Does anyone remember Daisy and Berty Bonta, they had a daughter Janice who married George Frith. They lived at 173 Campbell bdlgs. Daisys mother was also call daisy Russell and she lived in the flat above at number 193. This was in the 40.s and 50.s.

spent many long summers in Bedlam park Lido whilst at primary school getting changed under a towel cos of the holes in the woodern walls!! and the adventure playground on the big rope swing as well as the general childrens park area. Also many games of hide and seek and tag in the war museum much to the annoyance of the staff

i David, I was born at home in 269 Campbell Buildings in 1964. I lived there until 69/70 (can't recall exactly) but I also went to johanna primary school and my teacher was called Josie! I used to play on the roof with my late sister Albertha.. Campbell Buildings was owned by British Rail I think, my dad was a ticket collector at Waterloo Station. So nice to read stories from my childhood and hear others talk about my nursery school

A lovely old David Greig shop sign has been revealed during a refurb of the dry cleaners at 257 Old Kent Road. Seems to have been a popular grocery chain that closed in the ‘60s, and at one point had its HQ on Waterloo Road.

Hello, my name is Wendy Wallace and I lived at number 65 Campbell Buildings from 1967 to 1971. Our building was the third along from Frazier Street towards Lambeth North Tube Station. I also went to Joanna School with my sister Gillian, (two years younger). My mum a single mother, was called Pruderie but everybody called her by her nickname, ‘Lulu’. Many of the people who lived there used to work for British Rail or London Transport. Some were in the armed forces. My neighbours were an Irish family. The mother’s name was Mary but I have no recollection of surnames. My mother was born in Jamaica so we were part of the London Caribbean community. They seemed to be the only people who had rowdy booze and 'whatever' parties with full blast reggae music, which I am sure used to upset the neighbours. There was a Maltese family who lived on the first floor; Vera, Brigitte Angelo, Carmello and Maria. There was a lady called Violet who lived opposite. Her son, a year younger than me, was called Tyrone. My mother used to baby-sit for him. Then there was Peggy and her two children, Paul and Donna, a boy called Roy and my Uncle Tom, his wife Roselynne and their two children, Maria and Julie.
There being no playground meant that there wasn’t much to do for children. I used to spend most of my time walking up and down the redbrick perimeter wall (which is still there) or hanging around the bins. I found a bottle of pills there once, thought they were sweets and shared them with my friends. We used to hang over the vent of the tube station, at the end of the red-brick wall or play hide and seek in the under ground car park of the office building next door to Lambeth North Tube. Extremely dangerous. When we were really bored we would run up and down the flat roof where our mothers hung their washing or climb up and down the outside of the building hanging onto the protective railings at the end of each stairway. There was only one tree. It had red berries on it but they can’t have been poisonous because many a time I had had a mouthful. Just by that tree I got my head stuck in the railings and my neighbours called the fire brigade. They cut the railings with a giant pair of pliers. What nobody knows until now is that I was just pretending to be stuck because I was so bored. When the coalmen came with there lorry loaded with sacks of coal we would pick up odd bits of coal to mark hopscotch numbers onto the cold white cemented courtyard. Nice days were when the gasman came to empty the meter. Mum would give us pennies (old pennies) or sixpences to buy sweets. I would buy a lucky bag or bazooka bubble gum in winter or a jublee in summer. Ice cream was a bit more complicated. The ice-cream van would sound its melody but before most children could run upstairs to beg tuppence from their mothers it was gone, so we used to stand around the mother’s of other children with sad looks on our faces hoping that somebody would feel sorry for us.
Wow! I remember the milkman too, although I could never remember his name.Thank you so much for reminding me. Angelo and I once stole his T-key and crashed the milk float into a wall. I remember, then, my mother being extremely upset and having to pay for the damage with her milk tokens.
I used to go to school all by myself. My mother showed me how to cross the road (with the green cross code) at the zebra crossing outside of Don’s supermarket; just the once, and that was it. Independent at the age of five. My teacher’s name was Miss Crabtree but I’m afraid I wasn’t very nice to her. If ever I get the chance I have a lot of things to apologise for.
By the way, it snowed on my fifth birthday, Christmas Day 1970, about one centimeter. My mother spent her dole money to buy me a white-specked fur coat and a hat with bobbles on it, which I dutifully lost in church at Christmas mass. I was christened on that day at St. Paul’s CE church in Brixton.
Now I live in the green countryside of northeast Italy and I often tell my friends about Campbell Buildings but they don’t believe me when I tell them that we didn’t have a bathroom. My mother used to give me a wash in a plastic bowl. We had no central heating or electric fires. There were two open fireplaces, one in the living room and one in the bedroom but I think my mother couldn’t afford coal because we had one smelly, Esso blue paraffin heater- and there was no hot water. Our flat had three rooms; living room, bedroom, kitchen and a small toilet. My memories of Campbell Buildings are bleak to say the least; black and grey with ambiguous shades of brown. From the window of the bedroom which I shared with my mum and my half sister, I could see the hundred or so windows of the next building, about fifty yards away. Not a shade of green in sight. On bonfire night many of our neighbours would go up onto the roof to see the fireworks

Glad to see this great site up and running again. My nan is Pat Nolan and we grew up in Bermondsey in the 60's and lived in Abbey Buildings (Irish railway workers housing), Abbey Street. I have so many happy memories of my childhood there but too many to mention. I went to St Josephs Primary School then onto St Michaels School just across the road from St Josephs. My main memories of growing up in Bermondsey was when as kids we were always having fun and getting up to mischief, mainly 'knock round ginger'! I had a paper round from the corner paper shop on the junction of Abbey Street and Tower Bridge Road

The picture of 92 Swan Mead is where my Nan Kate Oliver, my aunt Mary & uncle Stan use to live.
My nan, Kate McDonald, (Oliver) was born in Bermondsey in April 1884 in Stanworth Street. She had 3 sisters: Mary, Charlotte (known as Georgina) and Annie. She moved to Hargreave Square when she married in 1901 as did her sister Mary, who was also married and had the surname Lynch.
Nan married Ernest Edward Oliver, who was known as Albert for some unknown reason. (They had 8 children): Kate (married Jimmy Kelly), Sarah Anne (known as Annie, who married Robert Hamilton), Albert John Oliver (known as John, who married Katie Everittt), William James Oliver (known and Billy, who married Elsie Dawdry), Edward J Oliver (known as Teddy, who married Doris Mitchell - known as Dolly), Henry Oliver (known as Harry, who married Carry Mason) and Stanley and Mary Oliver both of whom remained single. The family moved to Swan Mead as the children got older and my grandparents eventually split up.
Every time you went into Nan’s house in Swan Mead you could smell the Beetroots cooking in the boiler, as I have said she and Uncle Stanley had a salad stall all week down the Tower Bridge Road. My Nan was a large lady, who had a chair with arms on either side, unfortunately she also had sugar diabetes and I can remember her injecting herself with insulin. Nan's sister Mary lived in Creasy Estate, Aberdour Street married name being Lynch. If my memory serves me right some of the Lynch family immigrated to Australia maybe in the late
Nan,Stan & Mary's home at 92 Swan Mead..jpg
92 SWAN MEAD.
50s early 60s.I can remember most of my mum’s (Sarah Anne Hamilton) brothers and sisters especially Kate who married Jimmy Kelly and lived in Eltham Street. I went to secondary school with both Michael and Terry Kelly at John Harvard in Union Street, Borough, that’s after I got expelled from Riley Road School TBR but that’s another story. We also went to Patricia Kelly’s wedding but I can’t remember the year.

I was born at no 48 Newlands Park in 1950, and knew the shops, Wayne Tank, Grundigs and the small-scale roads in Alexandra Park. I have never seen any photos of the road system, it was by chance looking for photos (as some of my colleagues did not believe me!) that I came across this forum. The traffic lights and Belisha beacons used to work and there was a full set of road signs, roundabouts, dual carriageway, all about quarter scale I would guess.
There used to be motor cycle racing on the Crystal Palace circuit and we knew a hole in the fence we got in to watch for free, we could disappear all day in those times, with a bottle of Tizer and a packet of crisps, go on 'adventures' to Beckenham or Dulwich, and in about 1962 London Transport started 'Red Rovers' a ticket that let you travel on any red buse all over London for 3 shillings, then the 'Twin Rovers' for 5 shillings where you could travel on any red bus AND the Underground (except Waterloo & City Line), a mate and me planned a journey that let us jump out at every underground station and back on again to say we had been on every undergound station - I am not sure we actually did get as far as Amersham or Upminster but I like to think we did.
The first shop on the corner of Newlands Park and Tansfeld Road was a greengrocer, then I think a hairdressers, then a small grocers, then a sweetshop/newsagents run by the Newholms, I used to go on holiday with the Newholms after my father died in 1961. Next to the Newholms was, I think, a shop used as offices, but we kids never knew what for, a couple more shops (can't remember what), then the shop on the corner of Studland Road was a sweetshop (and sold other 'requisites') run by a Mr Lovell. The Newholms moved to Maple Road to run a wool shop, and we moved to Woolstone Road in Forest Hill in about 1964. I went to Forest Hill Secondary School, and did my ONC at SE London Tech in Worsley Bridge Road. I lived in Kingsthorpe Road and Champion Road in Sydenham and Anerley Park in Penge, used to use the Railway Bell, run by an amazing woman called Rita, had been on the stage at some time in the 40s. Also used The Dolphin in Sydenham Road, and in the 1950s Saturday morning pictures at the Granada. Haven't been to Sydenham for years, moved from Sydenham to the Norfolk Broads in 1978

Hi everyone , i was born in Earl road which was just round the corner from dunton road . i enjoyed my childhood in and around bermondsey but as adulthood came i moved away not by choice but by circumstance . i now live in canada but i keep in touch with my friends in facebook who either still or luck enough to reside in bermondsey .i`m very interested in its history and wished i had studied about it when i was younger.anyway i`m happy to have joined this site and to get new friends in here

I was born in Guy’s Hospital and we lived in Guinness Buildings in Pages Walk, Bermondsey (Just off the Old Kent Road). My Mum was born in the flats and lived in Guinness's until about 15 years ago.
The flats were large Victorian blocks built by the Guinness Trust for poor people. There were Guinness Trust buildings all over London. The flats were not luxurious by today’s standards but by Victorian working people’s standards they were a luxury and a great improvement on the slum housing that they replaced.
In Pages Walk, there were four large blocks of buildings and each block had about six entrances. These entrances let to concrete staircases and there were four flats on each landing. The size of the flats varied, but most were just two rooms. A living room/kitchen (this had a range run by coal or gas but no running water or electricity) and one bedroom. The toilets and sinks (two of each) were outside the flats on each landing and were shared by 4 families.
The baths were in two separate blocks and it was possible to bath on only two days a week. My grandfather, George Horton, was one of the caretakers (they were called porters) and one of his duties was to stoke the boilers to heat hot water for the baths. The baths were in cubicles and you had to pay the porter (I think it was 2d) and he would run the bath for you. There were no taps; the porter had the brass tap which fitted on the square spindle to operate the tap, so you couldn't take extra hot water.
There was no electricity in the flats, all the lights were gas mantles. There was electric light on the communal landings.
I lived there as a small child until about 1958 and they eventually put in electricity in about 1960/61.

My Mum remembers one of the neighbours getting a TV and plugging it in to the light socket on the landing.
All the women used to take turns scrubbing the communal stairs and landings and they were always spotless. Once a week, the bag wash man came around. He used to shout out and then all the windows would fly open and white bags of laundry would come flying out. Woe betide anyone walking past.
My granddad used to sweep the roadways and paths every day with a great big broom. I remember standing on the brush end while he swept with it. He was my hero, but he used to chase the kids off the shed roofs and bins. He lived in a house next to the flats where the alleyway went into Leroy Street. He used to lock the metal gate at the Leroy Street entrance about 5 o clock every afternoon and people had to walk all the way round to Pages Walk to get home.
The flats were demolished in about 1970 and brand-new flats were built. They are still there.
We moved away to Guinness Buildings in Kennington Park Road (where we had our own bath) and they are also still there. This description of the flats makes me sound ancient, but I am only talking about 45 years ago in central London! I am only 56 myself. I am still an ardent Millwall supporter, but I must be the only Bermondsey boy who doesn’t like Pie and Mash!!!!!!!! I used to love the peas pudding from Young’s butchers in Tower Bridge Road and pints of cold sarsaparilla from Baldwin’s in Walworth Road. We used to pretend it was beer. Like granddads. My whole family lived in Bermondsey from about 1860. My other Nan was a Basham and they lived in Keyes Road (formerly Alfred Street) just of Grange Road and opposite the Town Hall. Most of my ancestors were Carmen. I do have a brilliant picture of my other granddad Charlie sitting on a wall in Cooksey’s scrap yard in Pages Walk. He is surrounded by bales of paper going for recycling (who says recycling is new).
Nearly all my family, including me, worked in F. M. Meyer Chamois Export in Weston Street Off Long Lane. My Mum and dad met there in the late 1940s and they are still going strong today.
None of us live in Bermondsey now but Bermondsey still lives in us!!!!!!! I am very proud to tell people that I am a Bermondsey boy.

I was born in Bermondsey in 1943 or to be accurate in Woking, thats where pregnant women in labour went to give birth during the bombing.I don't remember anything about the war (or my early years in an air raid shelter) but I asked Mum She said the bombs were bad but the rockets were realy bad.
Our playground in and on the bombsites was a by-product of that, I went to Webb Street School and then to Tower Bridge Secondery Modern.
Manzes was the best pye and mash I still go there for a treat, Edwards Doughnuts coming out from the back of the bakers being shaken on the tray of sugar nothing is as good as that now.
We lived at 39 Harold Estate,I remember a few people, my freinds Peter Feddon and Jimmy Rolf, Mary Ashdown lived down the landing at 41.
Tha Grange Road Baths were I thougt I would learn to swim but didn't it had a little room were you could by a cup of Oxo a piece of bread for one and a half pence.
My Dads pub was The Victoria Arms,(I pop in there sometimes to) The Men would leave there on the Beano with the pennys and half pennys thrown out of the windows for us.On a Sunday some of the old ladies would take a jug of beer back to have with dinner.
Ther were no cars parked in Pages Walk or Webb Street,The Cart Horses stabled of Linten Road were more familier to us.
Guy Faulks Night was great, the fireworks compaired to the one's we have now were poor but the hole thing, the bonfires on the bomesites the excitement of something realy special,even if the jumping crackers didn't jump, the rockets just about left the ground and the bangers just went pop it was great.
Ther was so much more Hop picking, saturday morning pictures at The Trocket, the beach at Tower Bridge, Trams, collecting jam jars, newspapers and things for salvage and with luck after a day of collecting perhaps 4 pence to share between the gang.
To go back there seems to be no sence of shared comunity,but perhaps its just me.
Sorry I still can't spell.

Hi I lived at 20 Ilderton Rd and went to Ilderton Road then the Aylwin school.
My dad was born in the house and my nan lived upstairs.
I remember most of the shops near my house. The dr's then Welchs, there was O'Briens - one shop sold cooked meat & next door sold dried goods and was an off licence. There was Stan Ross the chemist, a butcher, café & a plumbers merchant. On the other side of the road was a baker, greengrocers (Hales?), post office, haberdashery, hair dressers, fish shop, butcher and Putts.
I have fond memories of the area. I remember the grocers on the corner of bramcote grove/barkworth rd. There was a shop on the corner of Ilderton and Delaford which my mum called the egg shop - I think this was because they had the egg stall down the blue.
I remember going to the library in Spa Road and Spa bakers. My parents were friends with Milly & Tim Back who had the grocers on the way to the blue, it was on a corner of a road off Linton road. I used to drink in the Fort in the 70s.
Be great to hear from anyone else from the area.

I remember these shops in the 60s, although I have not been down Newlands Park since the mid-70s. I certainly remember the sweet shop, in the style of just about every sweet shop of the era and in many, many areas. Photos no, far too expensive in those days to take pictures of what was everyday, unfortunately.

My usual sweetshop was on the corner of Newlands Park with Sydenham Road, next to the cobblers

I should have been born in Pages Walk but the war messed that up along with lots of other things, woman in labour were often sent to less dangerous places like Woking were l was in fact born in 1943. Mum took me back to Harrold Estate were l lived. My first school was Webb Street an then onto Tower Bridge, as with many of the Bermondsey boys and girls on this site our pathes would have crossed even though we may not have been friends.l am hoping to be more involved in this site again as it is a great place to be

In 40s and 50s, On the corner of Tansfeld and Newlands Park was a Greengrocer ( 7lbs. of King Edward potatoes 1/- (one shilling or 5 pence to the youngsters) ). A couple of shops up was a Newsagent (where I did my paper round) and the shop on the corner of Newlands Park and Studland Road was a sweetshop (where I developed my sweet tooth). Sorry no pics.
By the way on the left of Tansfeld opposite the entrance to Alexandra Park was a row of lock up garages and next to them a bomb shelter (great for playing in). In Studland Road was the Wayne Tank and Pump company factory until 1958

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about the history of Sydenham on your forum, and this is my first post. I wondered if anyone had any old photos of the Newlands Park parade of shops (the ones halfway down, between Tannsfeld Rd and Studland Rd)? I have only ever seen one photo from around 1910 in which the shops can just about be seen. Most old photos seem to be taken either up or down Newlands Park, from around where the shops are! Does anyone know what sort of shops were there pre-1970s? I would love to hear any tales you have to share. Many thanks.

Does anyone have or know where i can get a picture of the Children's Hospital at Sydenham please :D

Came across this today.
Apparently Lammas Green was built in 1955/7.
Does anyone know what was on the site previously

Sydenham and District motor club

This was a very active club between the wars which , organised and partook in all sorts of events for two and four wheels.

Has anyone any info on it?

I would particularly like to find one JC Thyne who rode, and was quite successful with, a Grindlay Peerless sidecar in a lot of events.
TIA

The Haven 42 crystal palace park road

I am looking for information on what was a childrens home run by the salvation army. Its entrance was situated originally in crystal palace park road number 42. I cant find any photos of that building before it was knocked down. It was build in the 1800's and was i assume part of the lush houses built oposite the crystal palace park road entrance to the crystal palace. It was huge house and had a cottage situated in its grounds. I am told it was knocked down and rebuilt due to subsidance and has been replaced with a new building also called The Haven which is a childrens home.

I would imagine it was in the news over the years and seeking help tracing its history.

It had a huge garden and behind it was an old peoples homes to the left.

Its entrance was lined with lots of fir trees and there was an old bunker there too which we were always told was for the war.

Does anyone have any information