FROM THE CLOCK TOWER TO THE VICARAGE. 97 
so many of the trees which were the glory of Lewisham, have 
been needlessly removed. 
The shops from the turning to the Lewisham Postmen’s Office 
to John’s Place (Nos. 108 to 120) occupy the site of an ancient 
house, with its gardens, of which a representation from a faded 
photograph is given in Plate 38. The house itself occupied the 
position now taken by Nos. 108 and 110, and appears to have 
been of Elizabethan date, or even older. It was occupied for 
many years by Mr. Septimus Allen. A modern Gothic villa, 
known as Brooke House, was built about 1840 on the site of 
Nos. 112 and 114, the old house was pulled down and a villa (now 
No. 108) erected in its stead, whilst a similar villa (now 120) was. 
built on a portion of the garden. Brooke House in its turn was 
PLATE 39.—SKETCH OF Mr. Wm. ALLEN's House, ON SITE OF AVENUE ROAD- 
also demolished, and the intervening space between No. 108 and 
No. 120 filled in with the present red brick shops. In front was a 
pleasant grove of plane trees, which are, alas, no more. The 
stream which ran through the town in days gone by has left a 
-good memorial of itself in this part of the High Street in the wide 
pieces of green which with a little more care might be made one 
of the chief attractions of the borough. 
From John’s Place to Fuller’s Place we have the site of a long 
low white house and its gardens, tenanted by Mr. William Allen, 
father of Mr. Septimus Allen alluded to above, a lawyer of Lincoln’s 
Inn Fields. The house itself stood where Avenue Road now runs, 
and the green infront, now partly a costermongers’ market, was 
known as Allen’s Green, and a favourite place for ‘‘ rounders” by 
H 
