please empty your brain below
That warning comes a few years too late for me, but it's duly seconded.
The flooding of Ladywell Road then ended and the odd public transport using dustcarts through the flood water with a few passengers standing on the rear platform came to an end.
Creek Road Bridge between Deptford and Greenwich is a twin leaf bascule bridge not a swing bridge. The previous bridge was damaged in the Second World War ahd its roadway was fixed in position and any goods for upstream wharves had to be transferred into barges to pass underneath. A temporary bridge was put in place and London Tranport insisted the LCC provided a conduit power supply for trams. It was only used by them for a couple of years before they were replaced by buses. The temporary bridge was moved to Redriff Road to cross the channel between Greenland Dock and Canada Dock where it remains, but no longer in use.
(this is what comes of relying on old maps)
In 1989 Jules Holland and Rowland Rivron made a series called Groovy Fellers, and one of the early episodes left a lasting memory because part of it was filmed in and around Lewisham and featured one of the second hand car dealers of the area run by a bloke called Bill. They take one of his old bangers for 'a test drive' and end up driving down an access ramp to where the Ravensbourne met with the Quaggy... and into the water.
[here on YouTube - the part with the river can be found from 25.00 to 31.00]
I'm pretty sure it has all changed, now, in fact Lewisham has had so much redevelopment in the intervening years that I don't think the road where the sales yard was located even exists any more; I believe the routing of the river(s) has also been altered.
I’ve never believed the viewpoint that the place name “Catford” is derived from "cats" (or "cattle") and "ford".
When you look at many books on the etymology of place names, many have “thought to be . . .”, “possibly” when trying to explain the origin of a town or village.
So this is mine, its a hypothesis, but I think worthy as a much consideration as the “official” explanation of the origin of Catford.
First, cats is unlikely, we had Lynx’s here a long time ago, in pre-Roman times or thereabout, so why not “Lynxford” rather than “Catford”. And why anyway would a settlement be named where a cat or cats crosses the river?
A more likely explanation is that Catford is named after a person. I suggest that this is Catigerm, son of Vortigern. Accounts of his life are sketchy, but her appears to have been a native British prince of Kent after the departure of the Romans in 410AD and fought the Saxons at the Battle of Aylesford in AD 455. Here, he was killed along with the Saxon chief Horsa. Local tradition identifies Kit’s Coty and the White Horse Stone as the burial places of Catigern and Horsa respectively.
Thus, my hypothesis is the area around this part of present day Lewisham was associated with Catigern and that “Catford” therefore derives from “Catigerns Ford” and not “Ford of the Cats” (or “Cattle Ford”).
We have a very convenient part of British history called “the Dark Ages” - the time after the Roman’s left and before the full domination of most of what is now England by the Saxon’s. A lot of early Brythonic history has been erased or forgotten, or just survived but the original version lost. The nearest serving Bythonic place name is Penge, could Catford also be one of these?
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