Eltham

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Allenwood Road

Hutments built in the First World War.

Arbroath Road

Cakehill Lane went north from here, curving round the foot of the cemetery hill, before going towards Hill Farm and Shooters Hill Road by the present gate to the old Naval College sports ground.

Hut which was used as a church before St. Barnabas was built.  It was then used as a church hall until the mid-1930s.

Hutments built in the First World War.

Boundary post once stood at the north side,

Arsenal Road

One of a series of road names on the Progress Estate with connections to the workplace of the munitions workers for whom it was built.

Bournbrook Road

Southern boundary of Middle Farm

Broad Walk

The Lower Kid Brook follows the road but then turns south towards the Rochester Way at its junction with Wendover Road.

Craigton Road

The Earliest bit of the Corbett estate to be developed

44 Birthplace of Bob Hope

Downman Road

The picturesque groups on either side of the junction with Well Hall Road.

Dunvegan Road

Built by Corbett in 1909

Earlshall Road

Earliest bit of the Corbett estate to be developed

Grangehill Road

Gordon School.   1904 by T.J. Bailey, for the London School Board. A late three-decker school, with giant arches, steep open pediment, and yellow terracotta trim. Huts survive which were put up in 1913 to provide temporary classroom accommodation for children from the Progress Estate. 

Hutments provided here in the First World War

Shops at the Junction with Rochester Way. These were the successors of various huts.  Became Pat’s Corner and the last hut only went in 1965.

Greenvale Road

Earliest bit of Corbett estate to be developed

Kidbrook Lane

Tiny scrap still left – the rest of the road exists but under different names. This was the main road through Kidbrook which ran northwest / south east. Described as the royal carriage route between Eltham and Greenwich palaces.

Lovelace Green

Large village green fringed by houses. The footpath leads into Well Hall Road

Phineas Pett Road

Road name with connections to Woolwich Dockyard

Progress Estate

'Garden suburb'estate of 1,200 houses, greens, trees, curving roads and footpaths, and array of house styles. It was a government development built during the First World War to house munitions workers. It was conceived, planned, and built in less than a year. Design was by the Office of Works under the, Frank Baines, a former pupil of C. R. Ashbee, and it was intended as a showpiece solution to emergency housing problems created by the war following the low-density principles established by Raymond Unwin.Originally known the Well Hall Estate, it was renamed Progress Estate when it was bought by the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society in 1925.  The houses are now owned by a Housing Association, though some are private.  In the 1920s Rochester Way was built slicing it in two. It is a virtuoso re-creation of the 'old English village'. Tiles supplied by Halls.

Railway Line

Line runs around the Well Hall Estate on a dangerous kink.  The line should have run north but the owner of Well Hall, Sir Henry Page-Turner Barron forced Parliamentary consent for Well Hall Station.

Rochester Way

Developed in the 1880s and was then called Woodville Road.  From Brook Lane to Well Hall it follows the line of Kidbrook Lane. The arterial road was opened in 1928.

A dip at Briset Road is where the Lower Kidbrook emerges after skirting the Samuel Montague Sports Ground.

Dip where Mid Kidbrook crossed north of Dursley Road.

Chandlers Farm was east of the road and consisted of two fields of market gardens owned by the Drapers' Company

St.Barnabas. It was originally the chapel of the Royal Naval Dockyard at Woolwich built 1859; by Sir George Gilbert Scott and in 1933 bodily removed and re- erected, brick by brick on its present site. It was gutted by bombs in the Second World War. The interior is by Thomas Ford in 1957,

447 Howerd Club. Small club at the rear of St Barnabas church hall. Founded by a former vicar, the pub takes its name from Frankie Howerd, the comedian, who was born locally.

Ross Way

Sinuously curving, with raised pavement;

Sandby Green

An enclosed and intimate green, with a footpath leading under a house into Whinyates Road. Named for Paul Sandby who worked at the Royal Military Academy

Sowerby Close

Tower Blocks

Swimming Pool

Well Hall Road

Semi-circular terrace facing a green

Well Hall can be traced back to the Norman Conquest, and a complete list of owners exists dating from 1253.  In the early 16th William Roper, who had married Sir Thomas More's daughter Margaret in 1521, built a Well Hall on the site of an earlier moated house of which nothing remains.  In 1733 it was bought by Sir Gregory Page, to add to his Wricklemarsh estate.  He demolished the Tudor house and built a new mansion on the east side of the moat. 1899 - 1922 this was the home of Edith Nesbit and her husband Hubert Bland.  This house was damaged by fire in 1926, and the site was bought by the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich in 1930 to become the gardens of Well Hall Pleasaunce.  The house was demolished, and a surviving Tudor building, now known as the Tudor Bam. 

Tudor Barn. Its original purpose is unknown, but it was not a barn. It was inhabited because there are original chimneys and two fireplaces. The windows follow the original pattern. At ground level are several blind windows originally decorated with coloured plaster. It has an Oak timbered roof.  William Roper’s monogram is beneath the southeast corbel and a coat of arms on the north front has the date 1568, but the building is probably earlier. In the west wall is a small stained glass window showing Thomas More and his daughter Margaret Roper, designed after Holbein's portrait by Margaret Cowell 1949, restored by Susan Ashworth 1992. It was converted to an art gallery and restaurant. The art gallery closed in 1991

Moat.  With Tudor brick banks.  An extension to it runs along the west side of the Tudor Barn.

Stone-arched bridge. There is also a modern wooden bridge over the moat to the west.

Well Hall Pleasaunce.  Noted for its spring bulbs.  Sections of the original Tudor garden walls to the south remain. The Park entrance gates have the old ‘WBC’ badge.  It was Laid out in 1936 with the medieval moat, a scented garden for the blind, fishpond and a bowling green, plus woodland lawns and gardens, a waterfall; a winding stream and fountain. In the east wall are niches for braziers, used to keep the frost off delicate fruits or which may have been bee-boles.  There is a wild area on the western side.

RACS store. Reading room and library in 1906

Coronet Cinema.  A former Odeon cinema of 1936 by Andrew Mather with art deco features. There was a projecting glass staircase tower and the circular canopy over the entrance.  The interior of the foyer was also circular, with a circular wooden ticket box and the word Odeon in green and red mosaic set into the floor.

The Martyrs Church.  Roman Catholic Church, dedicated to St John Fisher and St Thomas More.  A brick church, by O'Hanlon Hughes 1936. The functional interior has embodies two pioneering structural features, - the aisle roofs are unsupported by pillars, and the main lighting is by a series of circular windows in the nave and aisle roofs.  On either side of the sanctuary are stone bas-relief statues of the two martyrs by Lindsay Clarke.  In a small chapel is a stained glass window by David Whalley 1988. 

Hutments built here in the First World War

Whinyates Road

Delightful junction with Dickson Road