Telephone box children's library launches today

The telephone box library on Loampit Hill has been going for a couple of years, but now it has been joined by a companion library not far away for children - on the corner of Lewisham Way and Wickham Road

In fact today (Wednesday 2nd March) sees it official opening at 4 pm, with children's author Amanda Swift cutting the ribbon (she wrote The Boys’ Club, Big Bones and Anna/Bella, and co-wrote Guinea Pigs Online and Puppies Online with Jennifer Gray).

The phone box is already stocked with some good children's books, the format being the same as the other telephone box library - passers-by can simply choose a book and take it away, preferably swapping it for a book of their own that they have finished with.

A Welsh Church on Lewisham Way

St David's Day seems like a good time to document a lost local Welsh institution. The Presbyterian Church of Wales (Eglwys Bresbyteraidd Cymru) was open until recently at 289 Lewisham Way SE4. Its location suggests that at one time there must have been enough Welsh speaking presbyterians locally to sustain a congregation - or maybe they chose the site because Lewisham is an anagram of 'I Am Welsh'!

I am not sure when it closed, but the church and its neighbouring vicarage were put up for sale early last year and a nursery is opening there soon. The church building dates back to 1924, the minister's house being part of an earlier Georgian mansion.  The church had previously met (from 1901) at 2 Undercliff Road in what later became Loampit Gospel Hall.

interior of church (from Church Properties)

There are some recollections of the chapel in the comments to this thread at Brockley Central. Apparently the opera singer Geraint Evans (1922-1992) was sometimes among the congregation, and the actor Meredith Edwards (1917-1999).

photo by R.Sones at Geolocation

Meze Mangal is better than the Ritz

Meze Mangal in Lewisham Way SE14 features in the Evening Standard tonight:

'A family-run Turkish diner in Lewisham has beaten some of London’s most expensive restaurants to be named one of the capital’s favourites - even coming ahead of the Ritz.  Meze Mangal has been one of London’s best-kept culinary secrets since opening 12 years ago but that may be about to change after it was ranked higher than the Piccadilly landmark The Ritz, Barrafina, Whits and Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley on website TripAdvisor.

Only six London restaurants rank higher than its 95 per cent approval rating - Gordon Ramsay’s flagship diners Petrus and Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, Brett Graham’s The Ledbury, Michael Roux’s La Gavroche, Da Palo’s in Charlotte Street and Mayfair’s Goodman steakhouse, which between them they hold a small galaxy of Michelin stars.

Sahin Gok, 43, and his brother Ahmet, 45, came to London in the 1980s from their native north Turkey, at first working in a Wimpy in Kingston-upon-Thames.They opened their own kebab takeaway in Ladywell in 1987, which expanded into a neighbouring cafe nine years later. They took on the premises in Lewisham Way, St John’s, in 2000, at first living in a flat above the shop...

TripAdvisor has been criticised for allowing unverified anonymous reviews - a point not lost on those who ranked below Meze Mangal the online ratings - but Sahin took issue with suggestions that the restaurant was inflating its rating by asking customers to post positive reviews.

He said: “If we’d asked them to put reviews up they wouldn’t do it - people never do something if you tell them to. I only found out that we were in the top 10 a couple of months ago when one of the customers told me.”

Headline is a slightly misleading 'Kebab shop in Lewisham beats The Ritz for customer satisfaction on TripAdvisor' (it's definitely a Turkish restaurant rather than just a kebab shop) but good to see this great place getting some recognition.

And don't forget Meze Mangal has its own song too!

Quality Comics in Lewisham Way

A pleasant stroll on my 'New Cross and Deptford Radical History' walk a couple of weeks ago, from the Hobgoblin to the Birds Nest and back again. Around 40 people came along, which made the sun come out especially. I don't count a walk or talk like this a success though unless somebody chips in with some new information. So I was pleased when somebody pointed out that a shop in Lewisham Way played a key role in British comics.

Quality Comics was right next door to the Marquis of Granby at 3 Lewisham Way, and seems to have originally been opened in 1975 as Weird Fantasy by Frank Dobson. The rooms upstairs were sublet to Dez Skinn as the base for his emerging comics publishing empire. As Dez recalls, from 1979 he also acquired the shop, renaming it Quality Comics (photos above are from Dez's site).

It was in this period that his Quality Communications launched Warrior magazine as a kind of home grown UK version of a Marvel comic. The 26 issues published between 1982 and 1985 were very influential, featuring among other things the first episodes of Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta

Quality Communications also published the Halls of Horror series from its New Cross office. Not sure how long the New Cross shop/office continued - last Lewisham Way address I have found online for Quality Communications Ltd is from 1984.

Anybody know any more or remember the shop?

Update January 2013 - I came across this advert  for Quality Comics 'home of Warrior' today in a 1988 issue of the comics magaazine Speakeasy, so clearly the shop was still going then.