St Anne’s and St Ann’s, Wandsworth: My walk on Sunday 4th March 1990 had begun at Clapham Junction in Battersea with St John’s Road & East Hill, Battersea – 1990 and the previous post, More From Wandsworth 1990, had ended with a distant view of St Anne’s Church.
This area was towards the end of the 18th century still farmland, part of the Manor or All-Farthing, a small hamlet to the south of Wandsworth. An 1804 map shows there were still no houses here, only fields around what was then All Farthing Lane. The first houses were built here at the same time as the church, in the 1820s, but these are rather later in the century, probably around 1850.
At left is Surrey House, 6 St Anne’s Crescent. The two large semi-detached houses at 4-10 are shown on the 1873 OS map (on what was then St Anne’s Hill) and locally listed.
St Anne’s was one of five ‘Waterloo Churches’ in the Southwark diocese built “as monuments to the victories at Trafalgar and Waterloo. Building of Saint Anne’s Church began in 1820 and was completed in 1824. The architect was Sir Robert Smirke. The church was consecrated on 1 May 1824 as a chapel of ease to the Parish Church of All Saints, Wandsworth.“
Smirke was a remarkably prolific architect and “is known to have designed or remodelled over twenty churches, more than fifty public buildings and more than sixty private houses.” These included seven of the the Waterloo Churches, and he was an official government architect and an adviser to the scheme – the only example of government funded church-building which provided a total of £1.5 million to provide 612 new Anglican churches. It was a huge scheme costing equivalent to more than £125 billion allowing for inflation.
I walked past the church to St Ann’s Hill (the church is St Anne’s but the street appears to have lost an ‘e’) and north along this. Plowden & Smith at 190-4, was established in 1966 and is a leading provider of art restoration services but they are now based in purpose-built premises on Morden Road, Mitcham. They left St Anne’s Hill around 2018. The building at 190 had previously been a sorting office and is now called Sorting House.
As well as giving a good view of the frontage of the building I also liked the car parked partly obstructing the large painted sign ‘NO PARKING IN FRONT OF THIS BUILDING’. The development has retained most of the brickwork of the Victorian frontage but with more window area, and behind it and largely unnoticed from street level is a much taller modern structure which includes 9 new flats.
As I wrote in an earlier post, “The LCC designed temporary housing together with the Timber Development Association as a temporary solution to the then acute housing problem. I think these may have been replaced by new housing on Malva Close built in 1993.
Designed to last 15 years these homes came as two boxes which were craned onto piles of paving slabs and did not need dug foundations. The two boxes were than bolted together. The walls were asbestos covered with plastic and both roof and floor were made from plywood sheets sandwiching polystyrene insulation. They had a hall, living room, two bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom.”
Many seemed to have found them comfortable and were reluctant to leave, often being rehoused in less convenient locations and in pokier flats.
More to follow on this walk around Wandsworth.
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