Many of my favourite London walks were by the River Thames, back in 1987 still lined with industry, most now replaced by luxury flats, and rather less interesting. Walking along Creek Road from Deptford to Greenwich took me past a power station, scrap metal yards, sand and gravel works and a former gas works with the creek flowing past them.
The final section of Deptford power station had been decommissioned in 1983, but most of of it was still standing, though I think some demolition was taking place around it. And a smaller chimney, I think on the opposite bank of the creek, was still belching out smoke, and there were piles of sand and gravel on the opposite bank as well as the scrap metal at left where the creek went under Creek Road.
Both banks of Deptford Creek here are in the London Borough of Greenwich, something I often forgot when captioning images, expecting the creek to be the boundary. The creek is of course still there, and more conveniently for walkers there is now a footbridge across it a few yards from where it enters the Thames. A path now runs beside the Thames too, where both the power station and gas works once stood, in some ways a gain, but there is now so much less of interest to see.
I don’t remember going inside the Art Gallery at Wood Wharf, and I think it was probably now open when I took this picture. Wood Wharf is now tall residential blocks – with a riverside walkway, restaurants and a pub.
The Loyal Briton at 62 Thames Street went through a variety of names over the many years since it was built, probably around the middle of the 19th Century, possibly as a fire station, though it was selling beer by the 1850s.Its renaming as The Lone Sailor was probably after Francis Chichester’s single-handed voyage around the world in 1966-7 when his yacht Gypsy Moth was put on display not far from the Cutty Sark in 1968, remaining there until 2004, when she was restored and put back into sail. The pub closed in the 1990s, later becoming the SE10 restuarant. It had a brief time as a Chinese takeaway and gambling den, and in October 2013 reopened as a pub, The Old Loyal Britons. But the lease was only for a year, and it closed permanently in October 2014 to be replaced in 2018 by a large block of 1,2 & 3 bedroom appartments.
A workhouse was built in 1871 in Renfrew Rd to house 820 inmates and five years later the Lambeth Infirmary was built on an adjoining site, with the two being combined as Lambeth Hospital in 1922. It was taken over by the LCC in 1930 and by 1939 was one of London’s larger municipal hospitals. It continued in use under the NHS until 1976 when a new wing was opened at At Thomas’ Hospital. Parts still remain – including this building which since 1998 has housed the Cinema Museum.
This is now a part of the Peabody Head Office building, Minster Court.
The South London Opthalmic Hospital opened with two beds in a house near here in 1857, but after some growth and several name changes it moved to this larger block on the NW corner of St George’s Circus as the Royal Eye Hospital in 1892. Badly damaged in the war it reopened in 1944, becoming part of the NHS in 1948. In 1976 patients were transferred to St Thomas’s Hospital with out-patient clinics ending in 1980. It was demolished in the 1990s and a student hall of residence, McLaren House, built on the site.
The London Park Hotel was built in 1897 as the Newington Butts Rowton House, the third of its kind under Lord Rowton’s recently introduced scheme of hostels for down-and-out or low-paid working men in London. They had communal facilities including a dining hall, lounge, reading room, washrooms, barbers, cobblers and tailors shops, shoe cleaning rooms and parcel rooms for storage on the lower floors and on the upper floors were private cubicles each with a bed, chair, shelf and chamber pot, all for 6d a day. Lodgers were not allowed into the cubicles during the day. They could either eat in the dining room or cook there own food (more at http://www.workhouses.org.uk/RowtonNewington/).Originally having 805 beds, a new wing added in 1903 increased that to 1017. It was renamed Parkview House and in 1972 re-opened as the London Park Hotel. It closed in the 1990s but was for a while used to house refugees and asylum seekers. It was demolished in December 2007.
More pictures on page 7 of my 1987 London Photos on Flickr.
My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage : Flickr
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
