Category Archives: Commerce

Mitcham Electrical Fan Co. Ltd.

Company that was likely at the factory estate at the corner of Commonside East and Windmill Road.

Auction in 1911 lists equipment being sold, and included 6 sets of X-ray machines:

Forest Hill & Sydenham Examiner – Friday 12 May 1911

By Order of the Liquidator.

Re THE MITCHAM ELECTRICAL FAN COMPANY, LTD.

Without Reserve. COMMONSIDE EAST, MITCHAM, SURREY. (near Mitcham Junction Station, L. B. & S C. Rly., and on tram route West Croydon).

Important Sale of the superior and well-kept Equipment and Stock of an Electrical Engineering Works.

MR. HARRY SIMPSON has been favoured with instructions to Sell by Public Auction upon the premises as above, on THURSDAY, JUNE 1st, 1911, at 12 o’clock noon sharp, the whole of the Valuable PLANT, MACHINERY and STOCK comprising:

A 75 h.p. “OTTO” GAS ENGINE, 4 LATHES, DRILLING, PLANING and MILLING MACHINES, Surface Tables, Table Benches, Vices, Shafting, Pulleys, Belting, SEVERAL DYNAMOS, Batteries, large number of Fan and other Motors, about 400lbs Cotton and Silk covered Copper Wire, Cables and Flexible Wire, large and varied assortment of FITTINGS, PARTS, TOOLS, INSTRUMENTS, EXPERIMENTAL APPLIANCES, and STORES. SIX SETS Of X-RAY APPARATUS, also a Motor Car, 2 Chassis, Portable Iron Building, Quantity of Timber, Weighing Machine, Hand Truck, the OFFICE FURNITURE and EFFECTS and numerous sundries. On view Tuesday and Wednesday prior to Sale.

Catalogues and orders for private view may be obtained on and after May 18th. from the Auctioneer, 61, Sydenham Road, Sydenham, SE. Telephone : Sydenham ‘529.

Sparrowhawk’s Yard

Scrap metal and former rag-and-bone site at 159 Commonside East, on the corner with Hallowwell Close.

1953 OS map of 159 Commonside East

In 1979 the childrens’ television programme Magpie did a piece on a rag-n-bone man who stabled his horse and cart at the Sparrowhawk yard:

Google Street View history has a view of the site in July 2009:

These photos were taken in December 2007, when the building of the adjacent former Beehive pub was being redeveloped.

Photo taken 16th December 2007

Photo taken 16th December 2007

 

Photo taken 15th August 2021

Photo taken 15th August 2021. The spire of St Marks church can be seen in the background.

Photo taken May 2022

photo taken May 2022

Planning application 20/P1060 says that the plan is to build 25 flats on the site. The site history in the Design & access Statement said that the site had been in the same ownership since 1926 as a scrap metal facility by Jack Sparrowhawk & Sons, which had ceased trading.


Maps are reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.