Mottingham

A Memory of Mottingham.

I used regularly to walk up Mottingham Lane to visit my great aunt and her family who lived on the Horn Park Estate in and around Alnwick Road. Apparently, I threw a toy from my pram near the farm which my parents were never able to recover and I was broken hearted.

I also remember walking to Mottingham Village from Coldharbour with my mother in the 50s. It always seemed so villagely in those days.

Apparently my great grandfather and his second wife ran a laundry in Portland Road, Mottingham Village but I have never been able to find anything about it. Family history myth says that they laundered for W G Grace.

On Sunday afternoons my father used to take my brother and me for a walk to Fairy Hill Park. We would then walk to The Tarn and then back to Mottingham Village where we could get cold milk from an Express Dairy machine next to The Porcupine pub. We would then walk home.