Hi
I have been trying to find historical information and photographs of Mount Ash Road the but coming up with very little.
Can anyone help?
Many thanks
Mount Ash Road
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Steve Grindlay
- Posts: 606
- Joined: 4 Oct 2004 05:07
- Location: Upper Sydenham
Mount Ash Road was laid out in 1868 in the grounds of a large 1820s house that never seems to have been given a name. The house was roughly on the site of 42-48, and backed on to Mount Gardens.
By March 1871 (the 1871 census) only 1-5, 11-12 and 47-48 had been let. As these are all at the Kirkdale end of the road the houses might simply have been let as they were completed.
In 1871 the occupant of no.2 was James Dines, a builder employing 10 men, and it seems likely that he was the builder of the street.
There is at least one picture of the street, in Coulter & Seaman's Forest Hill & Sydenham (Kirkdale Bookshop, or Falkor might oblige).
By March 1871 (the 1871 census) only 1-5, 11-12 and 47-48 had been let. As these are all at the Kirkdale end of the road the houses might simply have been let as they were completed.
In 1871 the occupant of no.2 was James Dines, a builder employing 10 men, and it seems likely that he was the builder of the street.
There is at least one picture of the street, in Coulter & Seaman's Forest Hill & Sydenham (Kirkdale Bookshop, or Falkor might oblige).
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Steve Grindlay
- Posts: 606
- Joined: 4 Oct 2004 05:07
- Location: Upper Sydenham
No, it can't be correct, Liberty. The image below is from the 1868 OS map. It is difficult to interpret, but remembering that "Sydenham Hill Road" is now Kirkdale, "Charles Street" is Charlecote Grove, "High Street" is Dartmouth Road and "Lecture Hall" is the Kirkdale Learning Centre it is possible to get your bearings. The old house I mentioned is to the left of the "HI" in "HILL", with Mount Gardens above it. At the time the map was surveyed, probably 1867, Mount Ash Road clearly didn't exist.Liberty wrote:... I thought when I brought the house it said it was built in 1840 but not sure if this can be correct...
Mount Ash Rd
Hi Liberty
I will have to upload the photo onto a public photo website as I don't have a scanner, but will try to do that over the weekend sometime.
However old the houses are I think they have lasted very well, especially as they were all very heavily damaged during the 2nd World war when a huge bomb fell in Panmure Rd and brought all the ceilings ands roofs down in Mount Ash Rd!
Malcolm
I will have to upload the photo onto a public photo website as I don't have a scanner, but will try to do that over the weekend sometime.
However old the houses are I think they have lasted very well, especially as they were all very heavily damaged during the 2nd World war when a huge bomb fell in Panmure Rd and brought all the ceilings ands roofs down in Mount Ash Rd!
Malcolm
Mount Ash Rd
Liberty I have uploaded the picture here
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/37095452@N ... otostream/]
Am not sure how to get the picture into this page of the Forum. Any suggestions from anyone else please?
Malcolm
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/37095452@N ... otostream/]
Am not sure how to get the picture into this page of the Forum. Any suggestions from anyone else please?
Malcolm
Thanks very much for the photo I did not manage to make it show on this page either. Very interesting to hear that the bomb was in Panmure Rd as the house I brought has wall ties something I was worried about at the time but there has not been any movement for a very long time. The ceilings are wonky and the windows all out of line but I like to think that adds to the character 
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Steve Grindlay
- Posts: 606
- Joined: 4 Oct 2004 05:07
- Location: Upper Sydenham
I've managed it; I hope you don't mind, Malcolm.
This is what I put in, but replace the () for [] at the begining and end:
(img)http://static.flickr.com/99/300078845_9 ... .jpg(/img)
I've some info on the Panmure Road bomb, which I'll dig out tomorrow.
This is what I put in, but replace the () for [] at the begining and end:
(img)http://static.flickr.com/99/300078845_9 ... .jpg(/img)
I've some info on the Panmure Road bomb, which I'll dig out tomorrow.
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Steve Grindlay
- Posts: 606
- Joined: 4 Oct 2004 05:07
- Location: Upper Sydenham
Actually, this is all I can find on the Panmure Road bomb. It was a V2 and landed in the back gardens of 6-14 Panmure Road on 14 Jan 1945. Fourteen people died (several are commemorated on the memorial in St Barts) and some 80 were injured. Apparently the hole created by the bomb caused the houses in Panmure Road to collapse back into it. The scale of death and injury was high; this was one of the worst such incidents in south London.
Perhaps I shouldn't mention this, Liberty, but the damage to the houses in Mount Ash Road was described as "serious". Presumably most of the damage was to the backs of the low numbered houses in the road.
Perhaps I shouldn't mention this, Liberty, but the damage to the houses in Mount Ash Road was described as "serious". Presumably most of the damage was to the backs of the low numbered houses in the road.
I will respect the copyright law for one day as an incentive for Liberty to go out and buy the books. Buying these books was one of the best things I ever did; I've read/looked at them countless times and learn something new always--they are the most handled books in my modest collection and already starting to look worn and torn. It's also worth mentioning that the Joan Alcock book contains a photo of the Panmure Road bomb damage.There is at least one picture of the street, in Coulter & Seaman's Forest Hill & Sydenham (Kirkdale Bookshop, or Falkor might oblige).
Notice on the map Steve Grindlay posted, Thorpewood Avenue had not been laid out opposite, either. In it's rough place appears to be another building of what I believe they call Seymour Lodge or something? I've seen a photo of this, but not of the building former to Mount Ash Road.
Great topic, guys! Thank you Malcolm for contributing those great photos!!
Thanks again for all the info I have never settled in one place for very long but now that I have I want to find out as much information as I can about where I'm going to settle (at least for a while anyway)
Interested and a little glad that the house I bought is on the other side of the street from Panmure although due to the ties there was also damage to my house.
I will buy the book as a christmas present for myself as I'm sure it will also be a worthwhile purchase.
Interested and a little glad that the house I bought is on the other side of the street from Panmure although due to the ties there was also damage to my house.
I will buy the book as a christmas present for myself as I'm sure it will also be a worthwhile purchase.
Mount Ash Rd
Dear all
Thanks for getting the pic onto the site and the instructions on how to do it properly. I have some old photos of the inside of no 30 (taken in the early 1950s) and I will try to get them onto my pc and load them up here later.
As all the windows of no 30 were blown out by the V2 the glass was replaced by picture frame glass and not window glass. The picture frame glass was really thin and easy to crack, as I discovered when I lived there as a child!
Have got the Coulter/Seaman book with the pic of Mount Ash Rd, amazed at how similar it looks!
Malcolm
Thanks for getting the pic onto the site and the instructions on how to do it properly. I have some old photos of the inside of no 30 (taken in the early 1950s) and I will try to get them onto my pc and load them up here later.
As all the windows of no 30 were blown out by the V2 the glass was replaced by picture frame glass and not window glass. The picture frame glass was really thin and easy to crack, as I discovered when I lived there as a child!
Have got the Coulter/Seaman book with the pic of Mount Ash Rd, amazed at how similar it looks!
Malcolm
Not sure if it is related Malcom but the glass in my house is incredibly thin. It cracked when we have some strong winds a month or so ago.
Off to see if I can get the book tomorrow.
When buying the house there was a copy of a photo of a girl standing in the street I would guess 1900's. I have lent it to a neighbour but will post it up when I receive it back.
Off to see if I can get the book tomorrow.
When buying the house there was a copy of a photo of a girl standing in the street I would guess 1900's. I have lent it to a neighbour but will post it up when I receive it back.
Hi Malcolm - I've lived at number 30 as well! Have found your old sock behind the radiator if you want it back!! lol
I'd always understood that the Mount Ash houses were built to house the workers for the socking great houses on Sydenham Hill - the butlers, maids etc, although in Joan P Alcock's book 'Sydenham and Forest Hill', it says of them: "These have changed little since they were rebuilt in the 1870s, although they are probably in better condition now than when they were first built with the intention of being sold to middle-class Victorian commuters."
The V2 caused damage to the backs of the houses backing onto Panmure Road, and the fronts of the houses on the upper side. You can still some of the evidence today if you look at the less modernised ones - some of the houses on the Panmure Rd side still have their original front windows and more of them have their gateposts, but took a lot of damage to the rear - the backs are all largely rebuilt as a result, while the facades of the houses on the Mount Garden side were damaged and needed replacement windows/ doors etc.
The brickwork is unusual if you look closely - a full brick then a half brick in each row. The way the rooftops slope downwards towards Kirkdale, with each house's windows one or two bricks lower than its neighbour, is I'm told "a fine example of Victorian stepped architecture."
I can't really add much more than all the useful info that's already being posted, but it's fascinating to read what other people know.
Liberty - I have a copy of that picture you mentioned with the girl as well. There's no traffic so it looks quite a wide road! The gateposts and gateposts are all intact so it's prewar. There's a lady in a bathchair outside number 30-ish - is that the picture you mean? I don't have a scanner unfortunately - we bought ours from a photographer in SW18.
I'd always understood that the Mount Ash houses were built to house the workers for the socking great houses on Sydenham Hill - the butlers, maids etc, although in Joan P Alcock's book 'Sydenham and Forest Hill', it says of them: "These have changed little since they were rebuilt in the 1870s, although they are probably in better condition now than when they were first built with the intention of being sold to middle-class Victorian commuters."
The V2 caused damage to the backs of the houses backing onto Panmure Road, and the fronts of the houses on the upper side. You can still some of the evidence today if you look at the less modernised ones - some of the houses on the Panmure Rd side still have their original front windows and more of them have their gateposts, but took a lot of damage to the rear - the backs are all largely rebuilt as a result, while the facades of the houses on the Mount Garden side were damaged and needed replacement windows/ doors etc.
The brickwork is unusual if you look closely - a full brick then a half brick in each row. The way the rooftops slope downwards towards Kirkdale, with each house's windows one or two bricks lower than its neighbour, is I'm told "a fine example of Victorian stepped architecture."
I can't really add much more than all the useful info that's already being posted, but it's fascinating to read what other people know.
Liberty - I have a copy of that picture you mentioned with the girl as well. There's no traffic so it looks quite a wide road! The gateposts and gateposts are all intact so it's prewar. There's a lady in a bathchair outside number 30-ish - is that the picture you mean? I don't have a scanner unfortunately - we bought ours from a photographer in SW18.
Mount Ash Rd
Hi Bingbong
Don't want the sock back, but I did lose some toys in the garden in the early 60s!
When my Grandmother moved there in 1938 from Bradford Rd she was actually working as a cleaner for people in one of the big houses at the very top of Sydenham Hill so what you say makes sense. She only rented the house and during the war had several Army Sergeants billetted on her as the house had 2 spare bedrooms at the top!
The house also had a glass lean-to at the back of the ground floor (which was her kitchen) and most of this shattered when the bomb dropped, had she been in it she would have been sliced to bits. Was that still there when you lived in it?
Malcolm
Don't want the sock back, but I did lose some toys in the garden in the early 60s!
When my Grandmother moved there in 1938 from Bradford Rd she was actually working as a cleaner for people in one of the big houses at the very top of Sydenham Hill so what you say makes sense. She only rented the house and during the war had several Army Sergeants billetted on her as the house had 2 spare bedrooms at the top!
The house also had a glass lean-to at the back of the ground floor (which was her kitchen) and most of this shattered when the bomb dropped, had she been in it she would have been sliced to bits. Was that still there when you lived in it?
Malcolm
Hi Malcolm,
Ah the memories!
The lean-to was there for some time, with a scullery, but in the late 1970s it was replaced with a proper brick built kitchen extension, taking in the old outside lavatory as a larder! A bathroom extension was added to the middle floor at the same time, taking the house back to 4 bedrooms.
While I was there I had a visit from a lady called Valerie who'd lived there with her family (her sister, parents and grandparents all crammed in), and from the timescale I'd say hers was the next family to move in after yours left. Can't remember her surname - I passed on the letter she wrote as a follow up to the people we sold it to.
She remembered the wall gaslights, the downstairs front room where her grandparents slept, the middle front bedroom, which her parents had, and the bedrooms upstairs where the children slept.
At some stage the two downstairs rooms were knocked through to make one larger living space leading to the kitchen at the back.
I'd be very interested to see your internal shots when you've time to upload them onto this thread.
Ah the memories!
The lean-to was there for some time, with a scullery, but in the late 1970s it was replaced with a proper brick built kitchen extension, taking in the old outside lavatory as a larder! A bathroom extension was added to the middle floor at the same time, taking the house back to 4 bedrooms.
While I was there I had a visit from a lady called Valerie who'd lived there with her family (her sister, parents and grandparents all crammed in), and from the timescale I'd say hers was the next family to move in after yours left. Can't remember her surname - I passed on the letter she wrote as a follow up to the people we sold it to.
She remembered the wall gaslights, the downstairs front room where her grandparents slept, the middle front bedroom, which her parents had, and the bedrooms upstairs where the children slept.
At some stage the two downstairs rooms were knocked through to make one larger living space leading to the kitchen at the back.
I'd be very interested to see your internal shots when you've time to upload them onto this thread.