Gants Hill
Gants Hill maps (2 available)
Map of London
Beautifully hand-drawn and coloured, dating from around 1840
Personalised maps
Create an historic map centred directly on any postcode!
Gants Hill books (6 available)
Gants Hill memories
Read and share memories of Gants Hill and London inspired by Frith photos
Shops in Gants Hill
I grew up in Gants Hill and would like to share my memories of shops in the area...
The Toy Shop in Cranbrook Road (now Burtons Newsagent). This was a double fronted blue painted shop with a newsagent on the left and a toyshop on the right. It was run by an elderly couple and I always found the lady a bit frightening...
Tailor Shop/Shoe Repairers (now United Sports). I used to stand looking in the shop window of the shoe repairer, and loved watching the old fella shaping the heels, squirting on the white glue and nailing the heel on, taking the tacks out of his mouth. The tailor was a very old Jewish chap who spoke with a very ...read more here
Contributed by Vincent Goodman
Gants Hill - Smiths bus-stop
I used to live in Montreal Road, off Perth Road, and remember the bus-stop outside Smiths stationers. There was also a real butchers, greengrocers, shoe shop, Woolworths, banks, a small dress shop and later a Jewish delicatessen/bakers and a kosher restaurant.
The photographer is standing with his back to the Gants Hill tube station on the Central line, and behind him to his right there used to be a taxi rank and public phone box.
I remember this area particularly, since my next-door neighbour (an honorary Grandma) was taking me with her, shopping at the Co-op stores while my sister was being born!
Had the photographer walked on down the hill, he would have passed Valentine's Park and reached Ilford, where ...read more here
Contributed by Joan McDonough
London memories
Shops in Gants Hill
I grew up in Gants Hill and would like to share my memories of shops in the area...
The Toy Shop in Cranbrook Road (now Burtons Newsagent). This was a double fronted blue painted shop with a newsagent on the left and a toyshop on the right. It was run by an elderly couple and I always found the lady a bit frightening...
Tailor Shop/Shoe Repairers (now United Sports). I used to stand looking in the shop window of the shoe repairer, and loved watching the old fella shaping the heels, squirting on the white glue and nailing the heel on, taking the tacks out of his mouth. The tailor was a very old Jewish chap who spoke with a very ...read more here
A memory of Gants Hill contributed by Vincent Goodman
Gants Hill - Smiths bus-stop
I used to live in Montreal Road, off Perth Road, and remember the bus-stop outside Smiths stationers. There was also a real butchers, greengrocers, shoe shop, Woolworths, banks, a small dress shop and later a Jewish delicatessen/bakers and a kosher restaurant.
The photographer is standing with his back to the Gants Hill tube station on the Central line, and behind him to his right there used to be a taxi rank and public phone box.
I remember this area particularly, since my next-door neighbour (an honorary Grandma) was taking me with her, shopping at the Co-op stores while my sister was being born!
Had the photographer walked on down the hill, he would have passed Valentine's Park and reached Ilford, where ...read more here
A memory of Gants Hill contributed by Joan McDonough
Extracts From Gants Hill & London books
Nestled in the rear slopes of the North Downs, the village derives its ancient name from the Saxon word ‘wudmeresthorn’, meaning ‘thornbush by the boundary of the wood’, and was mentioned in the Domesday Book. This 1930s mock-Tudor shopping parade still stands on Rectory Lane as it winds its way south to the junction with the Chipstead Valley Road, where the buildings of the Woodmansterne Treatment Works, belonging to the Sutton and East Surrey Water Company, are just visible.
An extract from from"Around Cheam, including Sutton, Ewell, Banstead and Epsom Photographic Memories".
Much of Banstead High Street was rebuilt during the 1920s with a series of shopping parades. The leafless lime tree in the middle distance occupies the spot where the village pond once existed, while All Saints’ churchyard is concealed behind the trees on the extreme right.
An extract from from"Around Cheam, including Sutton, Ewell, Banstead and Epsom Photographic Memories".
The station, on the branch line from Sutton to Epsom Downs, opened in 1865, and the white stuccoed house, now a builder’s offices, dates from around the same time. The small confectionery kiosk was one of a trio servicing the requirements of commuters, with other branches at Sutton and Epsom. The roof of the station no longer bears the white lettering, and the building is almost a mile from the town centre itself. The road almost immediately makes another sharp bend over the railway line below, before passing the Cuddington Golf Clubhouse and continuing on to East Ewell.
An extract from from"Around Cheam, including Sutton, Ewell, Banstead and Epsom Photographic Memories".
Originally founded for ladies in the autumn of 1890, the club admitted gentlemen to membership within a year, and from a tin hut close to Banstead Railway Station it moved to this site in Burdon Lane nine years later. A putting green was added in 1923, and further major development took place in the years after this photograph was taken.
An extract from from"Around Cheam, including Sutton, Ewell, Banstead and Epsom Photographic Memories".
Situated on the corner of Sandy Lane, these courts, flanked by suburban houses, now form part of Cheam Fields Club. The pavilion in the background, although substantially altered, has also survived to the present day.
An extract from from"Around Cheam, including Sutton, Ewell, Banstead and Epsom Photographic Memories".