I'm trying to find out exactly when the block of flats on South Road/Westbourne Drive was built. Does anyone have any ideas as to how I might find this out? Land Registry and title deeds seem to have drawn a blank... Are there any old photos of this part of Forest Hill knocking around the internet?

Hi
My name is Alan and I lived at Pikethorne flats no 23 as one of the first families to live there in 1950. I was 1 year old when we moved in and so the first few years there are vague however we were the first to move into our ground for flat and have many happy memories over 22 years living there. However I too have found it difficult getting any official information regarding when they actually started building them but I guess it must have been around 1947 to 1950 with many other of the estates in that area as these were largely bomb sites damaged I think by the same land mine that desroyed most of Forest Hill train station. I hope this helps and if you can find more out from this, I would be great full to know.

I do have photos too if you are still interested
Alan

Too far away from the station for a land mine to have had effect.

Nor are any bombs recorded on that site on "Bomb site' or by V2 rockets
Can't find online a V1 hit there which is about the only thing that would have cleared such a big area.
Search the LCC bomb maps for V1 strikes

But to me those flats have the look of 1930s buildings

We moved to Pikethorne in 1955. We were thrilled to have an indoor lav with a bath. And 3 bedrooms!
The Germans had devastated the area when they were trying to sever the rail link from London to the South Coast which ran through Forest Hill. The map in bombsight.org is a work in progress so it doesn’t account for the extensive destruction. The only building to survive in the triangle where Pikethorne was built (bounded by South Road, Church Rise and Westbourne Drive) was Dartmouth Hall (which was used as a Dalmain School Annex with 2 classes; the sea scouts also used the building). The rest of the area had prefabs (built on bomb sites and meant to last 10-15 years they can still be found in Catford and Brockley). There were also prefabs across from them on the other side of Westbourne Drive. Some of the original houses survived on that side but there were a couple of bomb sites there as well with just the foundations of the houses remaining. Also near Pikethorne were Valentine Court, Perry Street and Perry Vale all built in the same style on bomb sites as well as was the rebuilt Christ Church School. The United Dairies bottling factory on the turning off Church Vale was also hit. The basement filled with rain water over the 9 years after the war before we used it as a playground. We used to go on the planks that were floating among all the junk that had been dumped in there. The Boys Brigade used to practice in the courtyard with the sound reverberating off the remaining walls. The pub (I’m not sure but it may have been the Foresters Arms) on Perry Vale survived but farther along before the parade of shops there was Denness’s Sweet Shop in a shack on high ground near the road. The land fell away from the 2 bill boards that occupied the site across from the subway under the the tracks to the beginning of the shops and looked like a crater. It was at the back of this depression that Denness later started a removal business. There were more prefabs after the parade of shops on Stanstead Road near where it joins Waldram Crescent.
Farther south along the tracks was the Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Kirche on Dacres Road. Ironically it too was bombed (when its was the German Evangelical Church) and had to be rebuilt when it renamed after it’s anti-Nazi pre-war pastor. The footpath that goes beside it leads to a footbridge over the rail line. From the footbridge I could see what amounted to a prefab estate between the rail line and the back of the buildings on Dartmouth Road (which as far as I can remember all survived).
We left Pikethorne in the summer of 1960.

Looking at page 202 (map 128) of the LCC Bomb damage map book there was a V1 hit just south of the Church Vale / Westbourne road junction - one of five which are shown over this part of FH.

PS. To me the blocks look typical of the post war LCC blocks which occupy a lot of South London.

Hi,

I have just purchased a property in Pikethorne and the legal documentation we have acquired shows it was built in 1950. Alan - if you are still checking this thread i would be very interested in seeing photographs.

Thanks

I am surprised that the V1s came so close to the rail lines they were trying disrupt. Thank you for this information.