses, etc). We're about to embark on stripping out
and redesigning the flat he's bought and as a history-obsessed designer, I want
to make sure we're being sympathetic to the building's history. All memories of
this place would be welcomed!
Thanks
Hannah
Thursday 25 November 2021
Patrick 'Patsy' Houlihan, Deptford born and bred.
Hi everyone,
Patsy with Jimmy White |
The Natural: The Story of Patsy Houlihan, the Greatest Snooker Player You Never Saw is the compelling story of a man who potted balls fast and potted them hard.
South Londoner Patsy Houlihan was one of the top amateurs of the 50s and 60s as well as the greatest hustler of all time. He should have been a major player on the world stage, but the professional game was a closed shop and the likes of Patsy weren’t welcome.
However, in the smoke-filled snooker halls of the backstreets of working-class Britain, populated by tough men seeking to make a quick buck from the game they loved, Patsy was a folk hero and an inspiration to a generation of players, including his close friend Jimmy White.
A snooker pioneer and a master entertainer, this is the story of the greatest snooker player who never made it to the big time, but whose exploits, adventures, and skills guaranteed him immortality in the minds and imaginations of those lucky enough to have seen him play.
The Natural brings to vivid life the story of great forgotten talent.
Friday 19 November 2021
Deptford Decades from the Deptford Ragged School Archives.
Thursday 7 October 2021
Buttons of Deptford
The image is from http://www.thamesbuttons.com/page1.html The button was found on the Thames foreshore by Mike 'Cuffs' Walker |
Sunday 31 January 2021
Our Shop part 2
Here's a story involving our shop which might interest you, and might even jog some memories
I must have been about 9 or 10 years old when this happened.
Opposite Wilson street, on the other side of New Cross Road, there was a fried fish shop, I guess you might call it a fish and chip shop today, but we just called it, 'the fish shop'. I can't remember it's name. One day a horse and cart was parked outside the fish shop when a steam engine went past. I don't mean a train, but rather a road-based steam engine. If my memory is correct, anyone delivering using a horse and cart had to make sure that someone was holding the horse's reins whilst the delivery was taking place, I think this was the law at the time. So usually there were at least two people with a horse and cart. The steam engine terrified the horse, and the horse was unattended, or the person with it was not holding the reins, or they were and the horse got away from them, I'm afraid I don't know exactly why, but the horse bolted, and headed down Wilson Street.
It ended up by crashing through our shop door and putting it's front hooves on the counter. It had stopped because the drawbars for the cart had become wedged in the doorway. I didn't see all this myself, as I was at school. When I got home the doors were seriously damaged, and there were two hoof marks on the counter of the shop. These hoof marks stayed there until the shop was destroyed by a bomb in the early years of the war. Thanks goodness there were no customers in the shop at the time! I remember that the doors had to be repaired, and this was a little awkward as they were slightly rounded, being on the corner of the building. I don't know who got the horse out of the shop, or whether anyone paid for the repairs.
Our Shop part 1
Friday 22 January 2021
Monday 21 December 2020
Brookmill Road Conservation Area (BRCA Society) online talk
Dear Olddeptfordhistory.com
I thought I’d let you know about the Brookmill Road Conservation Area (BRCA Society) online talk coming up in January in which you, or your subscribers, may be interested. Entitled “18th Century Artisans’ Houses in and around Deptford”, the talk will be given by Peter Guillery, architectural historian and Editor of the Survey of London. The talk will be followed by the BRCA Society’s AGM.
Monday 9 November 2020
THE UNITED FRIENDS PUBLIC HOUSE
The address is listed as 25 Wellington Street in 1882 and earlier, prior to street renumbering, and as Flagon Row in 1847. The address is at 74 McMillan Street by 1944, again due to street renaming. A listing of London historical public houses, Taverns, Inns, Beer Houses and Hotels in Deptford, Kent in the parishes of St Pauls or St Nicholas - now partially in London.