My recent plea for help in identifying buildings shown on two pictures from Kingston Museum's Brill Collection has borne fruit. Paul Townsend, of Thames Ditton, Ray Austin, of Chessington, and Mr R Teffin, of Kingston, tell me the two little Kingston cottages, painted by J Grinstead in 1967, were 16 and 17 Fairfield South, and the road partly visible on the extreme right is Mill Street.

Mr Townsend remembers them from when he was 10 and would take the 601 trolley bus from Teddington to Kingston.

"I would get out at the elite cinema and walk to my uncle and auntie's house at Mill place. It was a little alley, and they lived at number two.

"I always noticed the cottages because one had a replacement bow window, which was very unusual then, and the other had a side porch that always looked as if it was about to fall down."

Mr Austin says the cottages were demolished in autumn 1967 to make way for Greenleas flats, still on the site now.

"At the time of painting a Mr George Salter lived at 16 and Mr M Trigg lived at 17," he says.

Mr Teffin, now in his 80s, recalls when the left-hand cottage had a shop next door that sold sweets. Then it was "a little place that made uniforms", and later a greengrocers.

Further information comes from Annita Barbieri of Kingston, who says the cottages are on the tithe map of 1840 and they and their neighbours at nos 18 and 19 went to make way for Greenleas.

Meanwhile the buildings in London Road, painted by Mary Malenoir in 1963, have been harder to pin down. Several readers offered suggestions which proved incorrect. Further research confirms they were numbers 117 to 123 London Road, originally three charming period houses, but divided into business premises many years ago. They appear from council records to have been demolished in 1970, and their sites are now occupied by an HSS hire shop and Alan Greenwood funeral services.

Incidentally, magnification showed that number 23, the building in the foreground, bears the sign Caf, plus a name impossible to decipher. Does that stir any memories?

These pictures, plus 89 others, form the Kingston Museum's Brill Collection. This unique record, never before captioned and catalogued, will be published soon as a high-quality art book.

jsampson@london.newsquest.co.uk