London Photos | >Re-PHOTO

Krishna Celebrations & A Police State

Krishna Celebrations & A Police State: On Sunday 19th August 2007 I went to photograph a religious celebration in Southall, around 11 miles from where I live. I don’t drive and it takes well over an hour by public transport but I could then ride there on my bike in perhaps 45 minutes. At the time the Climate Camp was taking place near Heathrow at Harmondsworth, but having read their “media policy” I had decided not to go there, but in the event I got drawn into it a little. Here I’ll re-publish, with some slight corrections what I wrote on My London Diary in 2007 together with pictures from from the day, both in Southall and on my way home along the north of Heathrow.

On Sunday I cycled through the light rain to the Shree Ram Mandir (Temple Of Lord Rama) in King Street, Southall, which was apparently the first Hindu temple established in Britain, although recently rebuilt. They were holding their Janam Ashtami Shobha Yaatra, a procession in honour of the birth anniversary of Krishna which this year is on September 4.

I have to admit to finding the Hindu religion confusing, but processions such as this are lively and colourful events even if their full appreciation may require a rather different mindset to mine.

It is easy to share the feelings of celebration and of community, and to feel the welcome given by so many. I also met for the first time the newly elected MP for Ealing Southall who held the seat for labour in last month’s by-election, Virendra Sharma, taking part in the procession; many were eager to pose for their picture with him.

I took a route back from Southall along the north side of Heathrow, close to the Climate Camp at Harmondsworth. On my way to Southall, along the Great South West Road which runs along the south-east of the airport, I’d been stopped and searched by police at Hatton Cross.

Its a power that police are using more and more – on average around 11,000 a month in London now, and one that makes me feel uneasy. We now seem to be in a kind of police state I’ve certainly never voted for and don’t wish to live in.

I won’t appear in the Met’s figures, despite being searched in London, as the two officers concerned had been drafted in from Surrey for the day. They were polite and we had a pleasant enough conversation, but to me it still seems an unreasonable intrusion.

Under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, the police can search anyone in an area designated as likely to be the subject of a terrorist attack – such as airports. they don’t need to have any grounds to suspect you, being there is enough.

Cycling back along the pavement by the Bath Road (a shared path) there were rather more police around, but they were too busy with more likely targets to stop me. As I came along the road I found myself riding along with a woman who was obviously hurrying to get somewhere. We both stopped at the same point, opposite where three activists had scaled the side of a small building with a banner reading “MAKE PLANES HISTORY”.

She jumped over the fence between the two carriageways to approach the protesters, while I stayed on the opposite side from where I had a better view. Later she came back to talk to the TV crew beside me which was talking to one of the protesters – obviously she was proud of her daughter’s action.

And she had every right to be proud. We need action over Heathrow, action to prevent the takeover of even more land for the Third Runway. I’ve long opposed the expansion of Heathrow – and was on the local march against the Third Runway in June 2003. Now there shouldn’t even be a possibility of further expansion, but the government must look at ways of running down the activities at Heathrow, or it will be failing not just West London but the world.

Further along the road I found protesters gathering around the British Airports Authority offices, which were ringed by police. Nothing much seemed to be happening and the media were there in force, so I left the guys to it.

I’d previously been upset by the restrictive media policy adopted by the Climate Camp, which had the effect of preventing sensible photographic coverage of the event. So I was rather less interested than I might otherwise have been in putting myself out to take pictures.

Along the road I met a few groups of demonstrators and did take a few pictures of them, including some on the bridge over the road into the airport, and a couple of the Clown Army being harassed by a police photo team, but my heart still wasn’t really in it.

The British Airways offices had seemed to me a likely place for a confrontation – and obviously the police had thought so too, as teams of black clad figures paced up and down spoiling for a fight, watched over by the guys in uniform and a group of suits. At the top of the mound in front of the offices were a couple of officers on horses.

It was like some painting of the field lining up before a medieval battle, and I wish I’d stopped to take a picture, but they were so obviously looking for trouble I decided I didn’t want the aggravation that this would most likely have caused. For once you will just have to imagine it!

More pictures on My London Diary:
Janam Ashtami Shobha Yaatra
Heathrow Climate Camp Protestors

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Wimbledon Chariot Festival – 2010

Wimbledon Chariot Festival: On Wednesday 18th August 2010 I went to Wimbledon to photograph one of London’s more colourful annual festivals, the procession by the Tamil community from the Shree Ganapathy Hindu Temple around their local streets.

The temple was opened here in Effra Road, in a building that had been built as a mission hall by Trinity Presbyterian Church, a ‘Scottish Church’ founded in Wimbledon in 1883.

In 1887 they had set up a mission Sunday School in South Wimbledon and numbers grew so they built St Cuthbert’s Hall on Effra Street in the mid 1890s. Around 194 this became St Cuthbert’s District Church. On my 2010 post I wrongly called it Anglican rather than Presbyterian.

The Church was still a party of Trinity when falling membership led to the decision in 1956 to sell the building to the Sir Cyril Black Trust, who renamed it Churchill Hall. Black, who died in 1991, was MP for Wimbledon from 1950 to his retirement 1970 and was a strict Baptist, known for his far right views and opposition to liberal reforms, but strongly supportive to the local community and a founder of the Wimbledon Community Association.

The hall in 1981 became the Shree Ganapathy Hindu Temple and its church hall the Sai Mandir prayer hall.

As I noted in 2010, “As well as traditional temple activities for its Tamil community, the temple has a “more holistic approach to providing for the spiritual, moral and emotional needs of our devotees” with various talks, classes and health seminars. Together with the Sai Mandir it also takes part in a wide range of community projects in the London Borough of Merton and more widely, including meals on wheels, food for the homeless, and conservation work as well as welcoming local children, students, teachers and others to come and learn about Hinduism. In recent years it has also worked to support Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka.“

On My London Diary as well as the many pictures there is quite a long introduction about the event which involved a procession around the area with statues of three of the Temple deities, two on chariots and one on a palanquin.

The chariots are pulled by crowds of worshippers, there are musicians, women with bowls of flaming camphor and huge numbers of coconuts, many of which were flung onto rocks in large wooden boxes and shatter, while others ricochet dangerously. All of us were soon covered in coconut milk.

Men stripped to the waist roll along the street holding coconuts in front of them. People present baskets of fruit and coconuts to the Temple priest on the chariot to be blessed and the priest distributes flower petals and other gifts.

It took a couple of hours for the procession to travel what would have been at most a ten minute walk, after which celebrations were to continue inside the Temple

I and my colleague who was also photographing the event were made very welcome at the festival and invited to continue inside and eat a meal, but we had to leave. I’ve not returned as I felt my coverage in 2010 had probably covered the event sufficiently and I would only been repeating myself. This year, 2024, the festival was on Sunday 11 Aug 2024.

Much more on My London Diary at Wimbledon Chariot Festival, where there is also an account of another Tamil Chariot Festival in Ealing.

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Blackstock and Brownswood

Blackstock and Brownswood: Continuing my walk from Sunday 1st October 1989 which began at Finsbury Park and continued to the Nags Head before returning to Finsbury Park. The previous post to this ended on Blackstock Road.

*Gillespie Neighbourhood Office, Blackstock Mews, Blackstock Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10b-63*

The buildings at the right of this picture are those on the left of the final picture in my previous post. Here I wanted to contrast the deco style of the Gillespie Neighbourhood Office at 102 with that of the solid Victorian house next door and its more utilitarian infill at 98.

The border between Hackney and Islington runs here along the centre of Blackstock Road and this is on the Islington side, though I was standing in Hackney to take the picture. I was in Hackney’s Brownswood Conservation Area, but the more interesting side of the road here is not in a conservation area and this Art Deco office does not even appear on the local list.

*House, Brownswood Rd, Wilberforce Rd, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1989 89-10b-52*

The development of this area was delayed by the setting up of the park in the area as in the early years of its planning the actual boundaries were not fixed. So much of the area was built up in the 1870s, giving it a unusually homogeneous architecture.

Brownswood Road runs though the area with two peculiar staggered junctions and this picture was made at one of these.

*Frinton Metal Ltd, 145a, Brownswood Rd, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1989 89-10b-53*

I think the house number is from Blackstock Road – the scrap metal and Gold and Silver buyer was in the back yard of the house at the left, 145 Blackstock Road. Although there were no ‘TO-DAYS PRICES’ listed for Gold & Silver and the shop was closed on a Sunday, there is a light on inside and I think it was still in business.

Google Maps labels this section of Brownswood Road as Lydon Row and there is no sign that there ever was a business here.

*Mountgrove Garage, 115, Finsbury Park Rd, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1989 89-10b-56*

I walked a little further on down Blackstock Road and then turned down Mountgrove Road. The house at right is on Mountgove Road and that on the left – along with the garage – in on Finsbury Park Road. Rather to my surprise Mountgrove Garage is still there, now offering ‘MOT Tyres Servicing Bodywork’ and claiming ‘ALL VEHICLES REPAIRED HERE’, though all of the notices in my picture have been replaced. I think it looks rather less impressive now.

*Shops, 162-176, Blackstock Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10b-41*

Back on Blackstock Road I photographed this nicely detailed row with ground floor shops and facing more of the same on the opposite side of the street. I chose this one for the sign which I think at the top read OFFICIAL BOOKING OFFICE with MOTOR COACHES between the first and second floors and lower down ALL ROAD ROUTES and RAIL SEA AIR.

That sign has I think been restored since 1989 and is clearer now, but the uppermost word, already difficult to read in my picture has disappeared. Rather than a booking office the shop is now a book shop.

*Head, 198-200, Blackstock Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10b-42*

A little further down Blackstock road was this head above BESTOCK FURNISHING, a secondhand furnishing shop, the kind of place we bought chairs and tables when we were poor, and on the shop front of RITEMARKS LTD FOOTWEAR MANUFACTURERS a variety of symbols – a sunflower and two leaping fish. I think the window between these is a reflection of the building in my next picture.

*217, Blackstock Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10b-43*

Built as Highbury Fire Station by the LCC in 1906 it was one of many closed in 1920 after the replacement of horse-drawn engines by motorised fire engines meant that stations could serve a wider area.

As a young man around 1920 my father worked for a short time at Dennis Brothers Limited in Guildford. He was (among other trades) a carpenter, having grown up working with his father making horse-drawn carts, and they were then still making wooden fire engines, as well as ‘charabancs’ – open motor buses. Cutting the curved doors for these was a tricky three-dimensional job and he did it freehand.

Since I photographed it this Edwardian Arts & Crafts locally listed building has been converted into the Little Angel Day Nursery with flats above.

Nags Head to Blackstock Road – 2019

Nags Head to Blackstock Road: Continuing my walk from Sunday 1st October 1989 which had begun at Finsbury Park and then gone along Seven Sisters Road to the Nags Head in Holloway.

*Coleridge Rd, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-12*

I turned around at the Nags Head and walked back towards Finsbury Park, taking a little detour down Hornsey Road, Tollington Road and Medina Road befor returning to Seven Sisters Road and photographing from the opposite side of the road I’d walked along earlier.

These shops at 218-230 Seven Sisters Road are those I had photographed earlier in the walk but had mistaken for some further down the street but the location is clear from this picture. They have been more greatly altered since 1989 than those further down, and those at the right, closer to the camera demolished.

You can also see the ‘Sisters Gowns’ doorway featured in the previous post at the right on Coleridge Rd.

*Shops, 220-224, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-13*

A view of some of the shops in the row. At the centre of the picture you can see the sky through two of the windows. I think these shops were still all open, though closed on the Sunday morning when I took the picture although the buildings are up for sale. There are lights on in HARRY .O. Fashions and FANTIS BUTCHER still has its shop fittings and scales.

The middle shop was I think a café with a price list at the right, although like many in the area I think was probably more of a social club. When I went past when many of these small cafés were open there were a small group of men drinking coffee around a table and having animated conversations and it would have been rather daunting for an outsider to enter.

*Rainbow Theatre, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-14*

Built as Finsbury Park Astoria in 1930 it became a music venue as The Rainbow Theatre, finally closing in 1982. When built it was an entertainment venue and its interior included bars, cafés and there were concerts and variety shows as well as films on offer. It was Grade II* listed in 1974 largely for its interior which was described as a Hispano-Moresque fantasy.

From 1956-82 it was a music venue, featuring performances by Tommy Steele, Duke Ellington and many others. The Beatles Christmas Show had a short season here in 1963-64 and it was here that Jimmy Hendrix first burnt a guitar. In the 1970s almost every name in pop music played concerts here.

For some years it was then largely unused, with occasional unlicensed boxing matches taking place. Plans to convert it to a bingo hall came to nothing. When I made this picture it seemed to be empty and unused but had been bought by an evangelical church, The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God who are still using the building.

*Man at Telephone Kiosk, Police Box mural, Blackstock Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, Hackney, 1989 89-10a-15*

One man makes a phone call, while the murals show Dr Who running out from his Police Box and a Hokusai inspired wave. The notes on my contact sheet locate this on Blackstock Road. I think it was the wall in front of a Victorian college which was demolished and replaced by the City And Islington College, Centre for Lifelong Learning which opened in 2005.

*Shops, 56-58, Blackstock Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-16*

You can still just make out the sign above 60 Blackstock Road, though it has faded significantly since I made this picture. Then there was no doubt it had once been a CHEMIST and it is now a dentists. But 58 is still a coin operated laundry although it has changed from Launderama to LAUNDERETTE, and the sign between the first and second floor windows has been refreshed to reflect this.

*C Richards & Son, 98, Blackstock Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10b-62*

C Richards & Son, next to the entrance to Blackstock Mews at left, were Typefounders and makers of printing machinery. The house is still there but the entrance at right and the two floors above it have gone, along with the Honda garage, replaced by modern housing and I think the house is now simply residential.

Seven Sisters Road – 1989

Seven Sisters Road: on Sunday 1st October 1989 I took the Victoria Line tube to Finsbury Park (a couple of pictures here) and walked through the park to its most easterly corner, the junction between Green Lanes and Seven Sisters Road at Manor House.

*Finsbury Park, The Manor House, Manor House, Haringey, Hackney, 1989 89-10a-53*

A view from beside the wall to Finsbury Park by the gate. This area was know as Woodberry Down before the Manor House Tavern was first built here on 1830-4 at the crossroads with Green Lanes, a turnpike or toll road, after a 1829 Act of Parliament had allowed the building of Seven Sisters Road.
Local builder Thomas Widdows had owned and lived in a cottage on the site and saw a business opportunity, though it is unclear why it was given the name Manor House – probably because it sounded posh.

It opened as a ‘public house and tea-gardens’ in 1834 and its first landlord advertised it, writing “The Grounds adjoining are admirably calculated for Cricket, Trap-ball, or any other amusement requiring space. There is likewise a large Garden and Bowling green, good Stabling, lock-up Coach-houses, &c. Dinners for Public and Private Parties.

The original pub was demolished in 1930 when the road was widened and the Piccadilly line Manor House station built here, and replaced by this attractive Flemish style building with just a hint of Art Deco. The pub and tube station led to the area becoming known as Manor House, with the name Woodberry Down being revived for the large post-war housing estate built a little to the east by the LCC from 1948-62.

You can learn more about its interesting history and varying clientele – including its time as a major Blues venue in the 1960s – in the Wikipedia article cited. The pub closed around 2000 and its ground floor became a supermarket in 2004.

*Shops, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-42*

Finsbury Park was a rather run-down area in 1989 and some friends were worried about my safety as I walked around the area carrying a bag full of expensive camera equipment, but I had no problems. People were friendly though sometimes clearly thought I was mad to be taking photographs of their streets and shops.

At left is KYPRIAKON KAFENEION, shown more clearly in my next picture. Between the shops are decorated pillars and above them rather odd decorated stone balls. I think the shops were probably added a few years later to the mid-Victorian houses behind.

*Cypriot Social Club, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-43*

You can still see this row of shops on Seven Sisters Road, in the parade between Yonge Park and Medina Road*, and I think this Cypriot cafe is now a dentists. In 1989 there were many Cypriot businesses in the area, but the area is now more diverse and has a large Muslim community. None of the businesses in my previous picture are still present.

* I have now decided that these shops are those at 218-230 Seven Sisters Road which can clearly be seen in a photograph I took later on this walk. They were very similar to those further down the street but have been more altered since 1989, and some demolished.

*Sisters Gowns, Coleridge Rd, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-44*

Sisters Gowns, a few yards down Coleridge Road was also clearly a Cypriot business, and one of many clothing manufacturers in the area, which has now become one of London’s most vibrant fashion areas, particularly around nearby Fonthill Road.

This doorway could still be seen iin a derelict building n 2008, but the whole corner site was demolished soon after, although the site was still empty in 2022.

*Shop Interior, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-31*

I think this busts and bodies were for wale along with other pieces of equipment for use in shop displays, but it looked to me like some kind of kinky torture chamber. Though shopping for clothes is often a torture, particularly when accompanying others who are looking for them. I’m not sure what the football is doing here.

*Shops, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-32*

An extremely motley assortment of buildings from different periods, including BANGS, established in 1907, but I think the frontage at least is from the 1930s.

Rather to my surprise, these buildings are still there, though the shops have changed and below BANGS rather than JANE CAST LTD is now a Tesco. Even the building at the right of the row which appeared in my photograph to have no visible support is still there as well as the pub surrounded by scaffolding have survived. The Eaglet, built in 1869, was apparently badly damaged by a Zeppelin in 1917 but recovered and is still open.

North London Drapery Store, Axminster Rd, Seven Sisters Rd, Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10a-35 — *North London Drapery Store, Axminster Rd, Seven Sisters Rd, Holloway, Islington, 1989*

Built in 1938 as North London Drapery Store this Art Deco store was damaged in the war. In 1989 it was used by a variety of businesses including London International College. It has recently been converted to provide 118 expensive flats, with shops on the ground floor.

*Nags Head Market, Enkel St, Seven Sisters Rd, Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10a-36*

According to ‘Streets With A Story‘, “Robert Enkel from 1830-49 owned property and
occupied the nursery until 1834 when Cornelius Crastin and his family took over and continued as nurserymen until at least 1890. The street name disappears by 1975.” Enkel’s family came from Holland and his name was given to the street which dated from around 1875-6. As you can see the street name was actually still there in 1989.

There is still an Enkel Arms pub a few yards away on Seven Sisters Roadm but Enkel Street disappeared with the development of the Nags Head Shopping Centre in 1992. And there is a Nags Head Market indoors at 22 Seven Sisters Road, apparently since 1975.

More to come from Seven Sisters Road.

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A Walk in the City – 2019

A Walk in the City: Take a walk around parts of the City of London with me and my camera five years ago on Wednesday 7 Aug 2019. The first part of the walk I was on my own, but later I met up with a couple of friends and we continued to walk around but visited several interesting City pubs before ending up with a meal at what must be the worst Wetherspoons in Greater London at Cannon Street Station. Though I suppose it’s handy if you want to catch the train.

I’d taken a bus from Waterloo to the City and got off at St Paul’s and walked down to St Andrew’s Hill where I wanted to retake digitally an image I had made on film over 30 years ago.

Taken from the steps of St Andrew’s by the Wardrobe Church, the view of St Andrew’s Hill and the Cockpit pub was a taxing subject on film with the foreground in Wardrobe Terrace, and I never quite managed what I wanted. Using digital gave me a rather better result with no problems.

I walked on down to the River Thames and made some views along the river with the Millennium footbridge and the Shard now rather dominating the scene.

The tide was very low and I went down the steps onto the foreshore, though I needed to be careful walking on the stones and mud as I was only wearing a light pair of shoes which were very much not waterproof. I walked along under the Millennium Bridge and on towards Queenhithe, taking quite a few pictures.

The foreshore can be dangerous and the tide comes in rapidly. Although anyone is free to visit it, searching in any way – metal detecting, ‘beachcombing’, scraping and digging etc requires a https://pla.co.uk/thames-foreshore-permits PLA permit. You are advised to wear sensible footwear and gloves – which of course I wasn’t – and to watch out for hazards including raw sewage, broken glass, hypodermic needles and wash from vessels. I stepped very carefully.

Buried below the sand and mud at Queenhithe are the remains of part of London’s Roman harbour and the later medieval quay. A scheduled ancient monument, it is probably the only existing Saxon harbour in the world, presented by King Alfred the Great in 883 AD to his brother-in-law Ethelred. It got the name Queenhithe later when the harbour dues became the property of the wife of Henry I, Queen Matilda. The dock was still in use mainly by the fur trade in the early 20th century, and there were still fur shops in the area around in the 1970s.

I didn’t stay long on the foreshore and couldn’t remember where the next set of steps up from it were, so went back onto the Thames Path where I had come down and walked east towards Monument Station where I was meeting two photographer friends.

One of my friends had planned this walk and I was just a little surprised to find we were going back to one of the places I had visited earlier, St Andrew’s Hill, though less surprised when we went into the Cockpit pub.

The pub is on a historic site, originally part of one of the gatehouses of Blackfriars Monastery. There was a pub here when Shakespeare bought a house nearby. And undoubtedly there was somewhere here where cock fights took place until cockfighting was banned – along with dog fighting, bear baiting and badger baiting – in 1835. But this is a Victorian theme pub, rebuilt around 1865, though some at least of its interior decoration almost certainly came from actual cockfighting venues. But punters never stood in the closed galleries here to watch fights. Now firmly on the tourist circuit it is still worth a visit, if just for a pint of Harvey’s Sussex Best Bitter.

Our walk continued through more of the streets in this area and then across New Bridge Street and on to Bride Lane and St Bride’s Passage and The Old Bell Tavern, once very much part of Fleet Street, the Street of Shame. The Old Bell Tavern is on the site where it all started, when in 1500 Wynkyn de Worde who had worked with William Caxton set up the first print shop on Fleet Street. The building is apparently derived from one that Christopher Wren knocked up for his masons when they were building St Brides, the journalists’ church.

Our walk more or less finished there, though we took a bus to Cannon Street Station for cheap food at the Wetherspoons, though I found it very disappointing. Spoons do much better almost everywhere else. I caught a bus from St Paul’s Churchyard, sat in the front seat on the top desk and it had unusually clean windows so I took a few more picture on the way back to Waterloo.

More pictures from the day at City & Thames.

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Cows, Cindy, Fonthill and Finsbury Park – 1989

*Milking, Friern Manor Dairy Farm, Stroud Green Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9f-63*

Cows, Cindy, Fonthill and Finsbury Park: I couldn’t resist posting another of those sgraffito panels from the former Friern Manor Dairy Farm on Stroud Green Rd, though I suspect even when these were made the conditions for both cows and milkmaids were very different from those enjoyed in the stalls behing the facade.

Modern dairy practice is of course also very different as you can see in Andrea Arnold’s 2021 cinéma vérité-style film ‘Cow‘, not made as vegan propaganda but giving a very direct view of how we use animals to produce food for the masses. Watching it didn’t convert me to the vegan cause but I do think we need to have and enforce much stricter standards of animal welfare – though those in the UK are already firmer than in most countries. I already pay more for milk and would happily pay even more.

*Cindy Trading Company, Hanley Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington,1989 89-9f-66*

The Old Diary is on the corner of Hanley Road and I walked down here just a short distance and photographed this shopfront which appeared to be of a former travel agency, possibly the ‘Flight Line Cruise’ whose phone number is written large. The Cindy Trading Company whose name is on the door was later listed as a hardware store selling a range of DIY and home improvement items at 186 Stroud Green Road, a short distance away – and is now a dissolved company.

At right is an advertisement for Metposts and I may have been attracted by this as I had recently put in a fence on one side of my garden at home using these. It wasn’t quite as easy as the advert suggests and by the time I’d finished and put down the sledgehammer I’d decided digging and concrete might have been easier.

*Shop, Fonthill Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9f-45*

I’m unsure what route I took from Hanley Road to Fonthill Road, possibly going down Regina Road or Evershot Road. I took a couple of pictures – neither digitised – of an interesting yard with two rather strange bell towers in the background, nothing like anything that I can now see in satellite images of the area, possibly a long-demolished public building,

Fortunately the location of this picture is confirmed by the reflection of the street sign for Fonthill Road. Also reflected is a sign for John Rowan Bookmaker, the company which developed the well-known Rowans Tenpin Bowl opposite Finsbury Park Station on Stround Green Road in what had previouly been a tram shed, cinema and Bingo hall.

By 1989 this end of Fonthill Road was already beginning to become one of London’s major fashion centres – and a few pictures I’ve not yet digitised reflect this. A few from 1989 in colour start here.

My walk on 24th September was coming to an end, and I took just one more picture of a shopfront on Seven Sister Road before catching the Victoria Line on my way home. But I was back in Finsbury Park a week later and I’ll include a couple of pictures from the actual park, Finsbury Park to end this post.

*Free Nelson Mandela, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9f-31*

Nelson Mandela was released unconditionally from Victor Verster Prison on 11th February 1990 following years of campaigning for his release. Most of the other graffiti on this wall is unintelligible black scribble at least to me, but I can also make out in white ‘PARANOID EYES’ -presumably from the song on Pink Floyd’s 1983 album The Final Cut.

*New River, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9f-21*

The New River was dug in 1613 to supply fresh drinking water to London from Chadwell and Amwell Springs near Ware in Hertfordshire.

Finsbury Park is around three miles from Finsbury which is on the northern edge of the City of London. People in Finsbury in 1841 signed a petition calling for a park that the people living in poverty in the area could make use of, and this was one of four sites that were considered.

This was around the last remains of the old Hornsey Wood, and by around 1800 had been developed with tea rooms and later a pub, as well as an artificial boating lake using water pumped up from the New River, and it was a popular place for shooting and archery “and probably cock fighting and other blood sports.”

There was some local opposition to sharing the area with the poor of Finsbury but the plans for what was originally to be called Albert Park (after Queen Victoria’s husband) went ahead, and the renamed Finsbury Park was approved by an Act of Parliament in 1857, though only completed and opened by 1869.

*New River, Finsbury Park, Manor House, Haringey, 1989 89-10a-02*

Lack of finance meant the park had deteriorate significantly by the 1980s, and the situation – like much in London – was greatly worsened when the Greater London Council was terminated with extreme malice by Thatcher in 1986. Haringey Council became responsible for the park “but without sufficient funding or a statutory obligation for the park’s upkeep.”

More recently £5 million Lottery Funding has enabled significant renovation of the park and its facilities. I last went to the park in March 2023 for the planting of a tree in memory of peace campaigner Bruce Kent by local MP Jeremy Corbyn and Kent’s wife Valerie. Both Kent and Corbyn were members of the Friends of Finsbury Park, with Corbyn now being a patron.

Adidas, Wallenberg, Iraq – 2012

Adidas, Wallenberg, Iraq – Three very different events on Saturday 4th August 2012. You may remember that we had the Olympics in London in 2012 and War on Want held an Olympic-themed protest against the official Olympic sportswear partner. People celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of the great heroes of the last century and on the nearest Saturday to August 8th which Iraq celebrates as end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988 there was an Iraq festival on the South Bank.

Adidas Stop Your Olympic Exploitation – Oxford St

War on Want came to Adidas in Oxford Street at the peak of the London Olympics to highlight their claims that workers making clothes for the official sportswear partner of London 2012 get poverty wages are not allowed to form unions and have little or no job security.

They say thousands of workers making closing for Adidas in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and China are not paid enough to cover basic essentials like housing, food, education and health care. Wages are so low that workers often need to work far longer hours than are legal – up to 90 hour weeks and are told if they try to organise trade unions to defend their rights, they face harassment or they will be fired.

Because of the pressures of the Olympics, Oxford Street was being policed by Scottish officers who objected to the protest involving games including badminton and a hurdles race on the grounds that people walking past might be injured by the players.

War on Want protesters moved a few yards onto a side street to continue their protest, but then came back onto Oxford Street to continue the hurdles races, with two runners making their way over the hurdles of ‘POVERTY WAGES’, ‘UNION BUSTING’ and ’90 HOUR WEEK’. The police let them play for a few minutes before telling them they had to stop as Adidas had complained – and they owned the area pavement in front of the store.

A woman from Adidas’s PR agency came to talk to me as I was beginning to take photographs and later sent me a detailed statement in which they denied War on Want’s claims but only provided any evidence based on activities in Bangladesh rather than the countries War on Want was protesting about. War on Want also published a press release giving detailed evidence on which their protest was based.

The protest was still continuing when I had to leave well over an hour after it began, with people still handing out leaflets including a freepost postcard to Herbert Hainer, the CEO of Adidas, care of War on Want, calling for Adidas to end the exploitation of workers.

More pictures at Adidas Stop Your Olympic Exploitation.

Raoul Wallenberg 100th Anniversary – Great Cumberland Place

People around the world were celebrating Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who working in Budapest during the Second World War saved over 100,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps by issuing them with ‘protective passports’ identifying their bearers as Swedish subjects awaiting repatriation.

Although these had no legal status, they looked impressive and, sometimes with the aid of a little bribery, saved the bearers from deportation.

Wallenberg was born in Sweden on 4th August 1912 and was detained by Russian Security Services SMERSH during the siege of Budapest as a suspected spy on 17 January 1945 and taken to Moscow where he was most probably executed in the Lubyanka prison in 1947.

The London ceremony took place around the monument to him in Great Cumberland Place, outside the Western Marble Arch Synagogue in 1997. The statue by sculptor Philip Jackson, shows shows Wallenberg standing in front a a large wall made of stacks of the passports with his name inscribed high on it.

There were readings of Psalms, an address by Rector Michael Persson from the Swedish Church in London about Wallenberg, whose actions followed the Lutheran ideal of living, a calling to be yourself and to do good for other people. Wreaths were laid and there were a number of speeches with the event ending with a choir from the Swedish church singing.

Raoul Wallenberg 100th Anniversary

Iraq Day Festival, Queen’s Walk, South Bank

The festival had been “organized to celebrate the games with a hint of Iraq flavor” by the Iraqi Culture Centre in London and sponsored by Bayt Al Hekima- Baghdad in conjunction with Local Leader London 2012 program.

There was Iraqi music, art and food, although since it was taking place in Ramadan many of the Iraqis at the festival were fasting and unable to eat during the event.

*These Kurdish musicians were told they had to leave and another group of Iraqi musicians replaced them*

Although there was much of interest things didn’t go smoothly, either with the weather where there were some heavy showers or between the organisers and some of the performers.

One woman angrily stormed off the platform, furious at what she felt was cultural discrimination against the Kurds. And after I had been asked to photograph a fashion show that was to start in two minutes there was a loud and bitter argument between its director and the organisers, and an hour later when I went home it had yet to start.

More pictures Iraq Day Festival

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Crouch Hill & Stroud Green – 1989

Crouch Hill & Stroud Green: My walk on Sunday 24th Sepember 1989 continued after I took a train from Blackhorse Road to Crouch Hill. Then the Gospel Oak to Barking line – apparently called by some the Goblin line was one of the least reliable in the country – perhaps it should have been called the Gremlin line. But for once a train came – and on a Sunday too!

The line is now part of the London Overground with a much improved service and in February this year was renamed the Suffragette line. It now also runs beyond Barking to Barking Riverside, though as yet there seems little reason to ever go there.

*Marion Gray, Antiques, 33 Crouch Hill, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9e-21*

Almost immediately out of the station was the fine house, on the end of a rather less grand terrace on the west side of Crouch Hill. The station was opened in 1867/8 as a part of the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway and this accelerated development in the area.

This house was sold in 2017 having long been converted into a ground floor nursery with three flats above. Last year it was covered in scaffolding, presumably for a major refurbishment.

*Crouch Hill, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9e-22*

These shops are on the east side of Crouch Hill, immediately north of Japan Crescent and south of the railway. They still look much the same although the shops have changed and become considerably less useful.

I was attracted by the decorated brickwork, obscured on the leftmost building by some unfortunate cladding, and the curved brick partitions between the houses about the shop fronts.

At extreme right is the pub sign for Marler’s bar, opened in 1983 in a former post office. It’s a pub which has gone through a whole pile of names apprently including Hopsmiths, Noble, Big Fat Sofa, Flag, Racecourse, Tap and Spile and Brave Sir Robin. Andrew Marler was a partner of Tim Martin of Wethersppons, but the history of their collaboration appears to be dulled by alcohol and variously recorded.

Fytos Fashion at 34, Crouch Hill, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9e-23 was one of the 20 images that was a part of my web site and book ‘1989’, ISBN: 978-1-909363-01-4, and above is the page from that.

*Alley, Crouch Hill, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9e-24*

I can tell you little more about EKASA ENTERPRISE WHOLESALE DISTRIBUTOR other than the list printed here – CONFECTIONERY TOBACCO STATIONERY DRINKS GREETING CARDS MEDICINE E.T.C.

They shared the alley, reached through a carriage entrance between shops at 17 Crouch Hill, with Albert E Chapman Ltd, whose sign including also Stretchwall U K Ltd was there until at least 2011.

*Bowler Products Ltd, 14-16, Crouch Hill, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9e-25*

I hoped that Bowler products Ltd made either cricket balls or hats but they were Importers and Wholesale Distributors of a whole range of goods listed on their shop front but neither of these.

*Old Style Delivery, Friern Manor Dairy Farm, Stroud Green Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9e-12*

According to the Hornsey Historical Society this Grade II listed building “with its seven sgraffito panels, was built specially for the Friern Manor Dairy Farm Company on the site at the rear of Hanley Road, where the company rented cowsheds and stables.” There had been a dairy here “from the middle of the 19th century, first by Davis & Co. and then by George Taylor” but this building dates from around 1889-95. The company began earlier and an inscription states ESTABLISHED AD. 1836 The artist of the seven panels and architect are unknown, though the bricks came from Tommy Lawrence of Bracknell.

The buildings were let in the 1920s to United Dairies who used them until 1968. After this they eventually in 1997 they were carefully restored to become The Old Diary pub. This closed in 2020 but was reopened in 2022.

Present Day Delivery, Friern Manor Dairy Farm, Stroud Green Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9e-26 — *Present Day Delivery, Friern Manor Dairy Farm, Stroud Green Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989*

I photographed all seven panels, and you can find some more pictures of them on Flickr, but here I’ll just share the two, one showing ‘Old Style Delivery‘ by two milkmaids with a yoke across their shoulders carrying pails, and this one, ‘Present Day Delivery‘ with the milkman driving a horse and cart carrying large churns.

Even as far back as I can remember in the immediate post-war years our milk was delivered using an electric milk float, at first I think a trailer with the milkman walking in front with a handle to control the power and steering and later with him sitting in a cab. But I do remember a visit to the outskirts of a small town in Germany back in the 1970s where the milk cart was horse-drawn and the milkman measured out the milk using litre or half-litre jugs into the containers brought out by the hausfraus.

We still now in our suburban area get our milk delivered in bottles by a milk operative in the middle of the night driving a now silent electric vehicle.

Schools, Warner Estate, Baptists & Art Deco – 1989

Schools, Warner Estate, Baptists & Art Deco: My motivation for this return to Walthamstow was I think to photograph the building whose pictures end this post. On a previous visit I had – for the only time I can remember – lost a cassette of exposed film. I’d realised this later in the same morning and had gone back on my tracks to search for it to where I changed films, but without success. And there had been one building I had photographed that I was keen to have pictures of as Art Deco was one of my particular themes at the time, working for a never published book, London Moderne. But I’d decided to walk around some other areas again before going to take those pictures.

*Markhouse Road Schools, Markhouse Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-63*

Markhouse Road Schools it tells us on the building were ‘REBUILT 1907’. Walthamstow was forced by the government Education ministry to set up a school board 1880, before which there were “5 Anglican schools, 5 run by Protestant nonconformists, and 3, including an orphanage and an industrial school, by Roman Catholics.” The school boards provided elementary education for 5-13 year olds. Mark House Road board school opened in 1891 with infants, boys and girls departments.

Unfortunately the schools burnt down a few days before Christmas in 1906 and were almost completely destroyed. Walthamstow Urban Distric Council who had been running elementary schools in the area since 1903 rebuilt them and they reopened in 1908.

The school became a secondary modern school in 1946 and closed in 1966, though the building remained in use for various educational purposes for some years until it was finally demolished a few years after I made this picture.

Nat West, Bank, 10, St James's St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-66 — *Nat West, Bank, 10, St James St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-66*

The rather fine entrance to the NatWest bank in St James St; the building on the north of the corner with Leucha Road, is still there, one of the two blocks built by the Warner Estate featured in the previous post on this walk, but the doorway, now for a food store, is sadly bereft of dragons and decoration.

*Houses, Leucha Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-51*

Leucha Road, one many streets built as part of the Warner Estate in Walthamstow got its name from one of the family, Leucha Diana Maude who was the daughter of Clementina and Cornwallis Viscount Hawarden Earl de Montalt, a Conservative politician with an Irish peerage. Clementina was a noted amateur photographer and had ten children, eight of whom survived infancy, so there was no shortage of names for streets around here.

This was one of the earliest to be developed on the Warner Estate in 1895 and the buildings on it are two storey maisonettes, called “half houses” by the Warners.

Leucha Road was acquired by Waltham Forest Council in the late 1960’s and they repainted the doors which had been green like all other Warner properties in what the Conservation Area statement describes as “a pale and inappropriate “Council-house” blue“. The Warner Estate sold off 2400 of their properties to Circle 33 Housing Trust (now part of Circle Housing Group) in 2000 and of these 600 still had outside toilets.

*Shops, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-52*

Another picture of some of the Warner estate shops in the High Street with at the left a rather strange ‘streamline’ feature which I think must have belonged to a building to the left demolished in some road-widening scheme.

*Pretoria Ave, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-55*

A house at 2-4 Pretoria Avenue with a rather nice gable, I think also a Warner building.

Baptist Church, Blackhorse Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-41 — *Baptist Church, 65, Blackhorse Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-41*

A curiously barn-like structure dated 1932, Walthamstow (Blackhorse Rd) Baptist Church. This building replaced a ‘tin tabernacle’ in which the congregation had been meeting since 1898. The church is still a “friendly multi-cultural church in Walthamstow.”

Hammond & Champnesss Ltd, Works, Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-45 — *Hammond & Champnesss Ltd, Works, 52, Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-33*

Not dated but also obviously from the 1930s was this building for Hammond & Champnesss Ltd on Blackhorse Lane.

Hammond & Champnesss Ltd was established as in 1905 by cousins Ernest Hammond and Harold Champness to make hydraulic water-powered lifts. They were joined by Ernest’s brother Leonard and for some time the company was Hammond Brothers and Champness Ltd.

Hydraulic lifts are raised and lowered by a piston inside a long cylinder with fluid pumped in to move the piston which is connected either directly or by ropes and pulleys to the lift cabin. They can be used in buildings up to five of six stories high.

Hammond & Champnesss Ltd, Works, Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-32 — *Hammond & Champnesss Ltd, Works, 52, Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-32*

Hammond Brothers and Champness Ltd went bust in 1932 and the company was taken over by E Pollard & Co. Ltd who renamed it to Hammond & Champnesss Ltd but kept it operating as a separate company. This was taken over by US company Dover Corporation in 1971 but they continued to make lift components in Walthamstow until that company was taken over by Thyssen in 1999.

The building became Kings Family Network. It was refurbished in 2014 and is now Creative Works Co-Working office space.

This wasn’t the end of my walk that day, but after taking three pictures of this building I made my way to Blackhorse Road station and took the train to Crouch Hill.

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