Lemmon Road
I always thought you couldn't beat Turnpin Lane for a weeny road in Greenwich. But this little cut-through, barely wide enough for two thin people to pass, beats it hands down.What I love about it is that it has retained its name - presumably it was once wider - and calls itself a 'road.'
Just off Maze Hill, you'd miss it if you weren't actively looking for it, but if you walk down it (and 'down' you must walk - a series of steps past some green and a series of back gardens) then it does widen out a little. There are some modern houses through whose front gardens you have to walk - past garden sheds and soft tarmac with kiddies' playground toys, past concrete boots with displays of petunias and sundry comedy signs, before eventually coming out at the north side of Maze Hill station. It's a handy cut-through for pedestrians, though one to avoid if you have a wheelchair or a pram.
I always feel a bit odd walking through there - as though I'm traipsing through someone's front yard - though this is most definitely a proper 'road' - albeit a mini one...
Labels: Secret Greenwich
posted by The Greenwich Phantom at
08:39
8 Comments:
There's housing beyond when the pathway opens up (there's plenty of people with Lemmon Road addresses), but the roadway itself is the access to the rear of the houses, built where there used to be a third platform at Maze Hill station. Take a look on Google Streetview if it's too hot to venture outside.
But there doesn't appear to have been a Lemmon Road before the housing was built (in the 70s?).
And who was Lemmon? Jack?
Lemmon Road - and I don't know if I can remember all this because it was a long long time ago. We had vaguely thought about the history of Greenwich Labour Party (it is now Greenwich and Woolwich Labour Party - Woolwich Labour Party has a very very distinguished and well researched background - and we thought we should talk up Greenwich a bit). Anyway someone was sitting on a train and was talking about this and another passenger said that their - I think - grandfather had been the first Labour Mayor of Greenwich(Metropolitan Borough - based in Greenwich High Road) in the 1920s, and his name was Mr. Lemmon. They then turned up with a scrapbook of his life and we put it on display at Charlton House - but then they took it back and I don't know what happened to it. Someone must have picked the story up and named the road after him. I don't know any more and Lemmon isn't mentioned in the booklet Barbara Ludlow did 'What's In a Name' about the names on local council buildings. Someone else might remember more.
We use that street all the time as our quickest way to the Park from our house (which is incidentally the nicest street in the area - blocked off to traffic, lots of flowers outside peoples' houses, and full of friendly neighbours!)
There used to be a gate where it joined Maze Hill.
i used to walk through lemmon road every morning on the way to the dlr and into work...
i hadn't thought about lemmon road in three years. thanks for reminding me. brilliant.
there was a set of swings in the middle of it, and right at the maze hill end a (then) brand new refurbed but empty shop that was covered in graffiti every time the paint job was finished. it was just down from the little pottery studio. sadly i moved away, but would be very interested to know what became of it?
Tony - do you mean the Maze Hill station end? Around 2000 it was a fancy dress/joke shop run by a couple of blokes. It was very 'League of Gentlemen'. I bought some French maid/false breasts from them for a party.
That shop was originally an old sweet shop, then as you said a fancy dress called 'Beau bells'. it is now been made into offices which have been up for sale for years.
I presume it was called Lemmon Rd because you had to "squeeze" through it when meeting someone coming the other way?
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