Some surviving family homes in Google Street View

Google's Street View feature has allowed me to walk along the street where I grew up and where my parents and grandparents once lived.

I was able to see for the first time in more than 30 years the road in which my grandfather James Aaron STOCKING lived at the time of his 2nd marriage, to my grandmother Jessie EPHGRAVE, in 1929. Beechfield Road, Catford SE6, was home to several of the family; 14, 16 and 18, (View image) next to each other in this long terrace were all occupied by members of the family from at least the 1920s until James' mother, Susan Caroline (Hill) STOCKING died in 1951.

My great-grandfather, also James Aaron, was born at 30 Bermondsey New Road (now Tower Bridge Road), but Street View shows how little 'original' buildings remain, so hope of finding number 30 (assuming the numbering has been retained) is very slim. A few years after his 1876 birth, the family is living at 43 Herman Road, Camberwell.  The road was also known as Bowles Road, and the STOCKING family lived here for many years, from the 1880s onwards.

Although I'd found some reference to this in the Charles Booth archive, I hadn't managed to find it on any street maps. But a 1920s A-Z shows Bowles Road as a small street off the Old Kent Road, more or less opposite Marlborough Grove, near Malt Street, Ossory Road and Olmar Street. Again, Street View shows where the road would have been (where now the Peckham Civic Centre and superstores stand).

One street that is still around is Vauban Street in Southwark, where my great-grandmother Susan Caroline HILL was born in 1875. Unfortunately, Street View obviously found the street too small to travel along, so I can only get a glimpse so far from the entrance to Vauban Street from Spa Road (View Image).