Ham’s open green environment – by David Williams

Actually Ham is a combination of suburban and plentiful open space and it is a London suburb, it’s not rural, it has about probably more than half of the geographical area is open space, particularly if you include the half of Richmond Park that is in Ham and Petersham ward and this gives an open green environment which is unusual in London and very valuable.  It also has because it […]

Inheritance Problems – by EB

At number 7, Ham Street with his father and grandfather, Mr Brown rented 7 Ham Street and the yard from the Tollemaches but in 1948 when it all had to be sold Mr Brown had a mortgage on 7 Ham Street and the yard and a strip of land which was beside what was the Co-Op which had drains on it but he decided that he couldn’t afford the mortgage […]

One of the first to move into the Tudor Estate – by HS

First came to Ham in 1934.  We were one of the first families to move into the new Tudor Estate which was then being built by a firm called G T Crouch.  Prior to that I had been living in Petersham and was a pupil at the Petersham Russell School which at that time was just inside the Park gates opposite the Dysart.  Where did you live in Petersham?  Well […]

Family History of living in Ham – by JP

I’ve always had a home in Ham, I mean if you consider this part of the Tudor Estate as Ham still, yes I believe it is within the old boundaries.  I have occasionally been abroad for short whiles, but I’ve never sold my house, I’ve come back, I live in Ham really.  Living in Ham starting in 13, later 37 New Road, was that the family home?  Yes, in a […]

Insurance problems – by RP

No, first at I lived in Petersham, there was a house going and I was married in those days and then we went to Petersham to 12 Buckingham Road and we stayed there until we broke up, but when I moved to Ham in 2010, on June 30th I think it was, I went to the almshouses, and I wasn’t over keen on them because we were told at the […]

Proposed changes to Ham Close area- by RP

I enjoyed it down at Petersham and then I eventually came to Ham and RHP (Richmond Housing Partnership) and Richmond Council decided that they wanted to rebuild everything at Ham which I was against, which I didn’t like the idea of and then eventually, they haven’t started yet, it’s supposed to start in two years’ time from what I can gather.  RHP want to knock down the flats that are […]

Variable build quality on the Wates Estate – by GH

We were Phase 3 of the estate – it was, I think, two years old – but we bought the house in February 1964, when it was just a heap of mud!So we had to wait for it to be completed before we could move in and as we wereliving on the Wirral at the time, this meant I had to live in digs for aboutten months until we could […]

Changes to Housing in Ham

Most odd because every road had its turn of having children in it.  You know, I lived in Cleves Rd and there was quite a few children there and they grew up and the next generation seemed to be in the next street.  We did spend a lot of our time in Lovell Rd because there were a helluva lot more children in Lovell Rd than there was in ours. […]

50 years on the Wates Estate – by FH

Because my husband was about to take a posting, he worked for Unilever at the time, to Hayes and he thought Ham would be a good place to get to Hayes from Ham by public transport or by car.  We moved into this house, just as it was built.  When Geoff chose it, it was a hole in the ground but he earmarked this site and when the house was […]