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Addiscombe
Addiscombe maps
Historic maps of Addiscombe and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Addiscombe maps
Addiscombe area books
Displaying 1 of 13 books about Addiscombe and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Addiscombe
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Addiscombe.
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The Fish Shop
When I was still going to school Ashburton High School I had a park time job at the Fish Shop at the Shirly Road shops I worked every day arfter school Monday to Friday, also all day Saturday, and I got paid 12 shillings for that, this is how I paid for my new bike. When I say fish shop I mean the old fish shops with the slab in the front of the shop with all the fresh fish on it. My friend used to work in the butcher shop. We bouth used to deliver our fish and meat to the Shirly Club House on our delivery bikes. Does anyone out there remember these shops?
Ashburton Club House School
Yes, I remember the Club House - I seem to recall we went there after the Primary school and before the Junior School but I could be wrong! I remember the playground there and going home from school across the old golf course which still had the hillocks and sandy bits! I lived in Chaucer Green so not far to walk! I went back to the Junior/Primary school on summer fete day 4 years ago and it looked exactly the same. It still had the area round the back where we used to do high jump, and the same doors and windows. I hated the outside toilets but they have gone now! I went to Ashburton Secondary school after that. I always think of Addiscombe as my home even though I live in Banstead now. I am very nostalgic about it. I wish I could find a photo of the Club House too!
Shirley Road Shops
I lived at Ashburton and spent my junior school years from 1953 at the primary and junior schools after which I walked everyday to South Norwood where I attended Stanley Tech. The interesting part was the intermediate school that I and many others went to was known as the club house. This was the old golf club situated by the fire station on the corner of Long Lane by Ashburton Park. We all had great fun here. I guess I was about eight years old and remember in the winter the roaring open fires and sliding down the bannister. It was eventually demolished and now has several blocks of flats occupying the site. However, the picture titled The Parade is surely the small row of shops by Shirley Park roundabout opposite the entrance to what was Shirley Park Golf Club - now long gone and at the beginning of Upper Addiscombe Road. Other than living within walking distance of this area Stanley Tech used the football grounds a few hundred... Read more
The Old Club House
I remember the old club house school. I lived in Coleridge Road and I went to the Ashburton High School, now pulled down, they have a new school there now but the fire station is still there, also the corner shop oposite the fire station is still there, it used to be the post office and inside the shop he had rows of jars of sweets. I came to Australia in 1962 so we are talking over 50 years now.
Greater London memories
Fair And Lake - Wandle Park, Croydon
A travelling fair each summer here was both a delight and a way to earn a few shillings when the fair ended. I would help dismantle the rides and stalls, working hard from morning to evening for about five shillings (25p) some of which would then be spent next day on hiring a rowing boat on the lake! The families who owned the rides were generous and very hardworking. I loved those times and it seems such a shame that the boating lake is no more.
There were little arched footbridges here and there and I shall never forget the way the water was reflected on the underside of the bridge as the boat glided under each one. There was an island in the centre of the lake and sometimes I would stop the rowboat in the rushes around the middle island. It was like being beside an island in the sea for a 12 year old lad, keeping a sharp eye peeled for... Read more
Watching The Steam Trains From This Bridge
This railway footbridge was one of my favourite places as an eleven and twelve year old lad, back in 1946 and 1947.
I would stand for ages in the centre of this bridge just waiting for the next steam train to rumble and thunder beneath me. Clouds of steam and smoke would billow up, strongly smelling and smutty stuff but highly exciting too! I would try to count the trucks or carriages as they passed below. Some of the freight trains seemed endlessly long, truck after truck after truck - with tons of coal uniformly filled and neatly mounded.
I was not "train spotting", or collecting engine numbers or anything like that. It was just the sheer joy of seeing and listening to these fascinating machines pass beneath me on this super footbridge - so long ago, but still as fresh as ever in my memory.
Foundation Scholar.
I was a pupil at the school from 1943 to 1948 from the age of 10. I used to travel there from Norbury on the tram, having won a Scholarship from Norbury Manor School. I came from a typically working class background and to be fortunate enough to attend this school was a considerable advantage. Mr. Clayton was Headmaster, with the imposing Dr. Shutt his deputy. It was wartime of course, and many morning assemblies in Big School were marked with the latest news of deaths of old boys. I particularly remember Mr. Taylor our Art master announcing the landings in Normandy in 1944, and the bombing of Allders. My time there is remembered with gratitude, but it was difficult at times due to the cultural differences with life at home. I now realise how hard it must have been for my parents, who found the way of life and social mores of the school completely foreign to them. They never visited the place during my time there. I... Read more
