The previous post about this walk on Sunday 5th February 1989 was East Dulwich and Peckham.
From Blenheim Grove I turned into Choumert Grove. George Choumert (1746-1831) was a Frenchman from Lorraine, a tanner who married into a wealthy Bermondsey family. When he became a British citizen in 1796 he probably didn’t have to pass a silly exam asking questions that few British people could answer. People could just come and live and work here as foreigners but it isn’t too clear that there was any real way for foreigners to become British back then, though they could become a British subject by a process known as denization, which granted them all the rights of citizens except political rights.
Choumert Grove, Choumert Road and Choumert Square are all named after him. Before his wife’s death he was responsible in 1815-1822 for building part of Rye Lane and Holly Grove, then called George Street. When Choumert’s wealthy wife died in 1825, he inherited her estates which gave him a very healthy income.
The grandly named Choumert Square is a later development, a narrow lane with no vehicular access, infill in the extensive back garden of a house in Rye Lane, but accessed from Choumert Grove. IdealHome ran an interesting piece on one of the small one-bed houses in it in 2018 under the headline Would you be brave enough to buy this London house of horrors for £525,000?
I turned left into Choumert Road to photograph Girdler’s Almshouses, also known as Palyn’s Almshouses. The Grade II listing begins “Row of 5 almshouses. 1852. By Woodthorpe.” The 2018 Trustees Report of the THE WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF GIRDLERS BEESTON’S, ANDREWES’ AND PALYN’S CHARITY informs us “Palyn’s Almshouses were built in 1980 to replace six almshouses built in 1852 in Montpelier Road, now known as Choumert Road, Peckham, which themselves replaced the original six almshouses founded in 1609 in Pesthouse Row, St Luke’s, Finsbury, as a result of a bequest from George Palyn, Citizen and Girdler.“
Girdlers were makers of belts and girdles and the Worshipful Company of Girdlers were granted the right to regulate trade in these items in the City of London in 1327 – and could seize and destroy any such items that did not meet their craft standards. Palyn was a Master of the guild and his will left money for the Finsbury almshouses.
I walked up Choumert Road to Rye Lane turning south down it. The rather impressive frontage of No 213, previously Bonanza stores was the site of an “EXCITING NEW DEVELOPMENT’ retaining the frontage but with an arcade of 10 shops.
Later it became the London Seafood Superstore and was renamed LOBO House. More recently it has again been redeveloped, along with the fish factory behind.
Co-operative House proudly had its name across the top of the building, along with the dates 1868 and 1932. 1868 was the date when 20 workers at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich formed the Royal Arsenal Supply Association which a few years later became the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society with branches across south-east London, including this large store in Peckham, presumably built in 1932, though replacing an older store on the site.
Co-operative societies had stores like this across the whole country, and they played an important part in getting decent products including foodstuffs to working people. We shopped at the Co-op when I was a child and my mother’s six-digit Co-op number which we had to recite at the till is still deeply etched in my memory. Every year we got a ‘divi’ based on the amount we had spent, and I think it paid for us to have a few treats and presents at Christmas which our family could not otherwise have afforded.
There is now a new block here, with ground floor shops and flats above and it carries three large dates, 1862, 1932 and 2008.
Sternhall Lane is a turning off Peckham Rye opposite the north end of Co-operative House. Timber yards like this were common in 1989, but most like this one have since been redeveloped. About all that is left from this picture is the lamp post. Buying timber now usually means driving to the outskirts rather than finding it in town centres. The wall sign COOPER’S TIMBER AND intrigued me slightly though I think the stacked timber might only be obscuring the letters D.I.Y which are on the boards on the front of the premises. Appropriately this range of buildings appeared to me to have something of a D.I.Y quality.
Nigel Rd also leads off Rye Lane just a few yards to the south of Sternhall Lane. The buildings on the opposite side of Rye Lan in the centre of this picture are still there, but at the left of the row is the end of the Co-op buildings replaced in 2008. The buildings on the corner of Rye Lane at left are still there, but there is no longer a careers office out of picture whose notice is shown here.
The road layout has changed a little and the triangle in the foreground with its keep left signs, one toppled presumably by a driver who failed to obey has gone. It was hard to see what point it had back in 1989, opposite an un-named street leading to a block of council flats, built in the early 1950s.
To be continued….
My account of this walk from 5th February 1989 began with A Pub, Ghost Sign, Shops And The Sally Ann.
Tags: 1989, Bonanza Stores, Choumert Road, Choumert Square, Co-op divi, Co-operative House, Cooper's Timber, divi9, Girdler's Almshouses, Lobo House, London, London Photos, Nigel Rd, Palyn’s Almshouses, Peckham, peter Marshall, Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society, Rye Lane, Southwark, Sternhall Lane
[…] More from my walk in south London on Sunday 5th February 1989. The previous post was Around Rye Lane Peckham 1989. […]