Pre-Altima Court?

[Ptolemy]

My boyfriend lives at Altima Court. We've been looking at old photos of East Dulwich, but can't find any of East Dulwich Road that show what was there before AC was built. Can anyone tell us? We know the building's only been up for about 6 years, really old maps show houses but Google Earth appears to show that between then and now there was a large modern (flat-roofed?) building with a car park out the front. Thanks for any info.

[Rolo Tomasi]

It was a Ford showroom. SG Smith I think.

[rememberwhen]

It was a Ford car dealer and petrol station

[DulwichFox]

It was Hartwell's Ford main dealers.. I bought my car there some time back....

Fox

[eagleken]

Mid 60's was called The Gordon Garage then became Dulwich Ford, the part of the development in Oakhurst Grove was the Council salt storage depot taken over by the Ford dealer in the early 90's.

[Ptolemy]

Brilliant, thank you! The cars on Google Earth make sense now. The image isn't close enough to make out that they're new / on show. I worked for Ford years ago, so almost certainly dealt with the dealership. Small world :)

[Ptolemy]

Eagleken: thanks for the Gordon Garage bit, that will particularly help with a web search: there must be some mid-20th century photos somewhere ...

[buggie]

It was Bristol Road Motors (part of a Ford chain) immediately before the demolition/building of Altima Court. I bought my first car there in 2001.

[Ptolemy]

Nearly all these garage names, particularly Bristol Street Motors, still coming up on business directory web searches for 31-35 East Dulwich Road, at least 6yrs after the garage was demolished. Shows you how often these directories are updated ... No photos of this part of the road yet, though. Not that a garage would make a particularly photogenic shot!

[the-e-dealer]

They used to get prosecuted for clocking.

[Huggers]

that's right, no original features.