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The Pimple Kingstanding

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rod
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Rod

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The Pimple

Do any of you remember another hill in the Kingstanding area locally called The Pimple, I often walked over it from Ellerton Road over to Sidcup. My brother had an allotment up there years ago, but they built on it I think? it's not a place I'd go now anyway. I wonder if any of you have any knowledge of the place, it's history maybe? I understand years ago it was called Kingstanding Beacon which kind of makes sense? there are many beacons up and down our country.
 
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I spent hours on The Pimple, my mates dad had two plots on there, we would go up all year round and it was a source of fresh veg constantly. You could access it from Finchly Rd also, has had houses on it for years now, must admit i never heard it called Kingstanding Beacon, the only one i knew/know is Barr Beacon and it is easy to see why they used that place once you stand on the top, the 360 degree view is fantastic and makes the Pimple look just like that, a Pimple.

My mates dad was from, i think, a farming background in Ireland and could make some potent drinks out of everything he grew and also kept pigs in his back garden, fatten them up then send them to the slaughter house, did it for years, can you imagine that these days.


Bren
 
Id forgotten that you could of course walk up the Pimple from Finchley road too Brenda. I think the pathway was made into a Road there was some shops built up on it? I seem to remember my brother calling into one with me in his car a few years ago.
 
We played there as kids, we called it 'up the gully', going from the Sidcup Road end the allotments were on the left of the pathway and the right side was wasteground.

We had holes dug for dens and later when we were a bit older we had a cycle speedway track on the top.

We used to go up there sledding when it snowed and one time we used the curved section of an Anderson Shelter for a sledge.

Later on it was a good place for courting. E.
 
Bren Gordon Ramsey does it. & My Uncle George did it he had a Pig Stye in the Garden where he lived in Marston Green when he had a Butchers Shop on Witton Circle, he left me the Cottage complete with stye when I was first married in 1958

Only one thing that lived in there was a stray Cat with her Kittens and they were a bit wild and I was when one of them scratched me badly (true):)
 
I used to do a paper round for Ryans, which was the newsagents and post office by the Hare and Hounds pub, I think the land behind was his farm.
I watched old man Ryan hoist two pigs up by their back legs to the rafters in the shed at the side of the shop, stick buckets under them and cut their throats. (They soon stopped screaming.) :Aah: E.
 
What you call the Pimple I knew as the allotments. My wifes house was almost opposite the gate on Finchley Rd. We lived there for a while after we were married. Later I bought an old Singer car and I would open the gates to the allotments and drive it up there and park it.

Have a nice day, Wally.
 
When we moved from Aston to Kingstanding our house backed on to the Pimple.....it was then just a area for anyone just to dump the rubbish they didn't want.....we were also able to park our car at the rear of the house due to the drive which ran partly around the pimple stopping only a few yards from our garden.....we gain entry to the drive via Hurlingham road...a small gully about three/fours houses in from Danesbury Cresent....sometime in the early 1970's, 1972ish I think...the council decided to build on part of the Pimple....and they decided to bulid right in front of our houses.....the knocked down two or three houses in Danesbury Cresent to gain entry to the site....it didn't take very long to bulid the new estate....within twleve months they had finish and the first occupants were moving in......somewhere in my photo collection I had one or two pictures of the houses being built....when and if I ever find them I will post them of the forum......last word.....I cannot remember the allotments and the Pimple being know as the same place....they might have been joined together but never class as the same place....then does it really matter.....
 
we also moved from nechells to kingstanding in 1975,(hornsey rd)and cos our mom and dad was at work we used to have to go to be minded by a lady at the top of edmonton avenue,in the summer holidays,and i used to hang round one of the jcb drivers who used to be diggin trenches at the top of the pimple(used to be an iron railing fence around the top) and he said to me that it was an ancient buriel mound,(praps cromwell could prove or disprove this story for us)
 
I don't know much about the area you are talking about but looking on old maps and burial mounds it shows nothing of significance...very likely a local name for a high spot ..
But saying that all around the Sutton area there have been found traces of ancient Britons, Barr Beacon was supposed to have been a Druidical shrine and at Stonnal when a tumulus was opened in 1824 it contained bronze swords,spear heads, Celt and other British impliments....
Map is 1940's
 
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Your map doesn't show the pathway across the top Cromwell, it was wide enough for a car but there were concrete bollards at each end to prevent vehicle access, it ran from opposite the end of Crayford Road through the centre of the oval on top and on down to emerge in Clapton Grove. E.
 
Map

Heres a map section of the area from the early 1830's. I think Brunston Hill is what later became The Pimple. I do need to check that out though cus I could well be wrong.
 
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