The Greyhound
A bit of history
The earliest record of a tenant in The Greyhound public house was a Mary Stiff in 1822. The Upper Grange Road (now Dunton Road) Bermondsey was likely a relatively quiet lane leading off the Kent Road before the arrival of the Bricklayers Arms Extension Railway in 1843/4. At first it was suggested that the railway should cross the road on the level, but the contractors Grissell & Peto constructed a bridge to carry the road over the four running lines. The inconvenience to the occupants of the Greyhound and the neighbouring houses in Greyhound Place is well recorded in the Committee Minutes of the BAER held in the National Archives at Kew. Significant amounts of compensation was paid out for the inconvenience of having a large brick structure right outside the front of the dwellings. The owner of the Greyhound, William Rolls received £2310, a huge sum in 1844. The tenant at this time was William James Peirse and his four daughters.
The Greyhound itself was significantly altered as a result of the rising road in front of it and the public rooms were moved up to the first floor on a level with the new road. Thankfully one photograph exists taken at the end of the 19th century which just about shows this unusual arrangement. Access to the six houses further along was via a walkway underneath the frontage.
The model
The basic shell of the building is in 3mm perspex which I find very robust and resistant to warping over time. Brickwork is embossed styrene, windows in clear styrene with fine strips of styrene overlaid to produce the window frame. The sash windows at the back actually work, a completely unnecessary indulgence! It is not known what the back yard looked like. An aerial photograph taken in the 1930s gives a rough idea but it is so indistinct as to be of no real help. I added a stable block which is rather unlikely but in studying the history of the Greyhound and it's tenant W. J. Peirse, who left the tenancy in his will "to my four dear daughters", I grew rather fond of him and thought he deserved such a luxury.
The figures are from scratch, perhaps William's eldest daughter Martha is telling the potman just how queer the rocking motion of the carriages on the new railway made her feel on her recent trip to Croydon. The yard surface is decorating filler with the cobbles scratched in. There are further buildings to come, particularly those of Greyhound Place, and of course the Upper Grange Road Bridge itself which is in the process of construction.
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