HISTORIC ELTHAM
SEnine
INCA DRIVE
Following a request from a resident of Inca Drive John
Kennett pieces together a history of this area.
On
Footscray Road between was lifted the sale was completed. Other
Eltham and New Eltham stands properties purchased were 149,149a and
the cul-de-sac housing development 151 Footscray Road.
of Inca Drive which was constructed in
1973 by the building division of English Southend Hall and its garden had been
China Clays who gave it the unusual purchased in 1937 for an Air Defence
name. The front four detached houses Unit under the command of Major B
Chichester Cooke. The new
Eltham unit was known as
the ‘338th (Queen’s Own
Royal West Kent) Anti-Aircraft
Company RE’ and many
Southend Hall, garden and conservatory from the south, in 1909
volunteers enlisted. £20,000 apparent to the large crowds who
was spent by the War Office thronged the streets, staying up late to
on reconstruction work watch the spectacle. One of the lights,
with additional buildings located at the junction of Footscray Road
constructed to the rear of and Sidcup Road aroused great public
the house where the fine interest and the large crowd included
Inca Drive town houses in 1973. Pitched roofs were added conservatory and beautiful many motorists, expressions being heard
here and to the flats in 1983
trees were replaced by
concrete, drill hall and
were sold at £18,250 each but the rest of garages.
the site was difficult to sell so Greenwich
Council bought the remaining 31 town A contemporary report stated that
houses and 15 flats for £645,000. Most of ‘the keen young men were erecting
and manning
searchlights,
diligently cleaning
transport lorries,
attending lectures
and learning how to
be a crack company’.
The full equipment
included 24 powerful
searchlights, sound
locators of the latest
Second World War Home Guard rifle team behind the garages and drill hall
type, four cross-
country lorries and motor at the great efficiency of the men, none
Southend Hall before the First World War
cycles for dispatch riders. of whom had had more than a month’s
experience.’
the properties stand on the Southend ‘On Wednesday evening in June 1937
Hall Territorial Army site which the the air defences were tested and September 1938 saw the Munich
Government decided to sell in 1969 Eltham was provided with a spectacular Crisis. The ‘338th’ were mobilised and
when they were abolishing the Civil evidence of the progress of its new Air despatched in London Transport buses to
Defence Corps and reducing Territorial Defence Unit. BBC commentators were their HQ at Wrotham, then on to various
Army strength. present and took recordings which were locations in Kent. One detachment was
broadcast on Thursday. About 10.15 the billeted in hop-pickers’ huts on a farm
The sale was protracted by the site’s bomber machines approached from the near Mereworth where it ‘belted down
proximity to the Greater London north-west flying at a great height to with rain’ while the company HQ was in
Council’s Ringway 2 Motorway scheme test the ability of the ground defences the basement of Mereworth Vicarage.
slightly to the north but when the threat in locating them, with results that were
20
We are proud of Eltham
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