House History Mystery!

[thesockvortex]

Hey,

My fiance and I currently live on Sydenham Road (without wanting to post my address) between the PFC shop/Tesco and the Priory Cottages

We're moving to a 1930's mansion flat in Surbiton next Saturday but would love to remember the little flat that has been our home for the past year. We're currently attempting to find an old picture of our building so that we can frame it, along with old photos of other former residences. The best we've managed to come up with have been fairly modern pictures of the top floor of it (with the ugly modern shops in front having already been built).

We've gathered from research that our building seems to have been built on land on or at the edge of the park belonging to The Priory. I guestimate it's build date as between 1900-1910 due to the high ceilings, long windows and chimney stacks but it could easily be older.

Any help you can give us in tracking down a photo would be much appreciated

Thanks,

The occupants of the mysterious interim house.

EDIT::

We found another photo of the side of my house

https://sydenham.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4142

The photo in question is about half way down the thread, two photos beneath the clipping about the Naborhood Centre.

It seems the house was NEXT to The Priory, the remainder of which was the garage next door (the land which is now the Tesco, the PFC shop and the road divides it from my house). The Priory itself is the white building within the same picture and in the two pictures that follow. It must have been a beauty when in its full form!

[RJM]

Have you tried http://www.boroughphotos.org/lewisham? There are definitely some photos of Sydenham Road on there, although I don't know if they're the right stretch!

[chrisj1948]

Grove and Priory Cottages, next to your building, were originally wooden cottages for farm overseers built in the period 1698-1703. They were 'gentrified' by the addition of the current brick and plaster façade in 1746, and their occupancy since then is on record since they then became liable to pay the Poor Rates. There were originally about eight of these dwellings, including your building, which also had a cottage name which I have temporarily forgotten. They were gradually re-developed, apart from nos. 32 & 34, with one visible as no. 30 until the beginning of the 20th century. They are said to be the oldest semi-detached dwellings in London.

Regards
Chris

[thesockvortex]

Hey guys! Thanks for your help Fascinating to learn I was living in a very old house indeed! That explanation makes perfect sense to me, certainly in terms of the very strange positioning of my bathroom window, which was 100% a door at some point! I could never fathom why, as the current front door positioning seems to have remained the same over the decades and one wouldn't have two doors in the front of the building. BUT if that was the old position of the front door before remodelling took place then that would explain it. It would then also more closely match the layout of Priory and Grove too.

Despite the mould, I had very happy times there We still greatly miss our garden foxes.

I think I'll print this one: http://boroughphotos.org/lewisham/sydenham-road-48/

Even though it doesn't show my house exactly, it does show the garden as it was, which I've long dreamed about, and the neighbouring Priory Cottages which I saw on my way to work every day.