The previous post on this walk on Sunday 12th February 1989 was School, Meeting House, Houses & Shops – Peckham
Peckham Gold Bullion has “We wish to Purchase all Precious Metals & Stones” above the shop windows and a great deal of elaboration on notices in and on the windows below. I don’t know when the ‘EST 50 YEARS’ was painted proudly on the column at left, but the business must have been going since at latest the 1930s.
This shop, at 38 Peckham High Street on the corner of Bellenden Road is currently a mobile phone shop and internet cafe, also offering money transfer, travel agency, computer repair etc. Welch’s Florists is also long gone, its window covered by advertising for the phone shop.
Jones & Higgins opened their first small shop on Rye Lane in 1867 which grew into the large and well-known department store. The magnificent building by local architects Henry Jarvis & Sons on the corner of Rye Lane and Peckham High St dates from 1894, and the company developed down Rye Lane as far as Hanover Park, though the property on the corner there was leased to a bank (and still is a bank.) The department store closed in 1980 and by the time I made this picture the upper floors were in use as the Peckham Palais nightclub which closed around 2010, leaving much of the building unoccupied and deteriorating – and for some time a part of it was a brothel. There is a long and detailed YouTube video on the history of the site, and the shop which was built when Rye Lane Peckham was a shopping centre to rival Oxford Street. The section on Jones and Higgins begins around 19 minutes in.
Part of the store, including the orginal shop had already been demolished for the unnecessarily ugly The Aylesham Centre a small part of which is at the right which opened in 1988. There are currently plans to redevelop this eyesore including a massive 27 storey block which are opposed by local campaign group Aylesham Community Action (ACA).
The former 1894 Jones & Higgins Department Store is unlisted, and was one of the Victorian Society’s
Top Ten Endangered Buildings 2021.
This huge monolithic development along Queens Road was the Wood Dene estate, a part of the Acorn Estate built in the 1960s. It was demolished in 2007, its fate possibly hastened after the shocking murder of a woman, Zainab Kalokoh, who was holding her baby holding her baby at a christening in the estate’s community centre when shot by teenage gang robbers.
When the two joined blocks of 323 council homes were demolished in 2007 promises were made to 173 ‘temporarily’ decanted tenants that they would be allowed to return to the new homes on the site.
But the site was sold off on the cheap by Southwark Council to Notting Hill Housing Trust who originally promised to include around 116 social housing homes in the 333 new homes to be built on the site, now called Peckham Place. The housing association, now Notting Hill Genesis, took 12 years to complete the development, largely spent in bargaining the number of social homes in the scheme down to 54. But eventually they failed to provided any at all, with those 54 being marketed as “affordable” homes.
Queen’s House, close to the corner of Queen’s Road and Wood’s Rd attracted my attention because of the unusual layout of its windows, with four on the first floor and only three symmetrically above, as well as its very solid-looking porch. This Grade II listed building is thought to date from around 1725.
Another Grade II listed building, described as “Terrace of 3 houses, now shops and offices. c1700, with later alterations” and listed as 6,8 and 10 Queen’s Road.
It now looks rather better with the shopfronts removed, though as often the frontage is decorated by a large number of wheelie bins. The Surgery building at left is still there.
This house is also Grade II listed and thought to be late seventeenth century with alterations from around 1820. I’m unsure if the factory buildings and chimney behind were a part of Carty’s works which as my picture shows were ‘MAKERS OF VATS & WOODEN TANKS’ but think they are probably those of another company. There was at one time a sauce and pickle manufacturer in this area.
The house and yard behind was more recently occupied by a scaffolding company, but now the whole area around the house, including the Tuke School and the factory buildings has been cleared as far as Cossall Park has been cleared and rebuilt as housing and the listed house renovated.
This walk will continue in a later post. The first post on this walk was Aged Pilgrims, Sceaux, Houses & Lettsom.
Tags: 1989, Acorn Estate, Aylesham Centre, Carty & Sons, Endangered Buildings, Henry Jarvis, Jones & Higgins, London, London Photos, Notting Hill Genesis, Notting Hill Housing Trust, Peckham, Peckham Gold Bullion, Peckham High St, Peckham Palais, Peckham Place, peter Marshall, Queen's House, Queens Rd, Southwark, Victorian Society, Wood Dene estate, Wood Dene Flats, Wood's Rd
[…] The previous post on this walk on Sunday 12th February 1989 was Gold Bullion, Victoriana, Flats, Insurance and Vats – Peckham. […]