please empty your brain below
Erm, this isn't particularly helpful, but there is a Park Road in Canbury that rather confusingly doesn't lead to nearby Richmond Park - you need Queen's Road for that.

Possibly more helpfully, during the First World War, Canbury was the home to Sopwith, the aircraft makers, who tested floatplanes on the nearby Thames. After 1920 Hawker were based there and it was where the prototype Hurricane was built. There is a lot more information here:

https://www.kingstonaviation.org

GJ | 04.02.18 - 8:13 a.m. | #

Sewardstone Road extends out towrds Waltham Abbey & is a curious mix of decaying shops, closing pubs & spots of regeneration & new businesses & re-opening pubs (!)
There is also one very good Garden Centre.

Greg Tingey | 04.02.18 - 9:22 a.m. | #

Well done the Saints! (Once my local team.)

Charles | Homepage | 04.02.18 - 10:55 a.m. | #

Canbury
Someone's beaten me to the aviation history bit, but until 1988 Kingstonian football club's stadium used to be at the north end of Burton Road - now, like the Sopwith factory, given over to modern housing.

Kings Road used to have a parade of shops, from newsagents to DIY to greengrocers to glaziers. Most have also been converted to domestic use -Spraggs is one of the last survivors.

Canbury Ward also has a "lost" river (the Latchmere Stream, which follows Acre Road, cutting the corner between Burton Road and Kings Road) and occasionally floods (memorably resulting on one occasion in forcing the Year 7 pupils at the primary school to leave it, on their very last day through the windows).

Kings Road saw London's very last trolleybuses in 1962 (before my time -I've "only" been here 25 years).

The Burton Road street parties have been a regular thing since they were revived for the Golden Jubilee in 2002 (one of my neighbours, now sadly passed away, even remembered the previous one, on VE Day).

Even the "smart hedges" to which you refer made the local news a few years ago, when the council took an agricultural-type flayer to some of them, making them very-definitely-not smart!

So what did bring you to KT2?

"Barbara" of Burton Road | 04.02.18 - 12:42 p.m. | #

Some of the old aircraft buildings in Canbury park Road still exist and now in use as dance studios for the BalletBoyz dance company. They were opened because of there aircraft connection use in the 2013 Heritage Days.
The large listed Regal cinema building at one end of Canbury Park Road is being converted into flats and restaurant including a conference centre in the old circle space.
https://www.cnmestates.com/portfolio/kingston-regal

John | 04.02.18 - 12:45 p.m. | #

Oh I remember that hedge story, Barbara.
http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/11375239.Neighbours anger over__drastic hedge trimming/

Made me chuckle.

Kevin | 04.02.18 - 1:20 p.m. | #

We all remember the hedge story Norbiton, err .. i mean Barbara! You are infamous for it ...

Geofftech | 04.02.18 - 1:21 p.m. | #

In the 1940s, London Transport intended to build a bus garage in what was known as the Canbury Clearance Area - this was a triangular site bounded by Richmond Road, Canbury Place and Canbury Passage. This would have involved a land exchange with Kingston Council. The plan was dropped in 1952 when LT needed to save money and the extra capacity wasn't going to be needed.

Ned | 04.02.18 - 3:27 p.m. | #

It's very strange when DG writes about your neck of the woods...

James Scantlebury | 04.02.18 - 4:26 p.m. | #

I lived in Kingston for a long time as a child yet I know nothing about the areas history. Kingston is a nice area, it has impressive bus connections but not so good rail connections.

If there's one thing I can say, it would be that every house looks the same

Ethan | 04.02.18 - 5:18 p.m. | #

Isn't part of the point of mini-roundabouts that you give way following the same rules as a full-size one but don't religiously have to go round it?

Andrew S | 04.02.18 - 5:32 p.m. | #

Many years ago there was a dodgy chippy on that stretch of Sewardstone Road that was regularly busted by the local health department for selling tainted white fish and pretending it was cod.

James Webber | 04.02.18 - 7:17 p.m. | #

All I know about Canbury is the Thames path, Canbury Gardens (with bandstand for Sundays) and the K5 and 371.

DG has done all those.

He hasn't recorded a cup of tea in the YMCA Hawker Centre though.

Mike D | 04.02.18 - 10:49 p.m. | #

My sister lives in Northumberland Heath, so I actually know it. There is a big bakery plant there, and the remnant of the Heath (known by that name since the C13th) is a large green space called Bursted Woods.

NickW | 04.02.18 - 11:58 p.m. | #

I've been to several matches at Reynolds Field supporting Wealdstone, usually in pre-season friendlies or county cup ties.
On a few occasions in the 1980s I passed by on a bus (not on a match day) and there was someone playing the bagpipes in the field. Does anyone else remember him?

Stephen Bird | 05.02.18 - 8:12 p.m. | #

I live very close to Northumberland Heath. The cemetery has the memorial to the Slade Green munitions disaster by the entrance. The nearby Erith Hospital has a grade II listed underground hospital, built during WW2 and now an X-Ray Department.

Kathryn | Homepage | 05.02.18 - 9:45 p.m. | #

One end of the Sewardstone Road remains with a London postcode of E4 , even though it is in Essex.

david s | 15.02.18 - 5:56 p.m. | #











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