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____________________________________________________________________________________________ Lewishham Hippodrome, 135 139 Rushey Green, Catford
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Above - Postcard of Frank Matcham's Lewisham Hippodrome. The Lewisham Hippodrome Theatre was opened on the 13th February 1911 with a vast seating capacity of 3,222. The Theatre was demolished in 1961. Also see Britain's Hippodrome Theatres here...
Left - Charlie Carpenter, Bandmaster at the Lewisham Hippodrome,
shown here in the uniform he was wearing at the Axminster Town Silver
Band on 11th of November 1935, wearing "Pip, Squeak and Wilfred"
(WW I medals) - Courtesy Maud Grant. The old parish church dedicated to St Mary was pulled down in 1774 and replaced by the present building. It is a plain oblong structure of stone, with a square tower at the west end and a portico on the south side supported by four Corinthian columns. The principal shops are situated in the High Street and at the busy junction of the Catford, Lee, Greenwich, and London Roads. The largest of these are the two departmental stores of Messrs Chiesman Brothers and the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society, occupying extensive frontages on the east side of the High Street, adjoining the Lee High Road. Some fine new blocks of flats have lately been erected 'by the Lewisham Borough Council on the high ground above the High Street on the east side of the town. |
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Above - Extract from the Lewisham Hippodrome programme for 'The Love Race' Jan 26th 1931 The Town Hall, which is situated at Catford, is a building of church-like appearance erected in 1874 and enlarged in 1900. It was rebuilt in 1932 and occupies an island site on the main road and is surrounded by shops. It was formally opened by the Duke of Gloucester in 1932 (See note below M.L.). Other important buildings include the Central Library, the Colfe almshouses and a grammar school founded by the Rev. Abraham Colfe, Vicar of Lewisham from 1610 to 1657. A narrow lane turning out of the main road by the side of the parish church leads to Ladywell, formerly a twin village of Lewisham, and now forming a part of the municipal borough. It possesses a long narrow recreation ground running parallel to the main Catford Road covering fifty acres which is traversed by the Ravensbourne stream. ,On the high ground to the west and reached from Vicars Hill is the breezy recreation ground called Hilly Fields which covers forty-five acres. From the summit of the hill fine views are obtained of Lewisham town, the hills of Kent, and also of Blackheath and Shooter's Hill. Note: The extension to the Lewisham Town Hall (in Catford) was
opened in 1932 not by the Duke of Gloucester, as stated above, but by
his brother the Duke of York (later King George VI). 70 years later,
in 2002, after refurbishment, it was re-opened as the Broadway
Theatre, by his daughter Queen Elizabeth II, during the course of
her "Royal Progress" through the kingdom in celebration of
her Golden Jubilee. This information courtesy Graeme Cruickshank.
Above - Extract from the Lewisham Hippodrome programme for 'The Love Race' Jan 26th 1931
Right - The Odeon Cinema, Lewisham, demolished 1991. Text from The Face of London by Harold P. Clunn 1956. |
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After
passing New Cross Gate Station we come to the junction with the Lewisham
High Road, a busy suburban thoroughfare leading to the centre of that
town, about a mile and a half to the south-cast of 
Lewisham,
now the third largest borough in area of the County of London, with
a population in 1949 Of 227,900, was a century ago an attractive village,
with a branch of the River Ravensbourne running alongside its main street.
With the land rising gently on either side of the stream, it was then
a very pleasant rural district, but, as in most of the other outlying
suburbs of London, the green fields which once hemmed it in have long
since been covered with streets and houses. 
The
populous quarter of Catford to the south, now forming a considerable
portion of the borough of Lewisham, was little more than fifty years
ago almost unknown and scarcely built upon. Since