All our yesterdays

Libraries – old and new

Sidcup Library

The first library in Sidcup was opened in July 1930 in rooms rented for the purpose above a wine shop on the corner of the High Street and Hatherley Road. A librarian was appointed to manage the branch and its stock of 3,500 books on a salary of £165 a year. The new library was very popular, with 500 people joining in the first week.

Two years later the library moved to rooms in Hadlow House, a Georgian building in Hadlow Road, where it remained until it was demolished in 1974.

For the next seven years the library was based in temporary facilities in Nelson Place, before the purpose-built Sidcup Library opened in 1981.

Sidcup Library - Edward Heath MP at official opening on 23 February 1981

Now, after forty years of service, this library is due to be replaced with a brand new building in Sidcup High Street, on the site of the old Blockbuster store.

Sidcup library front entrance - 1987

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Our online searchable catalogue contains over 40,000 entries of local interest: X Digital images, including over 2,300 postcards X London Borough of Bexley historical records, including Council minutes X Parish records, including registers X Bexley schools’ archive New records are added to the catalogue regularly.

Thamesmead library during the 1980s’

Thamesmead Library

Thamesmead was developed during the 1960s as a new town within Greater London on the largely uninhabited Erith and Plumstead Marshes. The town straddled the boundary between the two London Boroughs of Bexley and Greenwich. Work began on a library for the Bexley section of the town in August 1972. The library, named Newacres, opened in June 1974. The name never really caught on and the library was generally referred to as Thamesmead Library in 2013 it moved to temporary facilities due to the regeneration of the area, which saw the old building demolished in April 2017.

A new iconic library building and community centre is now being built by Peabody Trust on the shores of Southmere Lake.

Bexley Archive’s online catalogue

www.bexleyarchives.org.uk

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