Battersea | >Re-PHOTO

Sloane Territory 1988

Doddington, Rollo, Estate, Battersea, Railway, Wandsworth, 1988 88-3f-61-positive_2400 — *Doddington, Rollo, Estate, Battersea, Railway, Wandsworth, 1988 88-3f-61*

This rather different view of the London skyline was taken on my way to Chelsea to take pictures in a very different part of London around Sloane Square, from my train window as it came out of Clapham Junction on its way to London Victoria. The sheds are between the lines into Victoria and those I travel on more regularly towards Vauxhall and Waterloo and the council estates beyond them form a wall to the north of that line, part of the great post-war programme to provide decent housing at sensible cost under both Labour and Conservative governments. Then came Thatcher.

Hans Place, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3f-54-positive_2400 — *Hans Place, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3f-54*

Though I often admire the design and detail of the great houses built from around the 1770s after architect Henry Holland leased land from Earl Cadogan and sublet building plots for family houses on a fairly grand scale, this is never an area where I feel at home. Even thought houses such as these are now largely split into numerous flats – there are ten bells at the side of the right hand door here – I still feel it is the kind of area I would be expected to doff my cap at the Tradesmen’s entrance. Harrod’s whose board appears here is a major estate agent for the properties in this area were a decent sized flat might cost a couple of grand a week.

Hans Place, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3f-56-positive_2400 — *Hans Place, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3f-56*

Much of the area was rebuilt around the end of the 19th century, and I often find the red brick and terracotta rather overpowering.

Harrods, Hans Rd, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3f-66-positive_2400 — *Harrods, Hans Rd, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3f-66*

Harrods grew from a small shop to take over the whole 5 acre block here. Charles Henry Harrod had begun as a shopkeeper in Borough High St in 1824, moving on to shops in Clerkenwell and then Cable St in Stepney before buying a single room shop on the Brompton Rd in 1849, sensing a business opportunity with the Great Exhibition which was to open in 1851 nearby in Hyde Park. Opening with just two shop assistants and a messenger boy the shop grew rapidly, taking over adjoining buildings. His son Charles Digby Harrod took over the running of the business around 1860 and was employing 100 staff by 1881. The success was partly due to the business refusing credit to any of its customers, insisting on cash, and also by delivering all goods free of charge. Remarkably the business survived being burnt to the ground on December 7 1883, managing to deliver all of its Christmas orders from temporary premises across the road, and a new building was erected within a year. Charles Harrod sold the store via a stock market flotation in 1889, but the new company kept the family name.

In 1894 Harrods employed C. W. Stephens, an architect who had worked for the Belgravia Estate to design a new building for the store. It had to be built bit by bit as Harrods slowly acquired more of the land between Hans Crescent and Hans Road and the business had to be kept open as it was rebuilt. The work was largely completed around 2012, though external and internal changes continued.

I think my picture on Hans Road shows the Coronation Tower over the entrance to the delivery yard and I think dates from 1910-2. The Survey of London describes the commercial buildings of Stephens as in the “ornate, eclectic school of late Queen Anne architecture“, noting that Harrods stands out because of its rich casing of terracotta from Doultons.

Cadogan Hall, Sloane Terrace, Sedding St, Sloane Square, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3g-14-positive_2400 — *Cadogan Hall, Sloane Terrace, Sedding St, Sloane Square, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3g-14*

Rather more to my taste is Cadogan Hall, still when I photographed it the First Church Of Christ Scientist, built in a Byzantine Revival Style, architect Robert Fellowes Chisholm, better known for his work in Madras, India where he worked from 1865-1902 when he returned to London where he had been born in 1840. Grade II listed in 1969 the church went out of use in the 1990s and was bough by the then owner of Harrods, Mohamed Fayed, who wanted to convert it to a luxury house, but was prevented in making the alterations he wanted because of its listed status. In 2000 it was bought by Cadogan Estates who converted it to a concert hall, offering it to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as their London home.

Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3g-21-positive_2400 — *Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3g-21*

The Royal Court Theatre can justifiably claim to be “the writers’ theatre… a leading force in world theatre for cultivating writers – undiscovered, emerging and established” but I think it is also a rather tricky place to photograph.

The show on at the time appears to have been Howard Brenton’s ‘Blood Poetry’, first performed at the Haymarket Theatre Leicester in 1984, in which Percy Bysshe Shelley and his mistress live with Lord George Byron in Italy in a commune of free love, writing the bloody poetry of revolution, and come to a sticky end.

The director of the Royal Court at the time was Max Stafford-Clark, who I had the pleasure of appearing on-stage with at Battersea Arts Centre along with Jeremy Hardy and journalist Dawn Foster in an after-performance panel discussion ‘Art & Accidental Activism’ of Lung Theatre’s ‘E15’ – who I’d earlier photographed on the streets of Battersea at the start of their run.

Venus Fountain, Sloane Square, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3g-23-positive_2400 — *Venus Fountain, Sloane Square, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3g-23*

Little seems to be known about the early life of Nell Gwynn, who grew up in a brothel in Covent Garden and was hired to sell oranges and other fruits in a scantily clad costume to the audience at the newly opened theatre in Bridges St (later the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane) at the exorbitant price of 6d (2.5p). Despite being illiterate she learnt to be an actress and took various roles as a part of the King’s Company, becoming a star for her performance in the 1665 restoration comedy ‘All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple’ and going on to star in many other plays.

King Charles II, who was married to Catherine of Braganza had various mistresses, and fathered seven sons by them, including two by Nell Gwyn, who was the longest serving and most loved of them all. Her elder son was made the Earl of Burford, but the younger died at the age of six.

The royal couple are depicted on the base of this fountain, designed by Gilbert Ledward R.A. (1888-1960) in 1953. My picture shows Charles II picking an apple from a tree. This relief – which also includes cupid, a deed, a hound and and a swan on the Thames – is perhaps more interesting than the Venus above. It’s presence here is said to have been because the king will often have travelled through here and down the then newly opened King’s Road to a house where Nell occasionally stayed. It seems a little contrived; at her insistence, the king had given her a house on Pall Mall and granted her son a house, renamed Burford House, in the Home Park at Windsor for when he was in residence there. She also had a summer home in King’s Cross.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

More Battersea 1988

Welsh Chapel, Beauchamp Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2d-56-positive_2400 — *Welsh Chapel, Beauchamp Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

The only one of my four grandparents I ever knew was a small lady dressed always in black, who seldom moved far from the fire and range in the back room of their house. I don’t remember her ever saying much, though I think she was still very much in charge in the house where she lived with my three maiden aunts, where our Sunday afternoons were strictly observed with only quiet activities and good books allowed, though I think we children sometimes escaped to the wilder parts of the large garden where we were out of sight. She was a Baptist, though the church she and the aunts were members of was a few miles further out of London, though having been born in Llansaintfred, Radnor she would have been home at the Welsh Chapel. Eliza Ann Davies came up to London to work in a Welsh Diary on the Kings Cross Road owned by an uncle, and it was there that she met my grandfather, Frederick Marshall, a young wheelwright and blacksmith, came into the shop some time in the late 1880s and they were married in 1890. I never met him as he was killed in a road accident 12 years before I was born.

Lavender Hill, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2d-54-positive_2400 — *Lavender Hill, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

This impressive range of shops can still be seen on Lavender Hill, just to the east of Clapham Junction station – the pub glimpsed in the distance is The Falcon on the corner of Falcon Rd. But while the Falcon is still in business, every single shop has I think changed hands since I took this in 1988. I took a few other pictures on the main shopping streets, including St John’s Hill and St John’s Road some of which I’ve posted in the Flickr album these pictures come from.

St John's Rd, Battersea Rise, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2d-35-positive_2400 — *St John’s Rd, Battersea Rise, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

The corner of St John’s Rd and Battersea Rise still looks much the same, and the Northcote Arms is still there, though with some new signage. Rhino sports has gone and in its place you can now get acupuncture and other health and beauty treatments. The place of Angel shoes has been taken by a hairdressers, its hanging sign gone, though the iron bracket from which it hung is still in place. And pedestrians are no longer fenced in at the junction.

Aliwal Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2d-33-positive_2400 — *Aliwal Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

Many quite ordinary houses such as these were finished with interesting detail as on these houses in Aliwal Road. It was I suppose then a relatively inexpensive way to add a touch of class, or perhaps a builder’s edpression of pride in his work.

Broomwood Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2d-15-positive_2400 — *Broomwood Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

65 Broomwood Road is no longer a dentists, and has lost all those signs, as well as the details of its glazing, but the door and the side panels remain as well as the decoration above. It is at the end of a short row of similar houses on the street,

Webbs Rd, Shelgate Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2d-13-positive_2400 — *Webbs Rd, Shelgate Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

Like many corner shops in London, Sacha Wines on the corner of Webbs Rd and Shelgate Rd has now been converted for residential use and customers have to go elsehwere for ‘Food, Wines, Beers, Spirits’ etc. Most of these photos were probably taken as I wandered towards Webbs Rd, not for Sacha Wines, but for the Wandsworth Photo-Co-op.

Bellson & Co, Battersea Rise, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2d-26-positive_2400 — *Bellson & Co, Battersea Rise, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

You can still fine the ball on top of a pillar on Battersea Rise, a few yards up on the south side from Northcote Road, but it takes a little imagination to recognise the scene in my 1988 photograph. The shopfront has gone and 73a is now a house, while Bellson & Co has added an extra floor, though still retaining the bay windows and porch. The changes have been made in a way that integrates pretty seamlessly and without that ball (the pillar is now exposed brick) I would have found it hard to convince myself that this was indeed the same place.

Clicking on any of the pictures in this post will take you to a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos.

More from Battersea & Clapham, 1988

I often went to Battersea in the 1980s though more often to look at and discuss photographs at the Photo Co-op which was based in Webbs Road than to take pictures. I wasn’t deeply involved but became a regular attender when they set up a ‘Men’s Group’ to look at issues around gender from a male perspective, though I don’t think I contributed much to it.

Altenburg Gardens, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2e-32-positive_2400 — *Altenburg Gardens, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

I was a little put out when the Photo Co-op changed its name to Photofusion and moved to more extensive premises in Brixton, though I did usually attend openings there and contributed quite a few pictures to its photo library.

With its new name and much improved premises it became a larger and less intimate organisation – and it’s location was also less convenient for me, with a half hour bus journey rather than a ten minute walk from Clapham Junction. And although London buses are generally very frequent (and in most respects now much improved) I spent too much time waiting at a draughty bus stop in Brixton on my way home after openings.

Gardens, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2e-33-positive_2400 — *Battersea Library, Altenburg Gardens, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

Battersea Library, Altenburg Gardens, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2e-34-positive_2400 — *Battersea Library, Altenburg Gardens, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

This charming Arts & Crafts style reference library by Henry Hyams was built in 1924 for the Metropolitan Borough of Battersea, adjoining the older library building and was Grade II listed in 1983.

Lavender Hill, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2e-23-positive_2400 — *Lavender Hill, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

Although several properties in this picture were for sale, there is no estate agents on this stretch of street and I think it is hard to find one in my pictures of the area. Walking up Lavender Hill more recently it seemed hard to find a shop that wasn’t an estate agents, which seem to be about the only profitable businesses left in London. Huge rises in property prices and increased mobility due to gentrification have created an enormous expansion in this area.

Wandsworth Rd, Newby St, Lambeth, 1988 88-2e-13-positive_2400 — *Wandsworth Rd, Newby St, Lambeth, 1988*

Unless you ride a bike it’s easy to forget that parts of London are quite hilly as this slope down towards the River Thames from Wandsworth Rd in Clapham demonstrates.

Bingo, Wandsworth Rd Snooker Centre, Clapham, Lambeth, 1988 88-2e-12-positive_2400 — *Bingo, Wandsworth Rd Snooker Centre, Clapham, Lambeth, 1988*

Built in 1909 it was one of at least 24 Temperance Billiard Halls in South London built for the Temperance Billiard Hall Co. Ltd, founded in Pendelton Lancashire. Like most or all of those in the early years it was designed by Norman Evans, and there are other examples nearby in Clapham High St and Battersea. Despite this alcohol-free start, the building later became a bar and even a night club.

Until a few years ago it was Rileys, offering a Bar with Pool and Snooker tables. In 2015 the building was gutted, retaining its facade with a rather ugly plain block replacing the rear of the building, now a hotel. It’s something of a mystery how planning permission was obtained, although unlike several others, this hall was not listed. Probably the panels across its frontage shown in my picture were part of the reason for this, and at least the conversion to a hotel has revealed or provided an unencumbered aspect, even if it is only a brick or two thick.

Thomas Memorial, Church of the Nazarene, Temperance Billiard Hall, Battersea Rise, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2d-25-positive_2400 — *Thomas Memorial, Church of the Nazarene, Temperance Billiard Hall, Battersea Rise, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

Another Temperance Billiard Hall in Battersea, also unlisted. Again it is no longer a Billiard Hall and is now a pub, with a rather large new building behind. It remained in use as a busy snooker hall until the mid 1990s, open – and usually busy – 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Converted as the Faraday and Firkin, a brew-pub, which opened in 1997, it later became O’Neills and is now The Goat.

The front of the church at left partly dates from 1823 when the building was owned and lived in by local merchant William Mellersh who enlarged it from a cottage dating from the 1750s. In 1858 it became the home of the Wandsworth District Board of Works who extended and embellished it, naming it Mellish House, there were further additions behind but it still became too small after Battersea gained its independence from Wandsworth in 1888 and they built a new town hall on Lavender Hill.

Still owned by Battersea, it served various purposes including being home to the Boy’s Brigade and the YMCA from 1890 until 1915. It was then bought by the International Holiness Mission founded in 1906 by Battersea drapers and pentecostalists John and David Thomas and was renamed the Thomas Memorial Church after David Thomas died in 1938. The IHM joined the Church of the Nazarenes in 1953. A major internal refurbishment was begun in 2011 with the church closing and reopening, still as a Nazarene church but known as Fresh Ground London.

Battersea 1988

Tool shop, Northcote Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2e-63-positive_2400 — *Northcote Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

Clapham Junction is claimed to be Europe’s busiest station with over 2000 trains a day passing through and around 60% of them stopping, including all of those I take into London. And like many others, I’ve often changed there to trains for destinations across the south of London and further afield, and less often exited to take buses.

Service Centre, Northcote Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2e-65-positive_2400 — *Service Centre, Northcote Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

But in February 1988 I left the train with the intention of taking photographs of the area around the station – which is not in Clapham which is a 10 minute bus ride away, but in Battersea. Over the years the area has also become referred to as Clapham Junction, and parts are also called by the names of some of the major streets, such as Lavender Hill and Northcote Road, but I’ve simply called it Battersea in the captions to my images, which also include the name of its London Borough, Wandsworth, the area a mile or so to its west.

In the short days of February I tended to photograph more in the areas that were within easy reach of my home so as to make the most of the light; I could leave home and be standing on the street at Clapham Junction in around 35 minutes.

Northcote Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2e-55-positive_2400 — *Northcote Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

The area to the south of the station, particularly down St John’s Road is a major shopping centre for this area of London, so it is perhaps not surprising that many of my pictures were of shops.

Belleville Rd, Northcote Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2e-51-positive_2400 — *Belleville Rd, Northcote Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

It was also a time when I was finding an increasing interest in how shop interiors, particularly those of small businesses with low set-up costs, reflection the areas and customers they served. Hair-dressers, shoe repairs and other independent small businesses very much came from the communities they served.

Northcote Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2e-53-positive_2400 — *Northcote Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

Many of these businesses are now gone. Few people now get their shoes repaired – and like some other areas they are now largely served by franchises. Tastes in various areas have changed, often dramatically, and of course in recent years shops have been hit by a move to on-line in many areas.

Lavender Hill, Falcon Road, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2e-43-positive_2400 — *St John’s Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

My apologies for some technical deficiencies in some of these images, most noticeable in some of the skies. Unfortunately this is a result of considerable under-development, probably resulting from an exhausted or incorrectly replenished developer. Digital retouching could improve them, though probably not entirely eliminate the effect and it very time-consuming. But the blemishes, though annoying, don’t prevent you seeing the subject, so I’ve published these here and on the web despite the blemishes, though I have never shown prints from them.

St John's Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-2e-42-positive_2400 — *St John’s Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988*

If you walk down these streets today – or when the ‘non-essential’ shops re-open, expected to be on 12 April you will see the differences from 1988. The streets around Clapham Junction now look rather more like those in any main street around the country and the area has been considerably more gentrified.

All from my album https://www.flickr.com/photos/petermarshall/albums/72157715589148871/with/50254685063/ 1988 London Photos – and clicking on any of the images here should take you to larger versions there from which you can browse the album.

Class War v. Qatari Royals

Three years ago today, on 8 Feb 2018, Class War had planned a protest outside London’s tallest building, the Shard, to point out the housing crisis, which is currently affecting many in London. They chose to protest at the Shard, because there are ten £50m apartments there which have remained empty since the building was completed.

We don’t actually have a housing shortage as there are more than enough properties for everyone to have a decent home. The problem is that current policies allow property to be left empty and encourage developers to build high priced flats which either remain unsold or are bought as investments and largely left empty for all or most of the time. There were then plans to build a further 26,000 flats in London costing more than a million pounds each, many on former council estates where social housing has been demolished at a time when London has a huge housing crisis with thousands sleeping on the street, and over 100 families from Grenfell were still in temporary accommodation.

The owners of The Shard, the Qatari royal family, went to court to seek an injunction against the Class War protest, seeking an injunction against Ian Bone and “persons unknown” and, despite their fortune estimated at over £250 million pounds, seeking legal costs of over £500 from the 70 year-old south London pensioner.

Fortunately barrister Ian Brownhill offered to conduct Bone’s defence pro bono and in the High Court hearing the Qatari royals were forced to drop the attempt to ban protests and the demand for fees but Bone accepted a legal restriction on him going inside the Shard and its immediate vicinity. But that meant the planned protest that evening could still go ahead, and Bone and his team emerged from the court victorious. His health issues meant that he was himself in any case unable to attend the protest.

At the protest there were large numbers of police and security, along with many in plain clothes and two officers with search dogs. The protest was always intended to be a peaceful one and the protesters were careful to remain outside the boundary of The Shard, marked with a metal line in the pavement. The police nonetheless harassed them, making a patently spurious claim that they were causing an obstruction to commuters attempting to enter London Bridge station and trying to move them further away from The Shard. Although the protest clearly wasn’t causing any serious problems to those entering or leaving the station, the larger numbers of police and security were.

Three years on, London still has a huge problem, with huge numbers of unaffordable flats still being built, particularly in the huge development area in Vauxhall and Nine Elms, including the developments around the US Embassy and the former Battersea Power Station. Some developments here include small areas of social housing, with ‘poor door’ entrances hidden away around the backs of some of the towers, the residents or which are excluded from the many facilities which are provided for the wealthy.

While blocks have large and well-furnished foyers with a concierge service for the rich, as well as some recreational facilities, social housing tenants typically enter a narrow bleak corridor with no space even for parcel deliveries. Just like the block in Aldgate where Class War’s long series of protests put the issue of ‘poor doors’, where poorer tenants are segregated from their wealthy neighbours on the national agenda back in 2014.

In July 2019, Communities Secretary James Brokenshire was “appalled” by the examples of segregation he had seen and promised to put an end to the use of “poor doors” in housing developments in England. It appears to have been a Broken promise, and Class War are thinking it is time for more action.

Class War protest at Shard
Class War victory against Qatari Royals

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.