house | >Re-PHOTO

Stockwell Park, Bus Garage, Tower and Mason

Two days after my previous walk which had ended at Vauxhall I was back in Stockwell again on Wednesday 19th July to photograph the area to the north, walking towards South Lambeth.

*House, 31 Stockwell Park Rd, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7e-33*

Stockwell Park Road has some interesting properties particular from the mid to late Victorian era with some earlier and later properties, some now very expensive. Probably most of the large houses are now flats, but one four bedroom Georgian house here, 4 storeys including a basement and with four bedrooms was recently put on sale with a guide price of £2,100,000.

This house is something of a mystery, as you will find if you try to view it on Google Street View. It is now divided into flats. Next door is the empty site that was formerly a purpose-built nursery on the corner at 50 Groveway. I think the house still looks much as it did when I photographed it in 1989. The arched doorway with the four square windows above and the narrow slot windows in the gables, one with wood meant to cover it drew my interest and I wondered when and for what purpose it was built but found no answers.

*Linden Hall, 38 Stockwell Park Rd, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7e-35*

Linden Hall at 38 Stockwell Park Road is also an interesting building and appears to have been built by the Lambeth Housing Movement, formed in 1927 to help low-income tenants in overcrowded conditions who could not afford private rents but whose conditions were not considered sufficiently bad for the LCC’s slum clearance schemes. In 1957 they joined with the Southwark Housing Association to become the Lambeth and Southwark Housing Society Ltd. I think these flats were built in the early 1950s.

*Stockwell Bus Garage, Lansdowne Way, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7g-56*

I returned along Stockwell Park Road to Clapham Road and crossed it, going down Landsdowne Road to South Lambeth Road and continuing along it to the remarkable concrete Grade II* listed Stockwell Bus Garage, opened for London Transport in 1952. It’s a remarkable structure by Adie, Button and Partners with Thomas Bilbow and probably the most impressive early post-war modern buildings in the UK. I think it is still in good condition and doing its job as a garage now, 70 years late.

*Edrich House, Lansdowne Way, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7g-42*

Continuing along Lansdowne Way brought me to Edrich House which can be seen at the right of the previous image. This impressive block designed by George Finch was completed in 1968. Built using the German designed Large Panel System it contains spacious flats. It was built for Lambeth Council whose chief architect was Edward “Ted” Hollamby at a time when council leaders considered nothing was too good for the working classes. As with other similar developments the estates were well designed with communal provision at ground level. I think at right is a surgery. I think there may now be so concerns over the state of the building as the link above states “Please note that we are unaware of any lenders providing mortgages on this estate at the present time.“

*F W Poole, Marblemason,12, Larkhall Lane, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7g-46*

Turning the corner into Larkhall Lane I came to the works of F W Poole, marble mason, with a good collection of marble in its front yard. The company moved out from here in in 2012 to premises in East Lane Business Park Wembley but I think has now ceased trading. This property was sold for £1 million.

*House, 38, Guildford Rd, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7g-31*

One of a number of squatted houses in the area, which had been the location of a Solstice Festival, but was by 1989 emptied and bricked up. It has since been renovated at least twice.

Its Grade II listing begins, “House, derelict at time of resurvey. Part of a planned estate built between 1843 and 1850 by John Snell. Italianate style.” It was part of a scheme for a site known as “THE 34 ACRES”.

The property now looks in good condition and has been divided into a number of flats.

My walk will continue in a later post.

Houses, Almshouses, A Pub and Cold Store

Houses, Almshouses, A Pub and Cold Store: The end of my walk on 17th July 1989 which began with Back in Stockwell. The previous post was Stockwell Housing and Adventure.

*Terrace, 195-203, Brixton Rd, Angell Town, Lambeth, 1989 89-7e-64*

This terrace is on the east side of Brixton Road, with 195 on the corner with Normandy Road. They were built on a part of the large Lambeth Wick estate which was owned by the Church of England but was developed by Henry Richard Vassall, the third Baron Holland, who had adopted his wife’s maiden name of Vassall in 1800. The manor was leased to him in 1820 with a building lease that specified he had to built “houses of at least the third rate” and keep them in good repair, painting outside wood and ironwork every 4 years “and offensive trades were prohibited.”

Vassall’s lease was for 99 years and he let out small plots such as this one to builders and speculators on 80 year leases. The lease for the plot for these three-storey terraces was granted to James Crundall in 1824, but the actual date of completion of Alfred Place as they were known may have been a little later. The Grade II listing simply states early-mid C19.

The end wall facing Normandy Road has no windows – its interior layout is presumably similar to those houses in the middle of the terrace, but what would have been a massive slab of brickwork is relieved by a central pilaster and blind windows.

*House, 104, Fentiman Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7g-62*

I was now on my way home and walked quickly north up Brixton Road before cutting through Crewdson Road to Clapham Rd and then turning down Fentiman Road, heading for Vauxhall Station.

It wasn’t until I stopped opposite No 124 that I made my next picture. This was built on part of the large Caron House estate which stretched north from South Lambeth Road. Fentiman Road was laid out just to the south of the large house after it and its extensive grounds were sold to Henry Beaufoy in 1838 and this unlisted mid-19th century building probably dates from shortly after this.

There are a number of other interesting buildings on this section of the road, some listed I did not stop to photograph, and I think the reflection in the car and the shadow of the tree which occupy much of the lower part of the picture may have made me stop here.

Caron's Almshouses, Fentiman Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7g-63 — *Caron’s Almshouses, 121, Fentiman Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7g-63*

Sir Philip Noel Caron, Dutch Ambassador to King James I founded his almshouses in 1621 on what is now Wandsworth Road to house seven woman aged over 60, but by the 1850s these were, according to the Survey of London ‘“uncomfortable and unsuitable” for aged persons‘ and the site was sold to Price’s Patent Candle Company for their factory. They sold the site in 1865 to the Phoenix Gas Light and Coke Company, which later became part of the South-Eastern Gas Board.

The £1500 from the sale in 1853 was used to erect these new almshouses in a Tudor style in 1854 and they are now Grade II listed. Various charity amalgamations took place over the years and in the 1990s the Trustees granted a 50-year lease on the almshouses to the Family Housing Association. Modernised and repaired they were officially reopened by the Dutch Ambassador in 1997 and are still housing local women in need.

*Builders Arms, pub, Wyvil Rd, Vauxhall, Lambeth 1989 89-7g-52*

The pub was built in 1870 and an application for a licence refused in 1871 but it did open shortly afterwards, and remains open now, though under a different name. At some time in became Wyvils, then the Vauxhall Griffin, but after it was bought in around 2018 by Belle Pubs & Restaurants they renamed it the Griffin Belle. According to Camra, “Refurbished in contemporary style in 2017, with a further make-over in 2018, the interior now features varied seating, plastic foliage and an array of TV screens showing sport (can be noisy at times). Upper floor has been converted to hotel rooms.”

Still overshadowed by tall buildings (although those in my picture have been replaced by more recent versions) and on the edge of what has for some years been the largest building site in the country if not in Europe, stretching all the way to Battersea, its earlier name might have been more appropriate.

*Nine Elms Cold Store, Brunswick House, Wandsworth Rd, Nine Elms, Lambeth, 1989 89-7g-53*

Brunswick House is still there on one of the busiest traffic schemes in the country, at the junction of Wandsworth Road and Nine Elms Lane close to Vauxhall Cross, but the Nine Elms Cold Store is long gone, replaced by St George Wharf, which isn’t a wharf but a “landmark riverside development spanning across 7 acres of London’s newest area of regeneration” with the 48 storey Tower which is the tallest solely residential building in the UK.

Some describe it as ‘magnificent’ but others think it hideous and I’m more inclined to the latter view. The Guardian in 2016 called it “a stark symbol of the housing crisis“, with two-thirds of the apartments in the Tower “in foreign ownership, with a quarter held through secretive offshore companies based in tax havens.” At its peak is a £51 million five-storey penthouse “ultimately owned by the family of former Russian senator Andrei Guriev“.

Brunswick House has a long article on Wikipedia. It dates back to the mid seventeenth century but was extended in 1758. In 1860 it was bought by the London and South West Railway Company who used it as offices and a Scientific and Literary Institute. In 1994 it was sold to the railway staff association who again sold it in 2002. It is now a restaurant and the yard around it is used by an architectural salvage and supply company.

The Nine Elms Cold Store was built in 1964, a huge windowless monolith erected on the site of the South Metropolitan Gas Works, ideally placed to take barge loads of frozen meat and other goods from London’s docks and store them in its 150,000,000 cubic feet of cold dark space for onward distribution from the adjacent railway yard or by lorry. But when the docks ran down it was redundant, only 15 years after its construction.

According to Kennington Runoff after it closed it became “used illicitly as a cruising ground, a recording studio, a performance space and even a convenient spot for devil worshiping.” It remained in place derelict until 1999 as it was extremely difficult to demolish and it provided a popular location for filming when desolate urban industrial landscapes were required.

Vauxhall Station was a short walk down the road and I was soon sitting on a train on my way home.

Stockwell Housing and Adventure

Stockwell Housing and Adventure: Continuing my walk on 17th July 1989 which began with Back in Stockwell.

*Flats, Aytoun Place, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7d-35*

In 1994, five years after I made this picture the Stockwell Park Community Trust was created in response to the high crime rate and poor housing services on the Stockwell Park Estate and surrounding areas. The estate was then ranked by the UK government in the worst ten estates in the country. Tenants on the estate got together and formed a Tenant Management Organisation to get funding to refurbish the estate which had been built around 1970 for Lambeth Council.

The Community Trust held a ballot and gained a 97% vote for them to manage the £220 million investment and managed not only to retain all the social housing but to create another five units as well as building some new private housing to help with the finances.

Working with others in the community they also tackled crime and drug dealing on the estate, reducing these massively. The estate was transferred from Lambeth to Network Housing Group in 2007 and is now managed by SW9 Community Housing.

The graffiti here refers to the well-known case of George Davis, sentenced in 1975 to 20 years for an armed robbery which for once he had no part in. Though there were probably many other Georges who were also fitted up by police.

*Houses, 37-39, Lorn Rd, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7d-21*

A block of 23 acres ofland of the west side of Brixton Road was leased in 1804 by Randle Jackson, barrister-at-law and an expert on Indian affairs and Robert Slade. In 1804 they split the estate, Jackson taking the northern part. In 1832 Jackson also acquired a stretch of Stockwell Park Road.

Only a few houses along Brixton Road were built before Jackson’s death in 1837, and it was only after this around 1840 that the two streets Lorn Road and Groveway (then Grove Road) were laid out on what had been gardens and outhouses. Lorn Road forms the approach from Brixton Road to St Michael’s Church on Stockton Park Road.

These Grade II listed houses date from the 1840s and are described as cottages ornés and are very much in a Gothic style. Perhaps rather over-exuberantly Gothick.

*Houses, 37-39, Lorn Rd, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7d-25*

A wider view of the two houses. There are quite a few other listed houses and others of interest from the mid and later 19th century in Lorn Road, Groveway and Stockwell Park Road which were build on the Jackson estate, but I took few pictures.

*Adventure Playground, Slade Gardens, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7d-12*

Slade Gardens gets its name from Robert Slade, proctor-at-law, who took the southern part of the estate he had leased with Randle Jackson and was suceeded by his two sons. Slade’s younger son Felix is rather better-known than his father for the art school which he enable by a bequest to University College London in 1871. The Slade School of Art was one of the earliest schools to admit women on the same basis as men.

The site was acquired by the London County Council after the Second World War when many of the houses on the site had been badly damaged by a flying bomb which killed 11 people. The LCC bought up the remaining houses and demolished them. It was opened to the public as a park in 1958 and the adventure playground is on part of the site.

*Adventure Playground, Slade Gardens, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7d-13*

Much of the ideas behind adventure playgrounds came from the ‘Junk Playground’ estatblished by Carl Sorenson in 1943 near Copenhagen, based on his observations of how children actually played on waste ground, building sites and bomb sites etc. The movement spread to this country and a number of such playgrounds were set up in urban areas in the decades after the war. Play leaders encouraged imaginative play and tried to prevent serious accidents as well as discouraging drug use.

I think this adventure playground was set up around 1970. In 1999 it became independently managed by local residents and a voluntary committee was formed and the playground was set up as a new charity.

*House, 55, Stockwell Park Rd, Lorn Rd, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7d-15*

This house has its main frontage on the Stockwell Park Road with this fairly recent extension at the side along Lorn Road.

The other half of this semi-detached house, probably dating from the late 1840s is grade II listed, but this half is not, probably because of this extension as the two halves look almost identical from the frontage on Stockwell Park Road. But although very different in character this seems to me an interesting addition.

*House, 41, Stockwell Park Rd, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7e-62*

Another house in the area with considerable individuality, 41 Stockwell Park Road described as an ‘Irregular stuccoed early C19 house’ is Grade II listed. The house is on the corner of Groveway and I think was probably one of the first built on the road, probably in the 1840s.

It has a much less sympathetic building attached, a plain four storey modern block you can just see at the right of the picture but this has not prevented its listing – and no reason why it should. But sometimes there seems to be a large element of architectural snobbery in listing decisions.

Girls, Houses and St John

Girls, Houses and St John: The second and final set of missing pictures from my walk on June 4th June 1989 – continuing from Stockwell- Chapel, Church, Jazz & Housing

*Two girls, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-6b-23*

These two feisty young girls demanded to know what I was doing taking pictures in their manor, outside Cassell House close to the corner of Stockwell Rd and insisted that I take their picture. I think that probably they were sisters although they are dressed rather differently. The older of the two is wearing earrings. They are now 34 years older and if they see their picture I hope they like it.

Across the road you can make out Joseph Yates Timber Merchants at 17-19 Stockwell Road, whose shop was still there though boarded up in 2008. Together with the house behind it was replace by a new block shortly after, the shop becoming EZ Homeware and around 2018 a vape shop, Ez Cloudz.

*House, 349, Clapham Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-6b-25*

I turned left around the corner into Clapham Road, walking down towards Clapham, crossing Mayflower Road to a group of impressive Queen Anne style red-brick houses – I think this was number 349.

As you can see these houses have quite long front gardens which were then rather overgrown. I think the house had long been divided into flats. There is a broken window on the ground floor which looks as if it is boarded up. These buildings are locally listed

*House, 357, Clapham Rd, Clapham, 1989 89-6b-11*

This is a bay extension on 355 Clapham Road, which I found more interesting than the Grade II listed house at the left of the picture, the listing text of which begins “Substantial early C19 house, one of a pair of which the other is so much altered as not to be of special interest.” According to the Survey of London the house was first occupied in 1792.

*House, 357, Clapham Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-6b-12*

Another view of 357 makes it clear that the two storey bay above a basement garage in the previous picture is indeed a part of this house.

I think its doorway with the two front doors is probably also a later addition, though again I found it of interest, though its listed neighbour retains its original and perhaps more common if still fine entrance. I think my taste in buildings allows rather more for eccentricity while those who make the listings are more concerned with age and consistency of style.

*House, 369, Clapham Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-6b-13*

Listed as The Garden House with location ‘Union Mews, Lambeth, London SW9’ in 1981, this is an unusual house at 369 Clapham Road with no front door, though it does have a fairly plain Doric entrance around the side on the left. It was first occupied in 1815, and was built on land acquired by the Duke of Bedford in the early 18th century and let by him to Robert Robson. There is a fairly lengthy description of the house in the Survey of London volume orginally published by the LCC in 1956 which ends with “The premises are now occupied by Messrs. Ashton Brothers and a garden with seats extends from the pavement edge back to the house.”

My picture shows Ashton Funerals at the site in 1989 with ‘PRIVATE CHAPELS FUNERALS CREMATIONS’ and their name in large signage on rails on the frontage, and a well-kept garden, though I couldn’t resist including the Ad Hoc Wine Warehouse signs as well. The house is now flats and the Ashton signage has gone, and the wine warehouse having become car hire has now been demolished as a part of a new block of flats including and existing property at 363.

St. John the Evangelist, Clapham Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-6b-14 — *St John the Evangelist, Clapham Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-6b-14*

Built 1840-42, architect Thomas Marsh Nelson the church is Grade II listed. A confined site led to an unusual orientation. It was truncated in 1986 and the Diocese of Southwark website comments “In short, this building has suffered due to a lack of clarity from its earliest day. First of all when the east-west axis was reversed and latterly the internal alterations described above. These changes plus the ravages of dry rot have left the interior merely as a jumble of ill-defined spaces without any overall cohesion.”

However the simple classical exterior is impressive, and rather unusual for the date of construction.

Various events and visits took me out of London for the next few weekends and it was July before I could return for my next walk around part of the city.

Hanover, Belgrave, Chapel, Shops, Taxis

Hanover, Belgrave, Chapel, Shops, Taxis: Two days after my previous walk, on Sunday 6th May 1989 I was back on the streets with my cameras, this time getting off the bus at Oval station in Kennington.

*Hanover Arms, House, Hanover Gardens, Kennington Park Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-64*

A few yards down Kennington Park Road from the Oval Station is Hanover Gardens, and on the corner the Hanover Arms. The pub has been here at least since the 1850s and is still open, getting rather more custom when there is cricket at the Oval a short walk away. Its Grade II listing calls the house ‘Early-mid C19’ but describes the ground floor pub as early C20. I’ve never been inside, but used to walk past it occasionally when a friend had a flat in Hanover Gardens in the 1970s.

The six monarchs of Britain from George I in 1714 to Victoria were known as Hanoverians, but after Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha they took over his family designation, changing the name to Windsor in 1917.

My interest was more in the splendid house of the same period on the opposite corner, 324 Kennington Park Rd. I don’t think this is listed, though much of Hanover Gardens is.

*Hanover Arms, Belgrave Hospital for Children, Kennington Park Rd, Clapham Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-52*

Turning around from almost the same spot I made a photograph of the pub sign with its coat of arms and beyond, on the opposite side of the road, the fine Grade II* listed Belgrave Hospital for Children.

This voluntary hospital was founded in 1886 in Pimlico, and moved to this building in 1903, though the building, begun in 1899 was only completed in 1926. Part of the money for its building came in a donation by music hall star Dan Leno of £625 made after his last show and a few days before his death in 1904.

*Belgrave Hospital for Children, Clapham Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-53*

The building is in red brick by Henry Percy Adams and Charles Holden and bears some resemblance to a Scottish castle. Its foundation stone was laid by the oddly named Princess Henry of Battenberg in June 1900. It became part of Kings College hospital on formation of the NHS in 1948 and closed in 1985. Left empty it was squatted for some time and then converted to expensive flats in the 1990s.

The building was designed in a roughly cruciform plan with separate ward wings that could be isolated in case of an outbreak of a highly infections disease.

*Belgrave Hospital for Children, Clapham Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-54*

Kennington Park Road changes its name to Clapham Road at the junction just north of the hospital, something which has often confused me. The two previous pictures were taken from Kennington Park Road, but this was definitely made on Clapham Road.

The lettering in the sign ‘THE BELGRAVE HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN SUPPORTED BY VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS’ has a playful Arts & Crafts font, very much of the time the building was commenced and perhaps more suitable for a children’s hospital than the more stern architecture

*Claylands Road Chapel, Claylands Road, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-55*

Claylands was a mansion built in the area of marshy land often flooded by the River Effra aournd 1800 by brick merchant John Fentiman who drained the land around. In 1836 he let his son, also John Fentiman, erect this excellent example of a Congregational Chapel on the corner of Claylands Raod and Claylands Place.

It prospered for some years and in 1899 a Sunday School was built behind it. Both went out of use, probably in the 1930s and were being used to store building materials when it was bought in the late 1960 by a firm of architect who restore it to use as their offices, renaming it ‘Old Church Court’.

*Shop Window, Brixton Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-42*

I walked though from Clapham Rd to Brixton Road along Handforth Road, taking this picture of a shop window on Brixton Road. I was attracted by the clutter of tools and other objects, but also by two posters in the window.

One showed a dynamic young woman and was advertising dance workouts, but the other had the stark word ‘MURDER’, a poster from the Metropolitan Police asking for assistance in a recent murder outside a public house.

*Works, Kennington Park Estate, Cranmer Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-43*

This 1906 factory building on the north side of Cranmer Road has since been converted as part of Kennington Park Business Centre with Salisbury House, Norfolk House, Worcester House and Winchester House.

The buildings on the northern part of this site were once the garage for London’s first motor taxi fleet, the General Cab Company Ltd, with 1,500 taxis based here, and I think these buildilngs may have been workshops for the company. Some time in the 1990s I took a very small part in the industrial archaeology recording of this site, but can’t find the details.

*Shops, Brixton Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-43*

From the corner of Cranmer Road I made this picture of the terrace of shops at 26-36 on the west side of Brixton Road. The River Effra once ran along the centre of the road here – and possibly still does in a sewer.

The central shops seem to have been built first first with those on both ends being added with a different design later. The houses at 22-4, beyond the shops, are Grade II listed.

My walk will continue along Brixton Rd in a later post.

Highgate, Swains Lane And Dartmouth Park, April 1989

This is the second and final part of my walk on Friday 7th April 1989 which had started at Gospel Oak station and I had walked up to Highgate. You can read the first part at Highgate April 1989.

*Highgate Literary, Scientific Institution, South Grove, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4a-11*

I took another picture of the Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution, but didn’t explore much more at the top of the hill.

*Pond Square, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4a-22*

Though I did take a few more pictures, but have only digitised this one. I was eager to go down the hill again, this time taking Swain’s Lane, by the side of the Literary & Scientific Institution.

Swain’s Lane is rather steeper than West Hill and apparently had got its name from being used by pig herders and was first recorded in writing as Swayneslane in 1492. It provided access to farms on either side and only the top few yards were developed for housing before 1887. Fortunately I was walking down hill and hadn’t brought my bike as riding up this lane would have been something of a challenge.

House, Swains Lane, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4b-63 — *Lodge, Swain’s Lane, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4b-63*

Even now much of Swain’s Lane is undeveloped as it runs between one of London’s great cemeteries, Highgate Cemetery and one of its fine parks, Waterlow Park, both behind brick walls with just a narrow pavement. Below Waterlow Park on the east side is the newer part of Highgate Cemetery, which includes Karl Marx’s Tomb.

The Grade II listed building is the picture is the Lodge at the Swain’s Lane entrance to Waterlow Park, built in the mid-19th century in a fine example of Victorian Gothic, though the chimneys are more Tudor. The post at right is for the park gate and I took just a brief stroll inside before continuing my walk. On warmer days I’ve explored the park rather more and sometimes found a bench to eat my sandwiches as well as taking a few pictures.

In 1992 I visited and took some pictures in both the West and East parts of Highgate cemetery, some of which are on-line in Flickr, but on this walk I didn’t have time to stop and just went on down the hill.

House, Swains Lane, Oakeshot Ave, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4b-52 — *Mansion, Swains Lane, Oakeshot Ave, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4b-52*

Immediately south of the West cemetery is the Holly Lodge Estate, with mansion blocks on Makepeace Avenue and Oakeshott Avenue. The website tells that in 1809 Harriot Mellon, a young actress acquired a large villa later known as The Holly Lodge here, and after she married banker Thomas Coutts in 1815 both house and grounds were enlarged and landscaped. She died in 1837, leaving the property and her fortune to one of the most remarkable women of the Victorian age, her husband’s ganddaughter, Angela Burdett-Coutts.

When she died in 1906 her husband tried to sell the entire property with no success, but then managed to sell off some of the outlying parts – including Holly Terrace on West Hill and South Grove House, both mentioned in the previous post on this walk but it was not until 1923 that the main part was sold off and development of the Holly Lodge Estate began.

This area was acquired by the “Lady Workers’ Homes Limited to build blocks of rooms and flats for single women moving to London in order to work as secretaries and clerks in the city on the Eastern side of the estate.“

These blocks built in the 1920s had fallen into a poor state of repair by the 1960s and were acquired on a 150-year lease in 1964 by the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras – and so are now owned by the London Borough of Camden. The council for some years continued with the policy of only housing women on the estate but this has now lapsed.

The flats were designed without separate kitchens and with shared bathrooms and toilets as bed-sits for single women – and the estate was built with a long-demolished community block with restaurant, reading and meeting rooms and a small theatre, and behind it three tennis courts. Some of the bed-sits have been converted into self-contained flats but others still share facilities.

*Raydon St, Dartmouth Park Hill, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4b-42*

I returned to Waterlow Park, making my way through it to Dartmouth Park Hill and on to take thsi picture of some very different housing on the Camden’s Whittington Estate. But by now I was in a hurry and the light was fading a little and I took very few photographs (none online) as I made my way through the streets of Dartmouth Park to Highgate Road and Grove Terrace and on to Gospel Oak station for my journey home.

London & Brighton, Graffiti, Boys At Colmore Press

My posts on this walk in Peckham in March 1989 began with Shops, Removals, Housing and the Pioneer Health Centre, and this post continues from where that post ended, on Queen’s Road, Peckham.

House, Queen's Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-41 — *House, Queen’s Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-41*

Houses at 142-148 on Queen’s Road are Grade II listed, as well as 152-158 further east, toegther with 2-6 St Mary’s Road. I don’t think there is now a number 150, and these form a fairly continuous group of large early 19th century houses. My picture shows 146-148. I also photographed but have not digitised the pair of houses at 156-158, the latter also known as St Mary’s Court.

No 148 has the name EVAN COOK Ltd on its door, a private limited company dissolved in 2015 whose activities are listed as ‘Other transportation support activities‘ and offered Export Packaging, Removals and Storage. They appear to have owned a number of properties in south London. In my previous post I included a photograph of their large premises on Lugard Road, where the company name is remembered in Evan Cook Close. The company had begun by selling second-hand furniture around here in 1893.

*London & Brighton, pub, Asylum Rd, Queens Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-44*

I walked under the railway bridge at Queens Road station (the apostrophe in Queen’s seems optional in this area) and on the corner of the road was this pub opposite the station named for the London & Brighton Railway. Formed in 1837 in 1846 it merged with four other railway companies to become the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) and in 1923 this became part of the Southern Railway, until nationalisation.

But the South London line from London Bridge to a new Peckham station here only opened to passengers in 1867, after the merger. The road, formerly Peckham Lane, was renamed after Queen Victoria in 1866 and the station was soon renamed to Queen’s Road. I think the Peckham on its name came much later to avoid confusion with other London stations, Queen’s Road Battersea and Queen’s Road Walthamstow.

The pub was closed in 2008 but its sign – a different one from that in my picture – stands as a sad reminder on Queen’s Rd. The building remained standing until 2013 and was a popular squatted centre with parties and music gigs for some time with some interesting murals. It was replaced by a four storey block of flats, London & Brighton Appartments, with shops and parking on the ground level.

*Ora Lighting, Kings Grove, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-45*

The next turning to the east going north from Queen’s Road is King’s Grove. This small works has been converted into a taller block at 2c King’s Grove, Quay 2c. Designed by owners architect Ken Taylor and sculptor Julia Manheim on a site described as a former milk depot this now now houses design and sculpture studios and three flats. Built into the front wall is a large window used to display art works, the m2 Gallery, using what would otherwise have been a blank wall of a small room containing gas, water and electric meters etc. The building, completed around 2003 has featured in some Open House weeks.

Graffiti, Wood's Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-33 — Graffiti, Wood’s Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-33

The letters appear to be Eco Charp which meant nothing to me. I now find from Flickr that he was a teenage graffiti tagger from a local Greek/Cypriot family who were in various businesses including ice cream vans in the area and connected with the Peckham snooker hall at 267 Rye Lane which in the 1990s became the rave nightclub Lazerdrome. Apparently his family made clear to Eco Charp when he was about 18 that he had to grow up and stop his graffiti activities.

The house is the Grade II listed 2 Wood’s Road, which featured in one of my posts on earlier walks in the area, first built in the late 17th century but much altered in the 19th and recently renovated.

Colmore Press, Colmore Mews, Wood's Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-23 — *Colmore Press, Colmore Mews, Wood’s Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-23*

This disused print works was on Colmore Mews, a small street off Wood’s Road. just south of Queen’s Road. Two young boys were climbing up the side of the disused building. This was at the rear of the offices of the of the company at 62a Queen’s Road, Peckham. None of th buildings visible in the picture remain. The fence at left was around the playgorund at the rear of the school on Woods Rd, now John Donne Primary School.

Boy, Colmore Mews, Wood's Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-25 — *Boy, Colmore Mews, Wood’s Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-25*

As often happened, one of the boys asked me to take his picture, and I obliged. Behind him on both sides were some of the buildings on both sides of Colmore Mews, now replaced.

Boys, Colmore Press, Colmore Mews, Wood's Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-11 — *Boys, Colmore Press, Colmore Mews, Wood’s Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-11*

His friend then also wanted his picture taken and I took two more pictures of the two boys as they went back to climbing up the wall before continuing on my walk.

Boys, Colmore Press, Colmore Mews, Wood's Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-12 — *Boys, Colmore Press, Colmore Mews, Wood’s Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-12*

Back in 1989 it was still not unusual for children to play on the streets – just as I had with my friends as a working class child. I didn’t think they were likely to come to much harm.

I returned back to Queen’s Road where a later post will continue. The previous (and first) post about this walk was Shops, Removals, Housing and the Pioneer Health Centre

Consort Road Peckham

The previous post on this walk on Sunday 12th February 1989 was Gold Bullion, Victoriana, Flats, Insurance and Vats – Peckham.

*House, Consort Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-16*

Back in the 1930s there were at least five Albert Roads in London, along with a number of Albert Streets, Albert Mews etc and the authorities embarked on an orgy of renaming to sort out the confusions that could arise. Albert had been particularly popular after Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha had married Queen Victoria in 1840 and at the time of his death in 1861, and some, such as Consort Road, were renamed to reflect their original dedication.

15 Consort Road is Grade II listed and described as “Mid C19, recently restored” and it rather looks as if my picture was taken during that restoration, with the house in excellent condition but the garden rather lacking. Its listing is perhaps more about its part in a group of similar houses rather than its individual merit, and 11,13 and 17 are also listed.

Rather better known now is its new neighbour, 15 and a half Consort Road, an long, low and unobtrusive house now alongside the right hand side of this house with a wood-covered frontage extending a little closer to the road. From the front it rather looks like a garage which someone forget to put in the door, but it was a truly innovative building by Richard Paxton Architects in 2002, shortlisted in the RIBA Awards 2006, and featured on TV’s Grand Designs.

*House, Consort Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2f-64*

Two railway lines with three bridges cross Consort Road just a few yards from each other, one leading from Peckham Rye to Nunhead and the other from Peckham Rye to Queen’s Road Peckham, along which is now planned to build an urban linear corridor park, the Coal Line, which I visited in 2015.

The bridges and the area around them have changed considerably since 1989. But I think the viaduct is of the line to Nunhead and this house on the edge of the workhouse site has since been demolished.

*Consort Works, House, Consort Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2f-65*

Limited were in a post-war building on Consort Road just a little south of the railway bridges and I think they made waterproof products using rubber on glass cloth. Their building replaced some older Victorian terrace housing, some of which was still there at the right when I made this picture. I think the company under a slightly different name is still in business elsewhere.

These buildings have all been replaced by modern flats and an industrial unit.

*Closed Shop, Consort Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2f-66*

This shop was obviously on a street corner, almost certainly one of the four corners with Consort Road and Brayards Rd. I was interested in the shapes and the tiling as well as the fly posting and crude graffiti – which appears to be two practices at producing the final result at right, perhaps a stylised ’68’. The doorway with a rusticated keystone seemed unusually tall and narrow. It was probably Victorian although the shopfront seemed later.

*Gold Diggers Arms, pub, Brayards Rd, Consort Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2f-62*

The Gold Diggers Arms was a sizeable pub on the northeast corner of Brayards Road and Consort Road and was still in business when I made this picture. It had been here since at least 1871, but closed in 2001 and was demolished in 2005. The site is now a modern development, Dayak Court, flats above ground floor commercial premises.

*The Hooper Hall, Consort Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2f-53*

Hooper Hall at 111 Consort Road opened as a mission of St Mary Magdalene in St Mary’s Rd in 1907, which was destroyed by a land mine in 1940. Worship continued here and in the church hall while money was raised to build a new church, opened in 1962 and itself replaced in 2011. The mission has lasted rather better.

A notice tells us that in 1989 it was used by both St Mary Magdalene and the Peckham Christian Fellowship. Later it became home to the Christ Miracle Gospel Ministries International but was put up for sale in 2012, and I think the church moved to Edmonton. A fence was put up around Hooper Hall around 2015 as if building work was about to begin, but little seems to have happened since. It appears still to be available for sale.

This walk will continue in a later post. The first post on this walk was Aged Pilgrims, Sceaux, Houses & Lettsom.

School, Meeting House, Houses & Shops – Peckham

The previous post on this walk on Sunday 12th February 1989 was A Market, Chapel & More Houses – Peckham

*Highshore School, Bellenden Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-45*

You will look in vain for this school on Bellenden Road now. The school, a special school, moved to a shared site with Archbishop Michael Ramsey School,Camberwell in 2013 leaving the building empty. It was demolished in 2015 and replaced by Cherry Garden special school, which moved out of Bermondsey to here.

I’m unsure as to the date of this school, though it was clearly postwar, possibly dating from the 1960s. Perhaps surprisingly it was not mentioned by Cherry and Pevsner in their London 2: South volume though it seemed to me to be clearly of architectural interest. Southwark Council described it as “a distinctive post-war school” but wanted to knock it down so went on to say “it is not of sufficient quality of construction nor is it sufficiently unique to warrant the particular protection given by listing“. I can’t comment on the structural soundness from the four pictures I took but can’t think where you can find a similar building. It gets a rather deprecating comment in the Holly Grove Conservation Area Appraisal, “Highshore School, immediately adjacent to the conservation area, was built using standardised lightweight constructional systems and open site-planning principles which undermine the established morphology of street frontages“, not fitting in neatly with the Georgian housing in the area.

House, Highshore Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-33 — *House, Highshore Rd, Elm Grove, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-33*

This house is on the corner of Higshore Road and Elm Grove and I think its address is 64 Elm Grove. It is certainly a very impressive and substantial late Victorian house with a quirkiness I found appealing enough to take a second frame.

*House, Highshore Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-34*

*Post Office Depot, Highshore Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-35*

I didn’t photograph the listed houses in Highshore Road, perhaps suffering from a surfeit of rather standard Georgian or early Victorian houses in the area. Fine though they are I didn’t feel a need to photograph all of them.

The Post Office Depot is rather less usual and carries a ‘Historic Southwark’ board as well as being Grade II listed. This is possibly the earliest building in what was then known as Hanover Street, built in 1816 as the Friends Meeting House, apparently on the site of a pond. It was considerably enlarged in 1843.

*Shops, Rye Lane, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-21*

These buildings are stll there at the north end of Rye Lane, though now with different shops, but almost all the buildings visible on Peckham High Street in the picture have gone. There is still a bank at 65 Peckham High Street the extreme corner of which can just be seen but the rest of the buildings including the Midland Bank have gone, with a walkway here now leading to the Peckham Pulse Leisure Centre built in 1998.

*Shops, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-22*

I took another picture of these shops from a slightly different viewpoint to one I had made a month earlier which I wrote about aat some length in a post on that earlier walk. The building housing ‘Stiletto Ecpresso’ has been replaced since 1989 by a taller and rather less interesting structure but the rest still look much the same, though with different uses.

*Canal Head, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-23*

Had I been aware of the changes that were soon to take place in this area I would have made more than this picture at Canal Head. This was the start of the walk along the route of the Peckham Branch of the Surrey Canal, at the back of what is now the The Drovers Arms, roughly at the south-east corner of the more recent Leisure Centre.

*Doorway, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-24*

The Drovers Arms has the address 71-79 Peckham High St and tucked away down a short driveway at its read is this building at 71, now a dental surgery, Peckham Dental Care. The building at right with a bricked up and painted over doorway is the pub, which has a rather grander and more useful entrance on the High Street, opened in 2000.

The main building at 73-79 was built around the end of the 19th century, according to Historic England by architects J & J W Edmeston, for the London and South Western Bank. The Edmestons were a family of architects working in London, of whom the best known was probably James Edmeston Jr (1823-98). I think 71 may be a little earlier.

This walk will continue in a later post. The first post on this walk was Aged Pilgrims, Sceaux, Houses & Lettsom.

A Market, Chapel & More Houses – Peckham

The previous (and first) post on this walk was Aged Pilgrims, Sceaux, Houses & Lettsom.

*House, Lyndhurst Way, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2d-25*

At the end of Lyndhurst Grove I came to Lyndhurst Way and had to make the choice of whether to turn left or right along it. Both ways looked interesting but I chose left and found a short terrace or four rather unusual houses at 13-19, two of which had the decoration on the window bays. There are also differences in the treatment of the doorway and windows of these two houses, which are the only ones of the four with entrances leading down to the pavement – those at the end of the block have their doors at the sides.

I continued to Lyndhurst Square then turned back, walking down Lyndhurst Way to Holly Grove, taking a few pictures on the way, none of which are online.

*House, Holly Grove, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-55*

Holly Grove was developed by George Choumert (1746-1831), a Frenchman who married Lydia Fendall from a wealthy family of tanners in Bermondsey. He had a number of houses built in what was then George Lane around 1815-20. This picture shows No 14 and 15 – the houses are numbered consequently as there are no houses on the north side of the road which is Holly Grove Shrubbery, ‘a Victorian shrubbery with a serpentine boundary with a footpath winding through it’ between Holly Grove (then South Grove) and Elm Grove. All the houses from 5-24, 32 and 33 are Grade II listed.

*Indoor Market, Rye Lane, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-56*

Peckham Indoor Market was built around 1938 or shortly after as Rye Lane Bargain Centre with an imposing frontage for a narrow arcade leading back to a large covered market. It’s a style that rather makes it look like a cinema. Across the top is the message ‘Come Rain Or Shine It’s Always Fine at Peckham Indoor Market’.

In the early 2000s the market at the back was reduced in size with part now redeveloped as flats but the front section remains and is now Rye Lane Market, housing over 50 small shop units.

*Rye Lane Chapel, Rye Lane, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-41*

You can read a detailed history of the chapel up to 1927 on the web. The first Baptist worship in the area was begun around 1817 when Mr Spencer, a deacon from Blackfriars Baptist church moved into what is now Peckham Hill St, a more rural location, for the sake of his health and began services in his home. Soon the congregation got too large for this and they bought a plot of land on Rye Lane and built a large and expensive chapel on the corner of Blenheim Grove and Rye Lane which opened in 1819.

Unfortunately when the railway came the chapel was exactly where it ran and the railway company were to build their station. So the chapel had to go, and a new chapel was built on the opposite side of the road a short distance to the north in 1863. That one was built on a firm concrete foundation and is still standing and still in use, having been restored after wartime bomb damage.

*Houses, Elm Grove, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-43*

I turned back west from Rye Lane along Elm Grove, which contains a number of houses of interest, including half a dozen that are Grade II listed but it was this group that prompted me to take a photograph.

Elm Grove was developed around 1830 although from the maps it appears much was added later in the century, and these probably date from the middle of the century. In the Holly Grove Conservation Area document the photograph from Elm Grove of these houses comes with the description “a row of pale brick houses (No. 48-54) built with prominently projecting square bays and distinctive Gothic features on the upper storey, particularly the window glazing patterns and parapet detailing.” There is more about them and other houses in Elm Grove later in the document

This walk will continue in a later post.