IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Spring Grove, LONDON, SE19 2TD

Alma Place is one of the shy paths and passages into the quiet domestic heart of the Crystal Palace 'triangle' – three bustling streets of local shops and businesses and unrelenting traffic. The steel 'flowers' on the right enclose someone's wheelie bins and great pots of bamboo. They are one of several pieces of ornamental steelwork in the Triangle. Alma was one of the battles of the Crimean War, 1853-55.

A pretty little row of stuccoed houses with a continuous cast iron verandah. The listed building description dates them as c1850. Grade II listed. The spire peeping up on the left belongs to the Greek Orthodox church on Westow Street.

I'll admit that at the time of taking the photograph it didn't occur to me that the dwellings in the long low terrace might be almshouses - I learnt that later, from the Listing: http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-358338-11-25-belvedere-road-se-19-greater-londo The listing suggests a date of about 1850, which (without knowing the detailed history of the area) is later than I might have guessed. I noticed the 'label moulds' - little hoods (with drop-ends) - over the first-floor windows. That seemed to me a 'Gothick' feature - more typical of the Gothic revival of the early decades of the 19th century. The design of the ground-floor windows (sorry, hidden behind the hedge) confirms the Gothick impression. But - for whatever reason - the design of almshouses often lagged generations behind mainstream fashion. So perhaps 1850 is as likely a date as any. Label moulds can be seen more clearly in my photo of the Langland almshouses in Henley - known to date from 1830: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3066061

Grade II listed terrace. http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-358338-11-25-belvedere-road-se-19-greater-londo

The centre of the Upper Norwood triangle used to be given over to light industry: joinery, engineering and so forth. Some works survive, but much of it now is made up of small housing estates, various cul-de-sac lanes into the triangle giving onto a network of pedestrian paths. Stoney Lane leads in from the south. A dark afternoon, hence the flash was used and picked out something close to the camera on the right side of the shot: I'm not sure what it is.

'Blowing Dandelion', chocolate and coffee shop, at the edge of the Crystal Palace Triangle.