I have lived just down the A20 from Crittalls Corner for 21 years and wondered where the name came from? In the other direction we have Clifton’s roundabout, which was named after a garage that used to stand on the side of the roundabout. The garage is still there, but no longer called Clifton’s. A little further away is the Yorkshire Grey roundabout, named after a pub which occupied the south side. Again, the building is still there although these days it is a McDonalds restaurant. But I didn’t know anything about Crittall’s until quite by chance I came across this in a blog post.
Francis Berrington Crittall started his eponymous company in 1849, but it wasn’t until 1884 they started making their famous metal windows which even found their way onto the Titanic. The company has always been based around Braintree in Essex, so it is a bit of a mystery why a roundabout on the A20 near Sidcup where one of their factories stood on its north-west corner should have been given the accolade of Crittalls Corner.
I copied the text but sadly the browser closed before I could get the details of the blog, so a thank you anyway to the person who blogged it. great to finally know after all these years.
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so much history in ever square mile!
As a child in the 1950s I lived in St Paul’s Cray and we often travelled in my father’s car past Crittall’s Corner on our way to visit relatives. In those days it was just a junction on an ordinary road in what seemed to me at the time to be open country. The factory was still there, set back from the road, and I asked my father what it was. He explained and told me we had what were then generally called “Crittall windows” in our house. My goodness, I also remember the Yorkshire Grey very well. My bus went past it on the way to school. A very imposing building.
I believe the “accolade” of Crittall’s Corner came about because there were no other buildings there at the time. It was just locally used to identifiy that particular junction.
I have tried to find out when the factory was demolished, but even the history of Crittall’s Windows does not mention Sidcup. It only talks about Witham and Braintree in Essex. Post 1950 Crittalls were involved in a number of mergers and I had wondered if the Sidcup factory was acquired in one of these, but if already established as Crittall’s corner in 1950s, this does not seem likely.
Definitely a factory called crittalls. First saw it in 1949 when we moved to ST.Pauls cray nearby. Was a small roundabout but rebuilt to the much bigger one we see now
I guess the factory may have been closed/ demolished as part of the upgrade works on the A20 upgrade, which as far as I can tell happened in the 1980s. Today the north-western side of the current roundabout is the location of B and Q and a furniture store.