Senegal Road

Hi Nickyharvey32

Your correct, Millwall was built on the Senegal road area as confirmed by Wikipedia.
Senegal Road I Believe was between Bolina Road and Stockholm Road.
Hopefully someone on this site may remember the Clark Family, and I will certainly keep my eyes open for any Photo's of Senegal Road.

Good Luck in your search

Bermondseyboy

I didn't know any streets were knocked down for the new ground. When the site was chosen it was already playing fields - surrounded by railway lines. I presumed that any housing on the site had been cleared many years before. 

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Copy from old map of the area showing Senegal Road which lay on the site of the New Den between the railway lines which served South Bermondsey and Bricklayers Arms, I think the area is now known as Senegal Fields

Joe Foster

A view of Senegal Rd just after the war.

That's an amazing aerial photo.

I had no idea the area was covered in housing - I just assumed it had been a bomb-damaged industrial area. I know the authorities were keen on senseless post-war clearances, but surely not just to replace it with rough grassland?

That's an amazing aerial photo.
I had no idea the area was covered in housing - I just assumed it had been a bomb-damaged industrial area. I know the authorities were keen on senseless post-war clearances, but surely not just to replace it with rough grassland?

-deegs

PS: Excellent aerial photo. All those trees outside the houses and not one car, how times change!

I was was born at 127 Senegal Road. My family was moved out in 1962 as part of a slum clearance programme. A lot of the houses had huge cracks caused by the muddy ground underneath (there was a programme on the TV about it all back in the fifties). Presumably that was why no further housing was built on the land -rather it was turned into a park and subsequently Millwall football ground.
I think there was a boy in my class called Alan Clark - but as I'm now 63 going on 64 my memory is a little hazy. I do have a school photo with all of my class-mates - I went to Ilderton Road Primary School 1951/1957.

Mine are the Jarvis family from Bolina Road.

Senegal Road as shown on the map runs through from the top end of Bolina Road to Stockholm Road. I reckon the houses nearest Stockholm were on bolina Road were demolished after the war and prefabs were built there.

Some time in the 80's all the houses had gone and Senegal Fields replaced them and wasd the first site of a football pitch before The Den was built.

My mothers family inc 1 sister & 2 brothers were born in Bolina Road and when they grew up they too lived in Bolina until they were demolished. The Clifftonville Tavern being a favourite watering hole but this too has now been demolished and flats now stand on the site.

I recall "Rogers" the Shirt factory in Bolina and 3 of the family woirked there!

I think the houses had all gone by the early 70s as Bacons school in Ilderton Rd used to use them for football and other sports

I well remember John & Jennifer Jarvis from Bolina Road - didn't know there was another brother though.

No, you have misunderstood somewhat, the bothers and sister I refer to include John and Jennifers Mum and Dad (Agnes and Harry) where their Dad was my mums borother.

When i was a kid about 7 or 8 in 1971 we used to play on the Senegal fields there was a play park there and right at the back of the fields you could climb over a fence and there was loads of different coloured glass on the floor( we thought there may have been a glass factory there at one time)

I also remember the shirt factory was it Rocola or Rogers? this was closed down.Behind the factory there were some allotments then the railway line as kids we used to walk down Bolina Rd to Silwood St passing through some railway arches that had holes in the brick work we were told that they were bullet marks from a german plane in ww2 or it may have just been a story but us kids believed it.

it was rocola you jogged me memory i worked there for a time in the sixtys i think it was shrapnel in the in the metal bridge that went over bolina rd

The original shirt factory was called Rogers and during the early 60's it was taken over by Rocola which I believe was possibly an Irish company at the time. This was in the days of Bri-Nylon and they produced the first non visibly stitched shirt collar.

The holes in the metal bridge are indeed the resukt of shrapnel from the 2nd World War.

HI,
 HAVE JUST JOINED THIS GROUP I REMEMBER SENEGAL ROAD, I LIVED IN HAYDOCK ROAD, UNTIL IT WAS PULLED DOWN IN 1963, WE HAD TO PUT BLOCKS UNDER THE TABLE AND CHAIRS BECAUSE THE HOUSES WHERE SINKING, THAT WAS WHY NO BUILDINGS WHERE ERECTED UNTIL AFTER THE SURREY CUT, WAS FILLED IN CREDON ROAD  WAS THE SCHOOL TO GO TO WELL FOR US KIDS WHO LIVED ON MUD ISLAND, THAT WAS WHAT WE ALL CALLED THAT AREA.
 
THERE WAS THE COOP, ERICS GREENCROCERS, LACELLS, AND AT THE TOP OF ZAMPA JOES SWEET SHOP, HIS 2 BOYS STILL SELL ICE CREAM FROM A VAN IN THE SIDCUP AREA.

The old bomb damaged houses were replaced by prefabs. Some of the old houses wee still there when I was a kid in the 60s. They got rid of the prefabs in the early 60s and in 1967 they opened a lovely park called Senegal Fields, with plenty of green for kids to play on, a little area for people to sit on benches, a tennis court and a great swing park that the kids used to love, it was a break for some from trailing all the way to Southwark Park, although that beautiful park was and always will be beloved. There were swings, a roundabout, two rocking horses, a sandpit, it was a lovely place for kids, and local too. Now that has all gone to be replaced to by Millwall, who already had their own site that they owned in Cold blow Lane. I used to live near there too. I seem to have spent a lot of my life moving around Millwall Football Ground!

I remember when that area was called Mud Island. What a lovely lot of people lived round there, I remember going to the shops, and my brothers mates used to live in some of the prefabs and also in Silwood Street. I will never forget that place, it will stay in my memory always. I also remember Joes shop, I have mentioned it on another posting. Whenever I hear old rock and roll records, in particular Buddy Holly, I always think of Senegal Road etc. Walking through those arches in Bolina Road to Silwood Street where my eldest brother worked in a factory.

Two lovely posts there Bermondseylady!

With all my family coming from Bolina and Reculver Roads I can agree whole heartedly that the people round there were a smashing lot and they would always greet you with sincerity something that has over the years as people have moved away the same cannot be said so much today!

Was Joe's the little shop right next to the railway bridge on Zampa road on the Ilderton road side? I recall as a kid in the late 50's having Lemon Ice from that shop and it was a special treat.

I too have spent plenty of time down Cold Blow Lane and still do at the New Ground built on Senegal Fields.

Strange how they have given the new ground the address of Zampa Road because from memory whilst Zampa crossed Bolina I have it more in Bolina Road!

I had relations living in the Prefabs on the canal end of Bolina Road

Mudisland, I'm not sure how old you are but my mum went to Credon Road school and I know that she was as schooll with the Fishers of which George was the more successful footballer at Millwall.

Hi
My name is Jim Clark I am now 63 years old and lived at 91 Senegal road from 1949 until 1959. My sister Catherine was actually born in the house. We both went to Ilderton Road School.  I remember regularly collecting comics from a house at the end of the road, just where the road bends. Could have been number 127.

 Those days were brilliant. Names I remember from the road. Michael Young, Janet Brown, Gordon Twilly, Tommy Watkins.