My walk on Sunday 9th April 1989 continued. The previous post was Hairdressers, Mansions, Baptists, Tiles and Greeks.
Camberwell Station Road runs south from Camberwell New Road alongside the railway line, and along its west side are a number of small businesses in the railway arches, almost all garages of some kind.
The Escort Parts Centre was on the corner with Camberwell New Road and remained in business here until around 2010. The premises are now covered with graffiti and look derelict. The number 344 does not appear to be for either street and I think is some numbering for the arches in the viaduct.
The Roman Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart is in Knatchbull Road, just past the railway bridge and is on a dramatic scale, towering above the railway viaduct.
The Grade II listing text states it was built in 1952-8 from designs by D Plaskett Marshall in a moderne style, reminiscent of the inter-war churches of Cachemaille-Day. According to Wikipedia, “Nugent Francis Cachemaille-Day (1896–1976), often referred to as NF Cachemaille-Day, was an English architect who designed some of the most “revolutionary” 20th-century churches in the country.“
Again according to Wikipedia he designed his first church in Northenden in 1936-7 and by 1963 had been responsible for at least 61, many Grade II listed. Because of its location it is difficult to get a picture of this one which provides a good overall impression.
This was little further down Camberwell Station Rd which hasn’t had a passenger station since 1916 , though if you go down far enough you can still see the former station building, now occupied by a motorbike repair shop.
Camberwell station opened in 1862 on the London, Chatham and Dover Railway’s line into Blackfriars from Herne Hill. After the closure for passengers it remained in use for goods until 1964. The goods yard is now a housing estate.
Various schemes this century have looked at the reopening of the station but all so far have been abandoned.
I walked back up to Camberwell New Road and took three pictures of terraces there ( not on-line) before going down County Grove. These houses are 22 and 24 Flodden Road. On my map the Southwark-Lambeth boundary runs down the middle of the road, making these in Lambeth.
The Survey of London states that this area was bought from Sir Edward Knatchbull in 1770 by Hughes Minet, the grandson of a French Hugenot refugee, but it was only after the railway was opened in 1863 that it was developed to meet the demand this generated for small suburban houses. Builders obtained leases from the Minet family who were public-spririted landlords and provided a church and the Minet library and also closely controlled the building ensuring a mix of house sizes. In 1889 William Minet gave the 14.5 acres to the London County Council for a permanent open space, Myatt’s fields.
The Metropolitan Public Gardens Association spent around £10,000 to lay it out as a park to the designs of Fanny Wilkinson, a suffragette and one of the first women to be a professional landscape designer. The new park was named for Joseph Myatt, a well-known market gardener who produced a number of then famous strawberry varieties including Eliza, British Queen and Deptford Vine at his nursery in Deptford. His son James Myatt brought the business to the fields here.
Joseph also experimented with various varieties of rhubarb, hoping that he could get people to eat this together with strawberries, but this proved rather less successful, though rhubarb did become popular later.
Lambeth Council became the freeholder of the Minet estate in 1968.
Lambeth Council redeveloped a large stretch along the west side of Paulet Road in the early 1970s. Although the long terrace blocks of the Paulet Road Estate are in a modern style they have a similar scale to the Victorian terraces opposite and were built using yellow stock bricks and slates like them. But they still look like monolithic slabs rather than the repeating units of the earlier houses.
The side and rear of one of the blocks on the Paulet Road Estate. I think that these stairs lead up to the front doors of the upper level flats. These buildings are some of relatively few modern buildings in the Minet Conservation Area designated in 1980.
The south end of Paulet Road ends at Lilford Road and I turned east along it, going under the railway again. I think this shop just a little to the east of the railway bridge was at No 106 and has been converted into a private residence and is no longer recognisable. There are many fewer small corner shops now.
My walk will continue in a later post. The first part my walk on Sunday 9th April 1989 is at Peckham and East Dulwich 1989.
Tags: 1989, Cachemaille-Day, Camberwell, Camberwell Station Rd, car repairs, church architect, English architect, Escort Parts Centre, Flodden Rd, garages, Joseph Myatt, Lambeth, Lilford Rd, London, London Photos, market gardener, Minet, motorbikes. Camberwell Station, Myatt's fields, Myatts Fields, Paulet Road, Paulet Road Estate, peter Marshall, Provision Shop, RC Church, Sacred Heart of Jesus, Southwark, strawberries, tyres, Upstall St, Walk, William Minet
[…] My walk on Sunday 9th April 1989 continues in this post, Cold Harbour & Myatt’s Fields. The previous post was Camberwell & Myatt’s Fields. […]