I’ve never travelled on the Orient Express, but years ago one of my late friends, Terry King, got what seemed to be a dream job, working on an advertising commission for the company.
He’d gone to their offices with his portfolio of gum bichromate prints and they had sat around them in awe in their kaftans (it was then a rather new age company.) I’ve described elsewhere how Terry, Randall Webb and myself had all started investigating the process but Terry had evolved his own methods of progressing with the process, using several large paper negatives printed in different tones and colours and with carefully controlled manual development at each stage to produce highly pictorial results.
So Terry got a free trip on the Orient Express to Venice, where he spent a few days taking pictures before returning to his London studio and working on the results, producing prints to take back to the company. He went in to show them the results and immediately sensed the company had changed management; in place of kaftans the executives were now all in smart business suits and ties. They didn’t appreciate his work and the project was abandoned.
Terry did make some fine prints of his work in Venice, and some of them will still be hanging on people’s walls around the country, with sales through an art dealer in Richmond. (I have one of his pictures of London on my wall – we did a swap – but not of Venice.) Until recently you could see some of them on his web site, but that is no longer on line. The only example I can find is on the Silverprint web site, a company which supplies fine photographic materials – including some of the chemicals and sundries that both Terry and I used. It is a picture from Venice and I think is possibly a cyanotype over a gum image, though it could possibly be simply a gum using two shades of blue.
I have met Sarah Moon (above with photographer Joan Fontcuberta), though only fairly briefly when we were both speaking at the FotoArtFestival in Bielsko-Biala in 2007. We shared several meals at the event and had some long conversations and there are a few more pictures of her in my diary.
Sarah Moon with film-maker Nina Rosenblum and photo-historian Naomi Rosenblum
Which brings me – finally – to the reason for this post, Sarah Moon : Orient Express – Louis Vuitton Editions – which was featured on ‘The Eye of Photography‘. This is a book in their Fashion Eye collection, a series in which each “book evokes a city, a region or a country, seen through the eyes of a fashion photographer.”
LV is a French fashion house and luxury retail company founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton, who introduced a range of luggage with flat-top trunks for travel, which meant they could be stacked, particularly on rail journeys – previously trunks had been made with rounded tops so that the rain would run off when they were carried on open waggons and carriages. The Orient Express which began in 1883 thus seems a very appropriate subject.
You can read about this book on the UK LV web site, which has the same selection of stills as ‘The Eye of Photography’. But if you scroll down the page there is also an over- rapid ‘page-through‘ video of the book, which gives a good idea of the size and layout of the work. And if you change the video to 1080px, make it full screen and stop the playback you can actually see and read the pages. Presumably you can buy it in their shops as well as on-line, but at £42 (including standard delivery) although it looks an intersting book I find it a little too expensive – like their luggage.
I’d gone to North Woolwich in February for a walk by the Thames and intending to go around Albert Dock Basin, but because of transport problems I had run out of time and had to cut the walk short to go and photograph a protest in central London. Since then I’d been trying without success to find time to complete the walk. It seemed a long way to go just to finish this short walk so I hadn’t wanted to go out just to do this, but on Thursday August 1st I had an event beginning in the morning in Brixton and then another starting around 7pm in Mayfair, and as it was a fine day I thought I would have plenty of time.
I made my way from King George V station as directly as possible to the entrance lock to the Royal Docks where I had cut short the walk on the previous occasion, taking few pictures, and then began a leisurely stroll along a section of the Capital Ring.
I was mainly interested in making some panoramic images of the area. I was disappointed to find that the riverside path still stops at Armada Green and I hope one day it will be possible to walk aong to Barking Creek. Instead I had to follow the Capital Ring and go down Atlantis Avenue and then turned down Gallions Road to go down past the Gallions Hotel (which I photographed around 40 years ago) and then beside Albert Dock Basin to go up on the Sir Steve Redgrave Bridge, which passes at a high level over the Albert Dock Basin, giving some good views of the dock and the surrounding area.
On My London Diary you can see over 60 panoramic images I made on the walk along with a slightly smaller number of less wide views. The panoramas(except for a couple including the example above) are cropped to a 1.9:1 ratio, while the other images have the standard 1.5:1 aspect ratio. The panoramas use a cylindrical perspective, which results in some curvature of any non-vertical straight lines except for the horizon which I place at the centre of the image when making the picture, though the crop may raise or lower it. The curvature is more marked towards the top and bottom edges.
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.
There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media. And small donations via Paypal – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.
The Docklands Light Railway was one of the good things to come out of the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) which was founded by the Tory government in July 1981, though it only came about because the Tories had cancelled earlier plans backed by Labour to extend the Jubilee Line from Charing Cross all the way to Woolwich Arsenal on cost grounds.
The DLR was put forward as a cheap alternative (and many years later in 2009 it did reach Woolwich Arsenal) and was referred to by many as a ‘Toy-Town’ railway. Certainly now it is a rather slow way to get to Woolwich, and the Jubilee Line is seriously faster to get to Canary Wharf or Stratford, but the DLR has provided a very useful local link as well as providing a direct link from the City of London to Canary Wharf.
I first photographed the DLR seriously for a project on transport in London which was exhibited at the Museum of London in 1992, making use of a newly purchased Japanese panoramic camera and working on the extension then taking place to Beckton. During that project as well as working from the ground I also photographed on my way to the area through the front and rear windows of the driverless trains, as well as out of the side windows.
During my journey to King George V station from the city, I found myself sitting next to a clean window, and took advantage of this to take a number of pictures. My return journey was less fortunate, with a train with windows that were rather dirty, and few of the pictures were successful. I think in the early days they cleaned the trains more frequently than seems to be the case now.
I’d boarded the train at Bank Station, and began taking pictures as it emerged from the tunnel, but most were taken on the section of the line from Poplar to London City Airport which opened in 2005.
Time for a little more colour on >Re:PHOTO, and looking back to warmer and sunnier weather at the start of August last year.
The Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March has been an annual event in London http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2014/08/aug.htm#rastafari since 2014, which was the centenary of the foundation by Marcus Garvey of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Jamaica. Garvey had spent the previous two years working as a journalist and studying in London and founded the UNIA as as a means of uniting all of Africa and its diaspora into “one grand racial hierarchy.” The organisers of that first march intended it as a one-off event, but others took over insisting it should be annual. This was the first time I’d managed to cover it since 2014.
Garvey chose the date as 1 August 1834 was Emancipation day, following the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, when slavery was ended in the British Empire. Claims for reparations for descendants of those enslaved by the Atlantic Slave Trade came to the fore in 1999 when the African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission called for a payment of $777 trillion to Africa within 5 years, and in 2004 a case was brought and lost against Lloyds of London and Jamaican Rastafarians made a claim for £72,5bn for Europe to resettle of 500,000 Jamaicans back in Africa which was rejected. Other claims have been lodged on behalf of Guyana, Antigua, Barbuda and Barbados.
I felt a little apprehensive at photographing this event, and just a few people have shown a little hostility towards me, though many more have been welcoming. Anyone who has grown up white in the UK has obviously benefited from the historic proceeds of slavery (as so do those of any other origin living here) but I’m fairly sure that my ancestors were not among those carrying out and profiting from the trade. They will have been being exploited by that same class that was enslaving Africans; some thrown off their lands by the Highland Clearances to make way for sheep. Others will I think have been at the heart of the emancipation movement. They will have received nothing of the huge financial compensation that was paid to the enslaving class, which created a debt which members of the British public were paying off through taxation until 2015.
This year the march was divided into 9 blocs, although in practice there was a great deal of overlap. One of these was the Ubuntu – Non-Afrikan Allies Bloc which included Extinction Rebellion XR Connecting Communities.
While I think there is a firm moral case for reparations, I think the demands are unlikely to impress European or American governments, certainly not on the scale being claimed. And I wonder if the demand actually deflects from a more important need for decolonisation of Africa and the Caribbean as well as other areas of the majority world, reclaiming national assets from the various multi-nationals that are now continuing the exploitation of the continent.
I left the march as it made its way through Brixton towards Parliament where there was to be another protest rally in Parliament Square.
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.
There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media. And small donations via Paypal – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.
The 13th of the series of posts of selected black and white pictures I made in 1980 with the comments I posted more recently daily on Facebook. Larger versions of the pictures are now available on Flickr.
I used often to walk past this scrawled message on my way into Waterloo Station, though I can’t remember exactly where it was, but these stairs are long since demolished or hidden away from the public. The area was dimly lit and I think I photographed it on several occasions before getting a satisfactory result.
There was a certain desperation about the lettering which looked as if it had been made quickly by someone who dipped a hand into white paint to make these marks. And I pondered on what message was intended, as I stopped to photograph it in the rather dim light.
Albert Memorial, Kensington. 1980 26i-62: monument, girls
Back in 1980 on my way to the Serpentine Galley I stopped to look at the Albert Memorial, then open to the public in much the same way at Nelson’s column still is, with tourists and their children climbing on the lower levels to have their photographs taken with the sculptures at its four corners and surrounding it.
As I was photographing a group of four girls came and climbed up on the low ledge to put their hands on the figures of the great artists – including Masaccio, Raphael, Michael Angelo and others – along the base of the memorial. This was the second of two frames I took of them.
Chelsea Bridge, Chelsea. 1980 2l-55: power station, bridge, runners, people
In December 1980 it was my turn to organise the month’s photographic outing for the small group of photographers I was involved in. Somehow my plan for a walk from Victoria to Battersea and Wandworth lacked appeal and I was the only person who turned up for it.
Taken with the Leitz 35mm f1.4 Summilux, the large circular flare patch is something of an enigma. I think it likely that the lens was well-stopped down, since I was working on ISO400 film (Ilford XP1) and the negative is quite underexposed. The low December sun has resulted in long shadows and a dramatic image, with Battersea Power Station and the people in near silhouette.
The sun was just out of picture at top right, and this negative was virtually unprintable in the darkroom
Chelsea Bridge, Chelsea. 1980 26l-56: power station, bridge,
Another picture from almost the same place, but without people and with different flare. As well as a couple of large ellipses there are also some rather vague ‘rays’ and a small black spot… The specks in the sky are birds.
One of Battersea Power Stations four chimneys was hidden behind a part of the bridge in the previous picture, but here we can see it clearly with smoke emerging. The western half of the power station was closed in 1975, but the eastern half, where smoke is emerging from the rear chimney remained in operation until 1983.
Earlier in 1980 the whole power station had been listed Grade II as there were grave concerns for the future of the building. Unfortunately listing failed to save more than the shell of the building and its roof was removed in the late 1980s. Various development schemes fell through and the building was left to rot. The listing was revised to Grade II* in 2007, and the redevelopment of the whole area began in 2012.
The four chimneys were removed by the Malaysian-owned developers in 2014 because they were heavily corroded, but have now been replaced by near identical replicas. The power station development is due for completion in 2019, providing 254 homes along with offices and retail space, with the whole 42 acre redevelopment being completed by 2025. It is part of the huge 561 acres Nine Elms development – almost 0.9 square miles.
The Lost Property office was on Eccleston Bridge, on the corner of Bridge Place; the building is still there but the Swan Vestas advert has long been painted over and the building passed to other uses.
The foreground wall and the office building in the background are still there though the offices have been slightly updated.
I pass this roundabout every time I take the train into Waterloo. It was the location where Alex and his Droogs attack a tramp in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. The roundabout links Trinity Road with Wandsworth Bridge.
Back in 1980 all of the riverside around here was industrial. NF graffiti were common over London. I think the tilt in this picture was deliberate, perhaps to increase a sense of unease in the scene.
Fence with NF graffiti, Wandsworth. 1980 26r-21 fence graffiti, worker
Some effort has been made to make the corrugated iron fencing more attractive by painting it in two colours. I can’t read the flyposted notices, which do appear to have a radioactive hazard symbol on them but the National Front graffiti is clear and was unfortunately common across London at this time.
I’m not sure exactly where this was taken, although the wall behind the fence is fairly distinctive, as are the steeple and flats at right. It was probably on or close to Vicarage Crescent or Lombard Rd.
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.
There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media. And small donations via Paypal – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.
Continuing the series of post about the black and white pictures I made in 1980, with the pictures and the comments I posted more recently daily on Facebook.
I’m fairly sure this was somewhere in Fitzrovia, where a few frames earlier I had been outside the Northumberland Arms, at the corner of Charlotte St and Goodge St, recently renamed The Queen Charlotte, perhaps to avoid confusion with another Northumberland Arms on Tottenham Court Rd.
Why a shop window should have these four pyramids at its front is now certainly a matter of mystery at least to me, though presumably they were some kind of display stands. Apart from this what drew me to take four very similar frames was clearly the mix of reflections and interior which make the image difficult or impossible to decode.
Another shop window in Fitzrovia which again poses something of a conundrum. It is clearly the window of a betting shop, which a fairly small distance between the glass and a screen behind, required then by law to prevent us seeing the inside of the betting shop. And the picture clearly has a mix of actual objects – the light bulbs and some peeling pictures of racing horses on the back of the window glass – and their shadows from late afternoon evening sun ( it was taken in July or August.)
The upper row of horses and riders are on the rear of the glass, with some peeling away more than others, and where they have peeled away slightly they now appear like shadows (though because they are closer to my camera are slightly large than the shadows), and the almost white riderless horse appears to have no shadow at all and nor does the lettering ‘P OFFICE’.
Clerkenwell Green, London. 1980 25f-31: houses, works
The Farringdon Enamelling and Plating Works of A Smith were, along with Upholsterer R H Dillon on Clerkenwell Green as the window above the door helpfully informs us, and another business with a name beginning with ‘EN ‘and ending ‘P…..R’ has its ‘Works at Rear’.
Attracted doubtless both by the signage and the peeling paint, emphasised by the glancing sun, I had already made two frames when this man in a dirty white coat and striped tie walked out.
This little section of the street can still be recognised, but has gone up considerably in the world. One of the windows has been converted to a door, the paint no longer peels and the signage has disappeared. The building at right has been replaced by a modern structure with giant glass windows, The door from which a man is emerging is now for the Hammond Cox Casting Agency, the next window has been converted into a door for the Provision Trade Benevolent Institution and others, while the door at left, then a typesetter, is now for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The tree is still there.
Behind me as I took this picture were public conveniences, which may well have been the reason for my visit, but which have been long closed.
Cross Keys Square, Little Britain, London. 1980
25f-42: passage, houses
Inside ‘Little Britain’, I think this is part of Cross Keys Square, and shows some clearly fairly elderly buildings, one of which, its windows now covered with corrugated iron, had previously been a Hairdressing Salon.
Much of the area was derelict when I took this picture and parts were inaccessible, with demolition or building work being carried out. The reflections on the brickwork at left interested me, and part of one of them rather looks like a shield or coat of arms, not dissimilar to the City of London’s which were on the light fittings.
Little Britain Club, City of London. 1980 25f-53: club, waste ground
Somewhere in the middle of ‘Little Britain’ was this club, and a patch of really overgrown waste ground, either formed by wartime bombing or later demolition.
Little Britain a century earlier had been famous for its ‘The Roaring Lads of Little Britain.’ who held weekly sessions at a pub “bearing for insignia a resplendent half-moon, with a most seductive bunch of grapes” run since “time immemorial” by the Wagstaff family and whose current landlord member presided over its singing and story-telling, according to Washington Irving in 1886.
The street number, 179, is almost certainly for Aldersgate St, and this was one of the many addresses listed in the planning application for demolition in January 1982, which was I think approved the following year:
“Demolition of all properties listed below, per dwg. ME/1: 11, 12, 13, 15, 16 Bartholowmew Close, 1 & 2, 7, 8, 4 & 11, 5 & 10, 6 & 9 Albion Buildings, 179 Aldersgate Street, *3 Little Montague Court, 1,2,3, Westmoreland Buildings, 4 Little Britain, 14, 15 Albion Buildings, 2a, 3, 4 Cox’s Court, 2, 2a, 3, Cross Key Square, Crown Buildings, Cox’s Court. The Garage on site of 21 Albion Buildings, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, Little Britain, part of pedestrian walkway link to Rotunda * also 2 Little Montague Court.”
I think it was on a part of the site now occupied by London House, 172 Aldersgate St. These flats, “high-standard, fully serviced accommodation in London for the international business traveller”, have beside the entrance plaques stating it was the former site of London House. This was built for Henry Pierrepont, 1st Marquess of Dorchester (also the 2nd Earl of Kingston-upon-Hull) 1606-80, apparently a thoroughly unpleasant character, and after 1660 became the home of the Bishops of London.
After the bishops moved out it was let out to various tenants before briefly becoming in 1750–1751 the ‘City of London Lying-in Hospital for married women and sick and lame Outpatients’; it burnt down in the 1760s.
Albion Buildings, City of London. 1980 25f-54: shop, waste ground
Also a part of ‘Little Britain ‘ was Albion Buildings, dating according to a stone in its frontage from 1766 (a second stone to the right is unreadable.) The sign above the door, which shows a stylized animal, a winged lion, with one of its front paws on what I think is an open book, is dated 1903. It perhaps reflects the time when this area was still the centre of the London publishing and secondhand book trade, which had been here since at least the 17th century. Pepys records a visit to Duck Lane (as Little Britain was then called) where he “kissed bookseller’s wife and bought Legend“. As well as going there to see the bookseller’s wife he is also recorded as buying several other books.
Albion Buildings (according to Webb – see comment below) were built in 1764 on the site of a 16th century house and gardens. In 1628 they were occupied by the Earl of Westmoreland and known as Westmorland Buildings, getting their name later from the Albion Tavern. Previous to 1764 the passage they are on was called Porridge Pot Alley.
The building on the left edge still has a fluorescent light on and appears to be still in use.
There is a very detailed account of the buildings and history of the area in E A Webb, ‘The parish: The close precinct and glebe houses‘, in The Records of St. Bartholomew’s Priory and St. Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield: Volume 2 (Oxford, 1921), pp. 213-231 on British History Online. The map at the National Library of Scotland collection from 1896 is useful in understanding the layout of the area, though much had changed by 1980.
Albion Buildings, City of London. 1980 25f-62: shop, waste ground
This small row of shops and businesses were I think empty – some clearly so, when I made this picture, I think from the elevated walkway along the side of the Barbican estate.
At left was a button maker ‘H R C….’ on the first floor and ‘Ernest Stark’ on the ground, then a business whose name is obscured by a three. At 6 was John Lovegrove & Co Ltd, then H R Thompson (with an unlikely ‘To Let’ sign) and ‘Basinghall Elect…’ presumably Electrics or Electrical… I have been unable to find any information about any of these.
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.
There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media. And small donations via Paypal – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.
Continuing the series of post about the black and white pictures I made in 1980, with the pictures and the comments I posted more recently daily on Facebook.
Man walking on Riverside wall, Greenwich. 1980 24n-63: man, woman, children, power station
A man was walking on the riverside wall, to his right perhaps a 20 ft drop, probably not into water but into thick mud. The lifebelt which should have been below him was missing, but it probably would have been of little use.
I’m not sure if he was having some kind of mental health problem, or was drunk, or possibly both, but didn’t feel there was much I could do to help – and trying to do anything might even have made him fall. So I took a picture and walked on. I did keep an eye on him and by the time I was leaving the area he had come down safely.
Child posing on riverside fence, Greenwich. 1980 24n-66: child, river, power station, cranes,
Another picture of a girl standing beside the railings but with rather different framing from those in my previous post, with the river visible below the fence, the bottom rail of I’ve carefully aligned along the riverbank.
This was actually taken a few seconds before the previously shown picture of her. My filing and numbering system is based on contact sheets and films were not always developed and filed exactly in the order they were taken. I was using two cameras to take black and white images, an Olympus OM1 with a 35mm shift lens for carefully composed images such as this and most of the urban landscape work, and a Leica M2 with which I was trying to develop a more intuitive approach, reacting without conscious deliberation.
I based my numbering system on a sheet number for each sheet (here 24n) and then a number based on the position on the contact sheet rather than frame numbers. Because I was loading film from 100ft rolls into cassettes of roughly 36 exposures the first frame on the film might be any number from 0 to around 38 and the sequence usually jumps from 38 to 0 somewhere in the middle of the film. And sometimes I would load a strip of film, cut to appropriate length in total darkness, measured between two nails on my darkroom door so that the frame numbers actually went in the opposite direction.
I cut my developed black and white films into strips of 6 frames to put into filing sheets, giving 6 strips and often a shorter length of 2 or 3 frames. The filing sheets I used had 7 pockets so could accomodate a single film, and it was just possible to expose all 6 or 7 strips on a single 8×10″ sheet of photographic paper to produce a contact sheet. But frame numbers were not always visible on these, so I used a simple system to give a unique number to every frame. This negative, 24n-66, is on contact sheet 24n, on the sixth strip of negatives (numbered 1-6 or 0-6 when there was something worth keeping on the film end) and the 6th negative on that strip.
In 1986 I moved to a slightly different system of naming the contact sheets that included the year and month in their name, making it rather easier to find things.
Surprisingly this corner is still easily recognisable, though the advert has changed, with a taller hoarding; the gates, no longer for a scrap metal merchant, are now firmly closed by two iron bars and the skeletal structure behind has disappeared completely. This is on the corner of Quaker St and Commercial St, and the building at the left is still there on the corner of Shoreditch High St and Great Eastern St.
Govette Metal & Glass Works, Park Hill, Clapham, Lambeth. 1980
24y-53: children, swings, dog,
Govette is originally a French name, and a couple of them came over with William the Conqueror back in 1066 and were given land in Somerset. The name was often spelt without the final ‘e’.
Govette Metal & Glass Works, a family firm and was established in 1956 in Clapham, and in the 1970s split up into several divisions, with Govette’s remaining in Clapham. They closed the factory there in the mid-nineties and specialised in the supply, installation and glazing of steel windows and doors, establishing Govette Windows Ltd in 1996, and are now based in Whyteleafe. They also now have a factory in South Godstone.
Albany or ‘The Albany’ is a mansion in Mayfair that was extended and converted in 1802 into 69 bachelor flats, with the addition of two long ranges of buildings which ended at the back gate shown in the picture. The flats are rather like the rooms in an Oxbridge college, which are known as ‘sets’. Apparently you no longer have to be a bachelor to live there, though children below 14 are not allowed.
The flats generally have an entrance hall, two main rooms, and a smaller room and are owned freehold but subject to a whole number of rules. In 2007 one sold for around £2m. Around half of them belong to Peterhouse College Cambridge. Most are rented with an annual rent (according to Wikipedia) of up to £50,000. Many famous people have spent some time as tenants here, including someone of particular interest to photographers, W H F Talbot.
I’ve never understood why people come to sit at Piccadilly Circus. It isn’t a place where there is much to see or much to do, but every tourist has to visit it.
And as most Londoners probably know, the statue on top of its slightly more interesting plinth, put there as a memorial 1892–1893 to commemorate the philanthropic works of Lord Shaftesbury is not Eros but his brother, the Greek god Anteros. Made of aluminium, then a relatively new (and expensive) metal, was called ‘The Angel of Christian Charity’ and the memorial was originally on a roundabout in the centre of the circus where it is now on one side.
‘Eros’ has actually got around quite a bit. Originally in the centre of a mini-roundabout at the centre of the circus, in 1925 he went to Embankment Gardens so they could build an enlarged Underground station, coming back in 1931 to a slightly moved roundabout. During WW2 he took a trip out to Coopers Hill above Egham, while the fountain below (it never really worked as a fountain, and after a single day the drinking cups had been vandalised) was covered up. Eros came back with a great fanfare in 1947, but I think shortly after was moved aside to where he still stands on one leg, though he gets covered up every year for a month or so for Christmas celebrations, as people find him attractive to climb up to or hang things on.
‘Eros’ is not unique as years later several more casts were made from the mould. There are a couple up in Lancashire, one now in storage which used to be in Sefton Park, and another corroding by the seaside at Fleetwood. The most recent, made in the 1980s, in the art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide.
Little Britain, City of London. 1980 25e-42: doors
Little Britain is now simply the street these doors are on, running between Aldersgate and King Edward St, but was earlier the name of the whole area to the north up to St Bartholomew’s Hospital and Smithfield, which was once the residence of the Dukes of Brittany. In the distant past it was the centre of the book trade, which later moved south to Paternoster Row, which was destroyed by bombing in the Second World War.
Parts of the crowded warren of streets and alleys still remained when I took these pictures, though it was difficult to find a way into them, with alleys leading from Little Britain and Aldersgate to what remained of Cross Key Square, Montague Place and Albion Buildings.
Continuing the series of post about the black and white pictures I made in 1980, with the pictures and the comments I posted more recently daily on Facebook.
Reeds Wharf, Bermondsey, Southwark. 1980 24m-44: wharf, warehouse,
Looking across the mouth of St Saviour’s Dock, with the New Concordia Wharf having a short frontage to the river, and beyond its three bays are the those of China Wharf and then Reed’s Wharf.
China Wharf was the site of the controversial building by CZWG, completed in 1988, a rather hideous pink and glass frontage jutting out into the river, which destroys this row of warehouses. At best it could perhaps be called playful, but I rather wish architects would keep such playing to their private dreams rather than inflict them on us. I can imagine sites where it might be appropriate, but this was not one.
There is now a footbridge across St Saviour’s Dock taking the path across and along in front of the New Concordia Wharf, and a further bridge leads across to Downings Roads, one of the oldest river moorings, now more often known as Tower Bridge Moorings, home to around 70 people and the floating Garden Barge Square, with the largest single collection of historic trading vessels on the Thames, some over 100 years old.
St Saviour’s Dock, Bermondsey, Southwark. 1980 24m-45: dock, warehouse, crane,
Another view of St Saviours Dock. The path here was a dead end in 1980, and walkers had to walk back to the right of where this picture was taken and then down Shad Thames to the head of the dock and then a few yards along Jamaica Road before turning back up Mill St. The foot bridge over St Saviour’s Dock was built 1995 and opened the following year but by 2016 needed to be rebuilt.
It was I think the neatly shuttered frontage of Sumona Photo-Studio at 168 Brick Lane which attracted me to take this picture, and the feeling that this was a photographer very carefully hiding from the world behind the facade while I was trying hard to look at it.
The building is still there, but converted to a more normal shopfront, for Oceanic Leather Wear.
Alley off Bricklane and Shoreditch Underground Station, Shoreditch, Tower Hamlets. 1980 24n-14: street, alley, station
The alley is still there but is now a path and cycle path leading to Pedley St and Spitalfields City Farm. Shoreditch Underground Station had been the terminus of a short underground line leading via Whitechapel to New Cross and New Cross Gate. When I photographed it, the station was closed on Sundays, and in later years only opened at rush hours Monday to Friday and for a few hours on Sundays to serve Brick Lane Market. It finally closed in 2006.
The line is now a part of London Overground, with a station a quarter of a mile away, Shoreditch High St, just off the Bethnal Green Road. Last time I walked past the walls along the alley and the disused station were covered with graffiti, looking rather more colourful than in this picture.
Riverfront walk at Greenwich, Wood Wharf and Deptford Power Station, Greenwich. 1980 24n-51: child, mural, cranes, wharf, power station, river
The wall at the end of this rather neglected riverside promenade has a mural with what I think were meant to suggest the tops of boats and sails in front of some hills. It was unimpressive but served as a wind-break. Behind it were a few wharves including Wod Wharf, still in use, and then a jetty with a crane, possibly for the former gas works, and then further on, past Deptford Creek (which is hidden by buildings) the chimney of Deptford Power Station. The two cranes towards the left are on Deptford Creek.
There were mothers with prams, fathers with push chairs, old ladies sitting on seats and a few children playing here, a couple of whom came to ask me why I was taking pictures, and insisted on posing for me (see picture below.)
Children with stones, Riverfront walk, Greenwich. 1980 24n-53: child, river, barges
Two children who watched me taking photographs insisted I take their picture underneath a small row of stones they had collected on top of the rail. They are also both holding stones.
They were collecting them to throw in the river mud below where they made a satisfying splat, with mud flying out when they landed.
Riverfront walk at Greenwich, Wood Wharf and Deptford Power Station, Greenwich. 1980 24n-56: mural, cranes, wharf, power station, river
Another view of the wall with the mural. It might have looked better in colour, though I think it wasn’t highly coloured.
The cranes at right are on Wood Wharf, apparently still in use and those at left I think are on Deptford Creek, with the chimney from Deptford Power Station.
Continuing the series of post about the black and white pictures I made in 1980, with the pictures and the comments I posted more recently daily on Facebook.
Shad Thames was in 1980 a truly remarkable street, a canyon between the riverside warehouses on the left of this view and their further premises linked by bridges across the street.
Work had just begun on some of the properties, but it took years to complete. The redevelopment has kept a little of the general character but seems to me to be an empty pastiche. My heart still sinks every time I go to the area.
In this closer view you can see the girders supporting those bridges across Shad Thames, and also a number of pipes spanning the gap. Some of them may have been a part of the hydraulic power system which powered many of the cranes and hoists in the warehouses, avoiding the fire danger of other power sources. Fire was always a danger in warehouses, and one fire in 1931 when a seven storey warehouse full of rubber and tea was burning at Butler’s Wharf attracted great attention as ‘the Frozen Fire’. Around 70 fire engines and more than a thousand firefighters, along with two fire boats too several days to extinguish, with firemen working in snow and intense cold; large icicles formed on the buildings as the water ran down and it covered the roadway with sheets of ice.
You can see a remarkable story about it on the London Fire Brigade web site, complete with coverage from Movietone News.
Another picture from Shad Thames, looking up, just a few yards down the street from the previous picture. Sometimes described as a ‘canyon’ it was a dark and fairly narrow street between the riverside warehouses and their landward companions.
This paddle steamer was moored here in front of Butlers Wharf for some years, and I think may be the Tattershall Castle, once a ferry from Hull to New Holland across the Humber and now, very much altered, a floating bar on the Victoria Embankment on the north bank of the Thames. Before becoming a bar and restuarant she served some time on the Thames as an art gallery.
I’d been across the Humber once or twice on one of its fellow paddle steamers, the Lincoln Castle, a more modern design which continued in service for 5 years after the Tattershall Castle was retired in 1973. Later I had tea in the Lincoln Castle when it was a restuarant on the beach beside the Humber Bridge, whose opening in 1981 brought the ferry service to an end. I can’t recall having seen the Tattershall Castle in service.
The third of the Humber paddle steamers, built by the same yard as the Tattershall Castle also in 1934 was the Wingfield Castle, and was saved from becoming a bar in Swansea by being found too wide to fit through the lock gates and is now an floating exhibit in ‘Hartlepool’s Maritime Experience’, close to where she was built.
New Concordia Wharf, St Saviour’s Dock, Bermondsey, Southwark. 1980 24m-41: boat, dock, warehouse,
Again these buildings were only listed in 1982. Originally built as a cornmill and warehouse in 1882, they were rebuilt after a fire in 1894. I was fortunate to photograph them before they were converted to residential use in 1981-3
The notice on the wall reads “Mooring Facilities at these premises can be used when convenient by those having business here but the Proprietors do not guaranteed their sufficiency and accept no responsibility for the consequences of any defect therein“.
The barge moored here seems to have been cut off at the right hand end, and is apparently sitting on the mud.
A view up St Saviour’s Dock before any conversion. There are four cranes on the wharf at left. There are still two cranes, but they look rather different, without the shelter for the workers, and the doors of the loading bays are replaced by balconies
Some of the buildings at right were later demolished and the frontages of most of the buildings altered in the conversion to residential use. The general impression however has been retained.
