West Green town centre c1905

Comment by Dick Harris yesterday

What a remarkable changes there have been.  The Black Boy building survives although it's no longer a pub but much of the terrace opposite it seems to have been swept away.

Admin for testing Comment by Hugh 21 hours ago

At first glance the photo does seem to present a very different scene to the one that greets us today. In fact, in terms of changes to buildings, the only ones to have been taken down in the foreground are the terrace of three shops directly to the west of the railway station on the far right. (You can see an image showing that in 1961, here) and, on the opposite side of the road, the London and Provincial Bank at the corner of Clinton Road: it seems to have been a casualty of the closure of the railway line in the mid 1960s. It was replaced by a new building set back from the road which is now home the Banc restaurant. 

The most significant changes to the town centre have been those beyond the former Black Boy pub. Much of the north side of the road has now been redeveloped as low rise housing. The building of former Imperial cinema still survives, although it showed its last film in 1958.

It's worth remembering that West Green was not an invention of the Victorian suburbs. It has a long history as a thriving settlement going back several hundred years before urbanisation.

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