Archive Pictures of Blackheath Village Online
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Newsletter Spring 2016 Archive pictures of Blackheath Village online Exhibitions are temporary, but websites are perma- followed by weekly releases of further images of dif- nent, and the Society is planning to put the ‘crown ferent parts of the Village: jewels’ archive images of the Village on permanent Week 1: Royal Parade and Montpelier Vale. display with 1,200 photographs on our website. Week 2: The Crown, Tranquil Vale, Collins St, Col- Our recent exhibition “200 lins Square, Camden Row. Years of Entertainment in Week 3: Wemyss Road, Blackheath,” mounted at Bath Place, Blackheath Blackheath Halls shortly Grove and Bennett Park. after Christmas, was ap- Week 4: The Village Centre preciated and very well and Martin House. received by numerous Week 5: Lee Road, Selwyn visitors, and many asked Court, Independents Road, for it to go on permanent Lawn Terrace. Week 6: The Conservatoire display. Their wishes will and School of Art. shortly be realised, and the exhibition will be available The website has room for on the Society’s website at your comments, so please www.blackheatharchive. feel free to contribute or org. If you missed the to contact our commit- exhibition, you will be able tee member Allan Griffin, to catch it online. who runs the project, on Sunshine on a windy spring day in Blackheath [email protected]. However, even better news is that this exhibition is only a small step in the Many thanks are due to Neil Rhind, who collected Society’s long-term plan to make the whole archive the images over several decades, and also to the late widely available to a much larger audience. A major Alan Martin, who contributed so much to the devel- step will be our digital release on the website of ‘the opment of the archive, the Society and to Blackheath crown jewels’ of the Society’s collection, the archive in general. images of the Village itself. Thanks also go to and to our volunteer scanning Because we have so many exceptional pictures, team of Helen Doris, Jo Swadkin, Sue Shields and publication will be staged over a number of weeks, Hilary Weedon who have spent many painstaking with the first tranche going online just before Easter, hours, scanning, titling and tagging the images. Inside Circus Field events, page 3 Members’ vital role 5 Talbot Place reviewed 9 Council tax rises, page 4 Lewisham challenges 6 Letters to the Editor 10 Greenwich planning 7 Society AGM 12 Obituaries 8 Halls’ developments 12 1 Publication of the Village images sees this hard work Olive has also given us material relating to another come to fruition, and it will make the effort worth- former Blackheath resident, Bernard Biggington, while when the latest additions go online at www. who experienced boyhood on Jersey under the Ger- blackheatharchive.org. mans, having unfortunately sought safety there in 1939 from the blitz of the Second World War. This If you have anything you think might be relevant material will be available on the website soon. to the archive - for example, photos, articles, lo- cal school magazines or school reports, we are like We still have much to do in digitising the original Autolycus in The Winter’s Tale - “snappers-up of archive, but we have also recently begun work on a unconsidered trifles” - and we will both gratefully new aspect. In 2000, to celebrate the Millennium, receive and publicly acknowledge any contribution. and anticipating Google by some 12 years, the Soci- ety undertook to photograph every property, both Two recent archive developments illustrate the work domestic and commercial, in Blackheath to provide we have been doing. First, we have received very a snapshot of this moment of history. welcome additions from probably the oldest con- tinuous resident of Blackheath, Olive Amos. Born in The photography was carried out by volunteer mem- Blackheath in 1920, she has lived and worked all her bers and, while the quality from willing amateurs life here, moving less than a hundred yards in that varied, these records currently sit in hard folders on time. Members will remember the popular fruit and the society shelves as a permanent record. We have vegetable shop she ran with her husband Bill. recently begun scanning and tagging these images. We are very grateful for her recent contri- butions to the archive, which include a 1949 copy of the All Saints parish magazine, and a 1970 Daily Archive images - Alexandra Assembly Rooms in 1905, now Lloyds Bank, and the Village from Tranquil Vale in 1874 Telegraph magazine featuring photographs of her We also heartily welcome our new archive volun- shop. Decimalisation was problematic back then teers, Elisa Vinci , Robin Baker, Mark Jacobs and and photographs of their shop and other parts of John Sabido - members who have agreed to give the Village were used by the paper to illustrate the their time on a regular basis to carry out these rou- confusion thought probable. tine, time-consuming but necessary tasks. Blackheath should have more Blue Plaques Members may have noticed that Blackheath enjoyed Road West) was de- a new Blue Plaque (seen on the right) in April 2015. molished years ago. It is to the Lindley family (Joseph and William), the engineers who miraculously improved the drainage A plaque should be set and water systems for Hamburg, Warsaw and Bu- on 6 Grotes Buildings, dapest in the 19th century. They and their offspring the first office of the lived at 74 Shooters Hill Road from 1860 to 1937, then newly-founded and many descendants of the Lindleys braved the Mass Observation in heavy A2 traffic to attend the unveiling ceremony. 1936. Established by Charles Madge (1912- Now English Heritage is looking for other suitably 1996) and Tom Harrison (1911-1976), it was one of- qualified people. Emily Wilding Davison (1873- if not the first - serious social research organisations 1913), the suffragette who fell under the King’s investigating what people were doing and why. The horse at the 1913 Derby, could be considered, but outbreak of the war in 1939 saw it, not surprisingly, the house in which she was born (13Vanbrugh Park immediately commandeered by the Government. 2 Greenwich withdraws permanent Circus Field event application Greenwich Council withdrew its own application for who collected the images over several decades, a permanent licence to vastly extend the commercial use of Circus Field on the Heath, after pressure from The proposal for In the Night Garden, which previ- the three local amenity societies, several councillors ously took place at the O2 arena, was discussed at a and many local residents. meeting of the Blackheath Joint Working Party on 19 January. As this would be the first performance of Blackheath Society Chair Dame Helen Reeves, to- the 2016 season, the application involved the perfor- gether with the Greenwich and Westcombe Societies, mance days and the setting up and rehearsal dates, wrote a joint letter to the Council, asking that the which will total 36 days on the Heath. application for an open-ended premises licence to hold up to five extra events each year on Circus Field should be withdrawn. They argued that the absence of any information about the specific events being proposed made it impossible for residents to respond in the context of a licencing application, and that this proposal could have a serious impact on the rights of residents to enjoy the amenity of the Heath as a natural environ- ment. Cllrs Cherry Parker and Geoffrey Brighty Circus Field in heavy use during the 2012 Olympics supported the societies’ objections. Members of the BJWP were naturally concerned The societies were not opposed to events being held about both the impact on the Heath itself and the on the Heath, but their members had expressed loss of amenity for those of us who enjoy the Heath strongly-held concerns over its potential over-use, as an open space. We were assured that: the possibility of environmental damage, the loss of its peaceful and natural environment and nuisance • Any future booking of In the Night Garden from noise and parking problems. This is reflected in would be later in the season and would not in- the Letters to the Editor on page 10. clude the extra time for setting up and rehearsals. • There will be only one further application for an Cllr Denise Scott McDonald, the Greenwich Cabinet event on Circus Field this year, which will be a member for culture, told a council meeting that it high quality food festival. In addition, there will always listened to the views of the public before go- be one less funfair on Circus Field in 2016 and ing ahead with any events. Because many people had fewer rehearsals on this site for The Kings Troop. raised concerns about events right across Blackheath, • Greenwich will work with Lewisham and the she said it had accepted the requirement to submit BJWP to develop a joint policy for events on the separate applications for events on Circus Field, Heath in order to regulate the number and type even though this was less cost efficient, “in order to of events in future years. provide community reassurance.” • All applications for events will be presented to the BJWP in advance of any agreement. It is pro- She said Greenwich had sought a licence that would posed that, in future, all applications for the year allow Circus Field to be used for up to 70 days a year ahead will be dealt with together at a separate at a lower noise level than events on the Lewisham meeting in order to achieve continuity between side of the Heath, adding that most of the issues the two Councils.