St Johns Road and the British Wax Refining Co. Ltd

So, done a little more digging around the history of St Johns road, Andy clued me up to the oldreigate.com website (they hyperlink any pictures they have in their archive on modern maps of the area), a click in the right place resulted in two wonderful shots, this one is looking up towards the church, taken in 1910 (which dates it a little bit early for our purposes, but gives you an idea) -

- and the second picture is an aerial shot of the factory that Andy spoke of -

- which was taken sometime nearer 1920, on it, you can clearly see his house (btw this picture is entitled "British Wax Refining C. Ltd., 31 St. John's Road, Red Hill, Surrey", and is attributed to "Pan-Aero Pictures, Kingston on Thames", credit where credit is due ;) -

- checking a modern satellite image of the same area (thank you Google maps), you can see the green arrow pointing at the house (it actually wanted to be just a little bit further down, and a little to the right), and the old site of the Wax factory (now, as you can see, long gone and the site transformed into modern housing)...

I didn't stop there though, a little further poking around revealed that the company didn't just vanish, they moved up the hill to the Holmthorpe industrial estate (near East Surrey College)...

They have a page detailing their history (being founded just at the start of the first World War, about 15 years before Andy popped into existence) and are still going strong now making specialist waxes like fake glass for movie special effects, moulding waxes and brass rubbing wax...

So there we go, found out a little more about where I live and made some interesting discoveries for Andy in one fell swoop... ;)

Redhill town centre in pictures

Oh well...so much for the little summer we have been enjoying, freezing temperatures today, snow overnight (enough to settle on cars and rooftops at least) and seeing as I singularly failed to get out to St Johns Road over the weekend I thought I would (as on the bus today, Flyingpops has another meeting) take a few shots around Redhill (which might interest Andy, as it's changed so much even in the short time I have been living in the area) -

- so (standing on the spot and turning clockwise) starting at Redhill railway station -

- the "Liquid and Envy" nightclub (formerly "Millionaires" nightclub, and prior to that I am guessing it was a cinema or a theatre (judging by the shape of the building), comparison shot would have been taken towards the station standing next to that silver car on the roundabout, looks like they had a bit of a flood in 1951 then! -

- the entrance to Station Road (with the McDonalds and the new Abbott pub, which looks convincingly old but was scratch built on a sliver of grass by the new market car park a couple of years ago (hence the odd shape) -

- then right back on myself looking towards the new bus station (all the buses used to stop down the high street (right next to Argos)) -

- now looking up Station road towards the crossroads in the centre of town (which has been pedestrianised), sorry about the shadow ;) -

- stopping to note the new council initiative to get people to stop dropping chewing gum on the pavement (most of which have already been smashed to smithereens by the local chavs) -

- reaching the crossroads in the centre of town, looking up station road towards St Matthews church (in the very distance), comparison pic is from 1923, then peering right at what used to be the start of London Road -

- which is now the site of the new library, Redhill theatre/cinema and giant Sainsbury's supermarket (where I worked stacking bananas as a teen) -

- and then looking left down the old high street (noting the new shopping centre, the Belfry, on the right), as I said, all the buses used to drive right down here, stopping on the left, heading eventually on into the Brighton road...lovely first thing in the morning in Redhill, but stand right here after the hours of darkness and you fear for your life due to the rampaging gangs of drunken teenagers, and ne'er an officer of the law in sight...

Update - Just spotted that BigBlue was in St Johns Road on the weekend and found the house (with pic)! I'll try and get up there (when the red van isn't there) and shoot some more... ;) I don't feel quite so guilty now... ;)

Update update - Have added in a couple of historic shots from roughly the same locations for comparisons sake... ;)

Port Joli, Nova Scotia, Canada

Where Andy lives...which he has described as "Paradise" (hard to disagree looking at that shot!)...more of his pictures here....(if you are interested)... ;)

Oh and here is 33 St Johns Road, circa 1955 (one of my targets)... ;)

Andy Dean - an Ex-Pat in Canada

The "power of the interweb" never ceases to amaze me...I had a comment left on a previous post from a chap called Andy Dean, an Englishman by birth (which occured at some point in 1931, making him about mmmf years old), a confectioner by trade, who decided to emigrate to Canada (sometime in 1957) for "purely economic reasons" asking me if I wouldn't mind (as he spotted that I hung out in the Earlswood area) getting in touch with him (and his wife Lelia, a nurse) to share a little of what has changed about the area in the last 50 years...(probably quite a lot)...

Of course, that was no problem, Andy...(even though you were cheeky about my nickname, heh... ;)

I have offered to go and shoot some pics of his old haunts - his old house in St Johns Road (should it still be standing), and what of the garden I can get access to, the factory he remembers which stood behind (should that still be there), the hospital where his wife used to work (which I happen to know is still standing, but is now luxury flats)...that kind of thing, and I thought I would post them here also (for our mutual amusement)... ;)

Just need some daylight now to go on a shooting expedition (the commute means I normally see Earlswood in dusk/darkness at the moment, which isn't great for shooting architechture)...

More on this when I have it... ;) Oh and Andy, if you have any pictures of what the place used to look like back when you lived there, I would be very interested to see... :)