houses | >Re-PHOTO

Houses, Flats, Shops & Peckham Arch

The previous post on this walk I made on Sunday 29th January 1989 was Laundry, Timber and Glengall Road. My walk ended on the site of Peckham Arch at Canal Head, but the arch was only built five years later. Despite local opposition Southwark Council seems now determined to demolish this local landmark.

*Houses, Peckham Hill St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-34*

These houses are at 10-16 Peckham Hill St. 10 and 12 appear to be lived in although 12 seems to be in poor condition, while 14-16 are derelict with broken windows and corrugated iron over the ground floor door and window of 14. Now the all look rather tidier and expensive. I think all these houses probably date from around 1840 or a little later. A terrace of smaller houses at 34-40 a little further south is listed and looks to me roughly of similar date. These are larger and grander houses, with two boasting substantial porches. The one at right I suspect has at sometime been rebuilt – perhaps after war damage and looks as if this was done in a plainer style.

*Love One Another, flats, Commercial Way, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-35*

Plain flats with small balconies – large enough to perhaps put out a clothes horse or stand watching the street and enjoying a cigarette or a cup of tea. But the boarded up window at lower left and in one of those above the graffitied ‘LOVE ONE ANOTHER’ suggested to that this block was being emptied out for demolition. I wondered too what message had been painted over on the balcony – probably something short and crude.

Commercial Way is quite a long road, but my contact sheet gives a 100m grid reference which places these flats close to Cator St, and these flats, probably dating from the 1950s, have been replaced by more recent buildings.

*Shops, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-24*

I walked down the path following the former canal to Peckham High St, where you can still recognise the building that was Julian Jewellers, now a mobile phone shop, which also spills over into what was in 1989 Candyland. “SWEETER THAN THE REST – SPECIALISTS IN CUT PRICE CIGARETTES – 80 PECKHAM HIGH STREET” with two large cigarette adverts. Stiletto Expresso looks very closed in my picture – did it once sell shoes or coffee?The building in its place bears a slight resemblance but is now around twice the height.

The building at extreme right, mostly out of frame is also there, and until recently recognisable, but recently everything above the ground floor has been covered by an advertisement. The ground floor is now Mumasi Market.

The building on the left edge was demolished when the Peckham Arch was created in 1994., and I was standing where it now is to take this picture. The arch is now again under threat after an earlier proposal in 2016 for its replacement by a block of flats was defeated by determined local opposition. But Southwark Council still appear determined to remove it, despite it having become a landmark feature of Peckham, now much loved by residents and a great space for community activities.

The council make clear why they want to remove the arch, basically so they can build more flats in “a significantly larger development on site” with “more commercial and/or community space on the ground floor“. They do make a few other minor points, such as the current inconvenient cycle route, which could easily be remedied with the arch still in position. They claim that 80% of local residents in 2016 did not want to see the arch retained, which seems at odds with the views expressed by residents to the local press.

Whenever I’ve been in Peckham on a Saturday afternoon there has been something happening under the arch (and it’s particularly useful when it be raining.) Here’s one example:

Peckham Pride – February 2016

Wikipedia states “The Arch was constructed in 1994 and was designed by architects Troughton McAslan as monument to and as instigator of regeneration in a borough which had suffered from years of decline.” It’s article goes on to quote various criticisms of the 2016 plan to demolish the arch. Although it has proved itself an ‘Asset of Community Value’, Southwark Council turned down the application by local residents to have it listed as such as they wanted to demolish it, though it seems impossible to read the reason they gave on the spreadsheet on the council site.

My walk on Sunday 29th January 1989 ended here on Peckham High Street, a convenient place to catch a 36 bus back to Vauxhall for my train home. The first post on this walk I made on Sunday 29th January 1989 was
Windows, A Doorway, Horse Trough and Winnie Mandela

Houses, British Lion & Elmington Estate

This post continues my walk in Camberwell on 27th January 1989. The previous post on this walk from January 1989 is St Giles, It’s Churchyard and Wilson’s School.

*Houses, Benhill Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-11*

Benhill Road runs north from Camberwell Church St opposite St Gile’s Church and includes the site of the former vicarage and St Gile’s Parish Hall. These houses are I think mid-Victorian and I admired the slender decorative pillars at the doorways.

Opposite the Parish Hall just inside the property is a small building with a blue plaque which I photographed but have not put online as the lighting was rather poor. It now has a London Borough of Southwark blue plaque with the totally misleading message ‘The Parish Church of St Giles Porch and Doorway Relocated to its current site in the vicarage garden where it was used as a summer house after the church was accidentally burnt down on 7th February 1841.’

While the church was burnt down in 1841 this was never its porch and doorway, though it was largely built with material from the burnt out church and was probably not used as a summer house – and more recently has been used for rubbish bin storage. An article in the Camberley Quarterly by Donald Mason, Old St Giles: blue plaques and history, reveals its true nature and has some excellent illustrations.

*British Lion, pub sign, Elmington Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-12*

On the corner of Benhill Road and Elmington Road I photographed a bicycle and the British Lion pub sign. The pub itself at 112 Benhill Road was a rather boring 1960s building rebuilt at around the same time as the flats around it. But there had been a pub on the site since at least 1871, The Prince Of Prussia, a name that probably became rather unpopular in the First World War.

*Edmund St, Elmington Estate, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-14*

I think the’ London County Council’ built the first flats on the Elmington Estate shortly before WW2, but there were four of these large blocks desgned by the LCC Architects department and built around 1956. The winter sun produced a rather elegant repeated pattern of light and shade on the frontage.

I think this large eleven floor slab block and its neighbours on the Elmington Estate, dating from around 1960 were demolished in 1999-2000. The flats passed to Southwark Council, formed in 1965 who lacked the cash to maintain them properly and they were in poor condition by the time I photographed them, and many flats were squatted in the 1990s.

*Edmund St, Elmington Estate, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-01*

In 1999 Southwark Council decided to demolish the whole of the Elmington Estate and these blocks were a part of the first phase of the redevelopment. Southwark Notes gives a great deal of detail about how this progressed.

In the first phase, most of those who lived in the flats were rehoused in council housing built on the site, but not all were too happy with their new homes. The article quotes one: ‘You will never know what privacy is like again. You will hear your neighbours and everything they do. And they will hear you. Your rooms will be smaller. You’ll be paying more for it. One day you’ll wake up and realise that you’d give anything to be back in your old home’.

The council for Phase 2 adopted “a whole new regeneration model premised on partnership with either corporate developers” or housing associations. Their partner here was the large and aggressive Housing Association Notting Hill Housing Trust who would offer zero social rented homes in the scheme (social rent being the equivalent rent of a council home). Some flats were available at so-called “affordable” rents, roughly twice those of council properties in the area, and unaffordable for most previous tenants. It was a process of ‘social cleansing’, forcing most of the poorer residents out of the area.

*Bradbury, Solicitors, 119, Camberwell Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-52*

I walked throught the Elmington Estate and on through Burgess Park to Camberwell Road, turning south where a few doors down on the east side I photographed the railings and doorways of 119 and 121. Numbers 117-129 and attached railings are Grade II listed.

From 1863 to 1887 photographer and portrait painter Henry Death (1820-1900), born in Moulton, Cambridgeshire, had his studio at 119 Camberwell Road, having moved there from nearby Addington Place where he set up a studio in 1856. He sold the house when he had to give up his business through ill health in 1887 and died in Camberwell thirteen years later. In !989 it was the offices of Bradleys Solicitors.

No 121 was the premises of the charity IAS, Independent Adoption Service, first registered in 1982 and voluntarily removed in 2009. I think both properties are now private residences.

*147, Camberwell Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-53*

No 147 Camberwell Road is a part of a terrace of around ten houses directly south of Cambridge House on the corner of Addington Square. These house look in rather better condition now and the tree here was removed a couple of years ago. Most of these houses are now divided into flats.

My posts on this walk on 27th January 1989 began at St George’s, Camberwell, Absolutely Board & Alberto. This walk will continue in a later post.

Kew, Brentford, Syon & Isleworth Walk

Part 2 Syon and Isleworth

A public footpath, now also on the Thames Path, leads from Brentford across Syon Park to Isleworth. Its a longish stroll with parkland on one side and at times just a high wall on the other, but does pass several historic buildings, though you would need to pay the entrance fee to the gardens and great conservatory to see most of them well. The estate is still privately owned and permission is needed for any filming and photography within the park.

Entry is free to the garden centre, and we went in to look at some of the buildings inside as well as to use the toilets. They also have a cafe and restaurant but we didn’t stop. Much of the garden centre was once the Riding School.

I wasn’t feeling well as we walked though here – still perhaps suffering from the virus which I’d had a couple of weeks earlier. So I didn’t feel much like taking pictures as we walked though. But I hadn’t found much I thought worth photographing on previous walks through here, expect for the view of Zion House. This is on the flight path into Heathrow, and there is an aircraft in my picture coming in to land there.

In my teens I was a Sea Scout in Isleworth, or rather a Senior Scout, and we theoretically went boating in the Thames here, though I think rather rarely. But this was also another route into Kew Gardens, with Church Ferry going across the names from by the corner of Parke Street and Church St. I also remember coming here to paddle and possibly even swim in the river, though it was pretty polluted back in the 1950s.

Isleworth was also the place where I drank my first pint of beer, which I think cost 1s/5d or around 7p. Not at the London Apprentice, which we thought of as a rather snooty place for the nobs, but at a small pub further down Church Street which had few problems with serving under-age drinkers. It’s no longer there.

We made it into the London Apprentice, sitting outside by the river for a drink, though still feeling ill I stuck to tonic. One of my colleagues found an excellent real ale, which I looked at longingly. It was a very pleasant place with a good atmosphere and friendly bar staff, so we stayed for another, and then thought the menu seemed fine and had a meal.

Finally we made it out of the pub and continued along Church St to the Duke of Northumberland’s River, perviously known as the Isleworth Mill Stream. There were several mills which relied on the stream, including one close to here said in 1845 (by which time there were also a couple of steam engines on site) to be the largest flour mill in England, Kidd’s Mill. This section of the river was built in the late 15th century for Syon Abbey, before the Northumberland’s built their house on the abbey site, and brought water from the River Crane at Whitton to augment a small stream which ran into the Thames at Isleworth.

But the River Crane couldn’t provide a sufficient and reliable supply of water, and in 1530 a new section of the river was dug from Longford to take water from the River Colne. This merges with the Crane close to Baber Bridge on the edge of Feltham, though there are then separate channels across Hounslow Heath and through Crane Park before the eastern section of the river diverges. I played around, paddled and fished in much of this as a boy.

The walkway beside this small river on its last few yards into the Thames was closed, but a nearby alley took us to to the riverside opposite Isleworth Ait. At Swan Street we made a brief detour to admire the Grade II listed Old Blue School built in 1842 and now converted into expensive flats, before returning to the riverside. The tide was low and there was almost no water in places here, and we watched as a man left work at the boatyard and walked across the mud to his works van parked by the river.

We continued through a small park area, once part of the grounds of the Catholic Convent Nazareth House, until the Thames Path we had been following took us out onto Richmond Road. Here we left the Path, turning right onto Richmond Road and then going down Queen’s Terrace to Kings Terrace, walking north to turn down Byfield Road.

Where this turns to the left we stopped to admire the small 1885 Elizabeth Butler almshouses, almost missing behind us the finely decorated May Villas from a similar era before taking the alley to Twickenham Road. Here next to the bus stop where our walk ended was the house with its blue plaque informing us ‘VINCENT VAN GOGH the famous painter lived here in 1876.” The bus came before I had time to make a photograph. It will still be there the next time I’m in Isleworth.

Alma Grove & Grange Road, Bermondsey, 1988

My previous post on this walk, West Lane & Spa Road Bermondsey 1988, ended in the Longfield esate on Fort Road.

Man, Pickaxe, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10m-51-Edit_2400 — *Man, Pickaxe, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10m-51*

I met this man working I think somewhere on the Longfield Estate, and as often happens he was interested in seeing me wandering around with a camera and stopped his work to pose for me.

Alma Grove, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10m-55-Edit_2400 — *Alma Grove, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10m-55*

Streets such as Alma Grove and one I had walked down earlier in the area Balaclava Rod clearly show that this area was built up around the time of the Crimean War of 1853-6. when Britain and its allies, France, the Ottoman Empire and Piedmont-Sardinia defeated Russia. It was a war largely about Palestine (then part of the Ottoman Empire) and the relative religious rights there for the Orthodox Church, backed by Russia and the Roman Catholic Church, but also against imperial expansion by Russia as the Turkish Ottoman empire was declining. The Allies landed in Crimea won a battle at Alma in September 1854, then managed to repel a Russian counterattack in October at Balaclava, but with heavy British losses.

The Crimean War was an important milestone in the history of photography as the first to be widely recorded in photographs, taken using the cumbersome wet-plate process by Roger Fenton, whose work was also a part of what was probably the first major mass propaganda exercise aimed at the growing British middle class and industrial working class.

The infamous Charge of the Light Brigade took place at Balaclava, and Lord Lucan who passed on the misleading order which led to it had his home close to where I now live. Though the local Lucan Arms pub named in his family’s honour is now ironically renamed ‘The Retreat’.

Grange Cafe, Grange Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10m-24-Edit_2400 — *Grange Café, Grange Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10m-24*

Walking westwards along Southwark Park Road takes you, after the junction with Dunton Road into Grange Road, where I admired the frontage of the Grange Café. THis later became the Jasmine Garden Chinese take-away and is now Chicken World, but has long since lost its interesting frontage, though the pillars at each end remain.

F T W, Motorcycles, Grange Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10m-25-Edit_2400 — *F T W, Motorcycles, Grange Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10m-25*

Although there was once a magazine ‘Forever Two Wheels’ or ‘FTW’ I suspect the name of this motorcycle shop on Grange Road probably came from the initials of its owner. Ii think this shop and the row of houses has since been demolished. As well as selling motorbikes it was also a bike breaker, stripping down bikes no longer in working order to sell as spare parts.

The Look In, Grange Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10m-26-Edit_2400 — *The Look In, Grange Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10m-26*

The Look In offering House Clearances and Removals was very firmly shuttered and closed when I made this picture in 1988. Certainly I couldn’t look in. It was next to F T W motorcycles. The shop at left appears to be number 85, but numbering in Grange Road is difficult to follow. I think these shops were shortly after replaced by a rather anonymous housing block.

F T W, Motorcycles, Grange Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10m-12-Edit_2400 — *F T W, Motorcycles, Grange Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10m-12*

As I was photographing the shop fronts this man came out from FTW Motorcycles and we talked for a few minutes, after which I asked him if I could take his photograph. I took two frames and both are just a little sharper on the shopfront than on his face.

I went on from here to take a number of pictures of the Alaska Works, where my next post on this walk will begin.

Canonbury, Green Lanes and Balls Pond Road

My next walk on Wednesday 3rd August 1988 began on a train going over the River Thames at Strand on the Green, the North London Line, taking me to Highbury & Islington from where I walked through Canonbury to Green Lanes, where I photographed an interesting pair of houses and found some rather poetic graffiti on my way to Newington Green and went on the the Balls Pond Road.

Grosvenor Ave, Canonbury, Islington, 1988 88-8c-14-Edit_2400 — *141 Grosvenor Ave, Canonbury, Islington, 1988 88-8c-14*

In my dreams last night I was sitting in front of my computer and just turning it off after searching for the location of this house, which on my contact sheet is simply given as ‘?Highbury Grove’, and it flashed onto Google Streetview as the application closed. I was just coming round and wasn’t sure whether this was dream or memory, so as soon as I got back in front of the screen today I looked up where I thought it had been – and found no such street existed. However a few more minutes searching – and looking at the next image on the contact sheet helped – I recognised it as 141 Grosvenor Ave in Canonbury.

The house next door in the semi-detached also had those distinctive vertical brick panels in the colums of the porch and at the side of the windows, but they have been disguised I think by white masonary paint, and possibly others have suffered a similar fate.

But the dream got me thinking more about taking these pictures and about my photography generally as I lay half awake in bed. I think I had walked around half a mile before making my first picture on this walk, past many other houses and shops I might have stopped to photograph but had not done so and I reflected on this. I’ve always been a rather timid photographer and often find it difficult to start taking pictures until something jolts me out of this, and once I’ve got going my reluctance fades. Making a photograph exposes not just the film (or these days the sensor) but also the photographer.

Green Lanes, Highbury, Islington, Hackney, 1988 88-8d-65-Edit_2400 — *Green Lanes, Highbury, Islington, Hackney, 1988 88-8d-65*

I can’t remember the exact route I took to Green Lanes, perhaps up Petherton Road, as the few pictures I made (not on-line) are typical of the area but not easy to locate, but I then walked south towards Newington Green, but a grid reference written on this frame of the contact sheet together with the street name Green Lanes suggests this shop window was near Aden Grove.

The curling notices suggest that Enright & Co Ltd m(established 1875) had left the building some time earlier, and although they say Houses Wanted, the upper left ‘Sorry Nothing’ was probably more appropriate. I rather liked the rather ghosty reflections in the glass, including my legs in the centre of the frame.

Roughly one in four of the pictures I made on this walk are on-line, and four of the ten from this particular film are these consecutive images from this section of Green Lanes.

Green Lanes, Highbury, , Islington, Hackney, 1988 1988 88-8d-66-Edit_2400 — *Green Lanes, Highbury, Islington, Hackney, 1988 1988 88-8d-66-Edit_2400*

There are still several of these ‘Mid-Late 19c’ houses on Green Lanes, roughly oposite Aden Grove and they are locally listed at 57-63 for their ‘truncated Dutch gables’. The bars on the windows at right have gone but they still otherwise look much the same.

Graffiti, Green Lanes, Highbury, , Islington, Hackney, 1988 88-8d-51-Edit_2400 — *Graffiti, Green Lanes, Highbury, , Islington, Hackney, 1988 88-8d-51*

Two writers appear to have taken advantage of this long stretch of white wall, probably empty industrial premises of some kind. Possible the “BIRD Turning in the sky air below the clouds’ there is no corner…” got in first complete with its extra apostrophe and the later writer (perhaps F. Ratttttl)tadded a line above and below, with some other additions including from an Arsenal fan.

Green Lanes here is on the border of the two London Boroughs of Hackney and Islington and I’ve included both boroughs in the captions even when I’m sure which side of the border I took the pictures on.

Graffiti, Green Lanes, Highbury, , Islington, Hackney, 1988 88-8d-52-Edit_2400 — *Graffiti, Green Lanes, Highbury, Islington, Hackney, 1988 88-8d-52*

On the side of a boarded up shop, just off Green Lanes on the corner of Springdale Road was a more organised piece of writing, possibly advice to Fred to build a cradle for his baby. The reflecttion at left clearly shows the two buildings still on either side of Pegasus Close.

Annette Works, Halliford St, Ecclesbourne Rd, Islington, 1988 88-8d-31-Edit_2400 — *Annette Works, Halliford St, Ecclesbourne Rd, Islington, 1988 88-8d-31*

For once a picture which includes precise information on its location, the Annette Works on the corner of Halliford St and Ecclesbourne Rd in Islington. The house at 61 Halliford Street was or had been home to Multi-Print Co, and this side of it has now been extensively rebuilt. I wondered briefly if there might be some connection to Annette Crescent, a listed crescent not far away on the Essex Road, but failed to find any further information. It seems unlikely as Annette Crescent was named for its developer, Thomas James Annett, only picking up the ‘e’ in later years.

Southgate Rd, Kingsland, Islington, Hackney, 1988 88-8d-36-Edit_2400 — *Southgate Rd, Kingsland, Islington, Hackney, 1988 88-8d-36*

Southgate Road is another street on the Hackney/Islington border. There were no Vacancies at No 81, which is now together with No 83 ‘The Sydney Building’ a ‘warehouse conversion’ into flats with a rather prettier garden, roses replacing the buddleia.

Mildmay Rd, Canonbury, Islington, Hackney, 1988 88-8d-26-Edit_2400 — Mildmay Rd, Canonbury, Islington, 1988 88-8d-26

This picture appears to show a woman looking out of a upper floor window but this is actually a painting on the wall. But there was a real woman coming along the street towards me. There is still a mural visible on the wall which can be seen rather better from Wolsey Road, but is largely obscured by an overgrown tree. I’m not sure if this upper part above and behind the main painted wall is still there.

The mural was painted in 1981 by Carolyne Beale for Mildmay Housing Action Area and is now in very poor condition, cracking badly. You can see a good colour picture of it all before the tree grew online, with a second picture of this lady at the window. I don’t think I photographed the mural properly, though I may have done.

More from the Balls Pond Road and Dalston in another post.

Click on any of the images in the post to see a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos, from where you can browse other images.

Limehouse, Horses, Graffiti & Canal

Commercial Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7n-23-positive_2400 — *Commercial Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7n-23*

Limehouse, Horses, Graffiti & Canal

This terrace at 582-588 is still there, considerably restored, with the wrought iron railings now continuing in front of 588, but the two storey building beyond the traffic lights for Branch Road, here with a sign GEC Mowlem Railway Group and on its roof the former occupants, scrap metal firm 600 Group has been replaced by a tall I think 12 storey block, the Zenith building, one of the new buildings on Commercial Road with views over Limehouse Basin. Mowlem had presumably been there for the conversion of the old railway line along the viaduct next to the basin into the recently opened Docklands Light Railway.

Clemence St, Limehouse,Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7n-11-positive_2400 — *Clemence St, Limehouse,Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7n-11*

My notes say that this slender detached house with doorway and detailing that could have graced a rather grander residence was on Clemence Street, and I’ve no particular reason to doubt them, but it may have been in a neighbouring street. I didn’t hear any neighing from the two horses heads in the picture.

G Fawkes Is Innocent, Turners Rd, Limehouse,Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7n-12-positive_2400 — *G Fawkes Is Innocent, Turners Rd, Limehouse,Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7n-12*

‘G.FAWKES IS. INNOCENT’ is I think a play on the iconic East End graffiti about George Davis, who was framed by Det Sgt Mathews for an armed robbery at the London Electricity Board’s offices in Ilford, Essex in 1974, for which he was sentenced to 20 years in jail. Eventually in 2011 he won his appeal against that verdict. He was imprisoned for other crimes, but never protested his innocence after being convicted. Guy Fawkes, often said to be the only person to enter Parliament with honest intentions was tortured terribly and fell from the scaffold on which he was to be hanged, breaking his neck and thus avoiding being hung, drawn and quartered but is celebrated by being burnt on bonfires every 5th November in an anti-Catholic celebration.

Rhodeswell Rd, Turners Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-61-positive_2400 — *Rhodeswell Rd, Turners Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-61*

The same building as the picture above but showing its Rhodeswell Rd side and terraced houses down Turners Road. The terrace has surviced, but the building at the left and the empty site at right have both been replaced by new housing.

Turners Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-62-positive_2400 — *Turners Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-62*

All of the houses on the north side of Turners Road here have been demolished and replaced by new housing. The terraced houses have equally small but much neater front gardens. No 43 here has the house name ‘City View’.

Copenhagen Place, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-56-positive_2400 — *Copenhagen Place, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-56*

One of several small alleys leading off from Copenhagen Place which I think have disappeared, although there is a short cobbled section leading off to Carmine Wharf, and another yard – clearly not this one – at the rear of properties on Pixley St. But most of the area has been completely redeveloped since I made this picture.

Limehouse Cut, Burdett Rd, LImehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-41-positive_2400 — *Limehouse Cut, Burdett Rd, LImehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-41*

The Limehouse Cut is the oldest canal in London, first dug in 1770 but widened a few years later to allow barges to pass each other and travel in both directions. Later it was widened to the current width. It provided a route from the Lea Navigation to the River Thames avoiding the convoluted meandering of the tidal Bow Creek and initially had its own basin and entrance lock to the Thames in Limehouse, although the canal was still tidal, at the level of Bow Locks. In 1854 the basin was linked to the nearby Regents Canal Dock but after a legal dispute because bargees didn’t like the Regents Canal terms this was filled in a few years later and only restored in 1968, after which the lock and short length of the cut leader to the Thames were filled in.

Last's Wharf, Burdett Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-42-positive_2400 — *Last’s Wharf, Burdett Rd, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-7o-42*

310 Burdett Road is now the Royal Mail Delivery Office in Docklands, on the large site of Last’s Wharf leading down to the Limehouse Cut. The picture of the Cut from the Burdett Road Bridge above is looking roughly west, and the different constructions of the bank of the canal remains recognisable but nothing else in the picture from 1988 remains.

My walk will continue in a later post.

Clicking on any of the images will take you to a larger version in the album 1988 London Photos, from where you can browse the other pictures, though in a different order to this post which has them in the order I made them.

Hampstead & Belsize 1988

Heath St, Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-7k-26-positive_2400 — *Heath St, Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-7k-26*

Hampstead & Belsize 1988 These pictures are from the second part of a lengthy walk from Swiss Cottage. They start with a long section through Hampstead and on to Hampstead Heath, in which I took relatively few pictures.

Looking at my contact sheets I can trace my route down Hampstead High St and Rosslyn Hill along Pond St to South End Green and then north to Hampstead Ponds, where I probably sat to eat my sandwiches before taking a look at South Hill Park Gardens, going down Keats Grove past Keats House, then down past St John’s on Downshire Hill and across Rosslyn Hill and along Thurlow Rd to Lyndhurst Terrace and to Lyndhurst Rd.

But although there is nothing wrong with the pictures I took on that eaction of the walk, none of them excited my attention enough for me to mark them up for digitisation and putting them on-line – and the sequence of over 20 frames is one of the longest gaps in making my on-line albums. Perhaps I should add a few more to the album.

Lyndhurst Rd, Eldon Grove, Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-7l-44-positive_2400 — *Lyndhurst Rd, Eldon Grove, Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-7l-44*

This unusual building on the corner of Lyndhurst Road and Eldon Grove has its own street name, Tower Close. There appear to be five properties here, each valued at between £2.4m and £3.69m. I think it was probably fairly recently built when I photographed it in 1988 and I found it both unusual and unusually ugly; my picture is far too kind.

*Girl Guides, Girl Scouts, World Centre, Lyndhurst Rd, Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-7l-46*

Olave House moved here in 1984. Previously the building had been Rosslyn Lodge, once home to the Earl of Rosslyn, and was converted into offices for the Girl Guides. The west wing of the house had been demolished and a new building at the west of the site was opened as a Guide hostel and conference centre, Pax Lodge, in 1991.

Rosslyn Lodge, a small villa, according to the Victoria County History, “was rebuilt, probably between 1799 and 1802, and was described in 1808 as new, with four bedrooms, a double coach house, and gardener’s house.” In the First World War was loaned by its owner to became the Rosslyn Lodge Auxiliary Military Hospital, which closed in 1919. Later it became a nurses home.

Hunters Lodge, Belsize Lane, Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-7l-33-positive_2400 — *Hunters Lodge, Belsize Lane, Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-7l-33*

The Grade II listing text describes this tersely as “Detached cottage ornee. c1810. By Joseph Parkinson. For William Tate. Stucco.” though it goes on to give rather more detail.

It concludes with a historical note from the Camden History Society “William Tate, merchant, was a lessee of the Baltic merchant George Todd who acquired a large piece of Belsize Park in 1808. Parkinson exhibited the designs for Langwathby, as it was then known, at the Royal Academy in 1810.” Langwathby is a small village in Cumbria on the River Eden around 5 miles north east of Penrith, and was probably the birthplace of William Tate.

Belsize Crescent, Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-7l-22-positive_2400 — *Belsize Crescent, Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-7l-22*

Belsize Crescent according again to the Victoria County History, was constructed as Prince Consort Road in 1865 and was sublet by Daniel Tidey to another builder, William Willett in 1869. Before Tidey went bust in 1870 he had built over 250 houses in Belsize Park. After 1870 Willett was the main builder in the area, building houses in Belsize Avenue, Lyndhurst Gardens and Wedderburn Road.

Belsize Crescent, Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-7l-23-positive_2400 — *Belsize Crescent, Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-7l-23*

Tidey had built houses in Italianate stucco, but Willett’s were in red brick, and again according to the VCH “were solidly constructed and set a new artistic standard for speculative architecture… they were red-brick and varied in design, many of them by the Willetts’ own architects Harry B. Measures and, after 1891, Amos Faulkner.”

Belsize Lane, Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-7l-26-positive_2400 — *Belsize Lane, Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-7l-26*

William Willett’s son, also William Willett and like his father a builder, is the man you have to thank or curse for ‘Summer Time’ introduced by the Summer Time Act 1916. It had been suggested by others many years before but it was thanks to his campaigning it became law the year following his death.

Probably he wanted to get more hours of work out his builders at a time when building work was reliant on daylight with little or no artificial lighting. Fortunately we got a simpler version than his earlier proposal which would have seen us moving the clocks on four Sundays in both April and October by 20 minute steps – giving a total of 80 minutes change and doubtless massive confusion.

My walk will continue in a later post.

Click on any of the images above and you will be taken to a larger version in my album 1988 London Pictures from where you can browse the album.

St John’s Wood

Long ago St John’s Wood was a real wood, part of the Forest of Middlesex, and was the property of the Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem who were based in Clerkenwell. Pregiously it had belonged to the Catholic Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (better know as the Templars) who were suppressed in 1312. Henry VIII grabbed the land in 1539 when he dissolved the monasteries during the Reformation, but Charles II gave it to one of his mates in settlement of a debt of £1300, and eventually most of it was sold to a city wine merchant, Henry Samuel Eyre in 1733, and much of the area remains the Eyre Estate. Other parts belong to Harrow School.

Development on the Eyre estate began in 1809 The area was developed as an area for the growing upper middle class, with many detached and semi-detached villas with large gardens, the first garden suburb anywhere in the world. Some later were replaced by blocks of flats and terraces of housing, but the area remains one of the most expensive around London. It’s not an area where I often felt at home.

In 2011 I was able to go behind some of the high walls and photograph the ‘Secret Gardens of St John’s Wood‘ in a project initiated by Mireille Galinou of the Queens Terrace Café and shown there in November 2011, but there were still many impenetrable behind high walls, some protected by security guards with suspicious bulges in their clothing. But in 1988 I kept to the streets.

These flats are at the west end of Abercorn Place at its corner with Maida Vale at the rear of Wellesley Court, architect Frank Scarlett, built in 1938. Perhaps surprisingly the St John’s Wood Conservation Area is carefully drawn to exclude this set of expensive private flats.

Nugent Terrace, St John's Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-43-positive_2400 — *Nugent Terrace, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-43*

There are still shops in Nugent Terrace, but I think this rather high-class cobblers is long gone. I was amused at how the figurines chosen matched the area.

Hill Rd, St John's Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-46-positive_2400 — *Hill Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-46*

This remarkable mansion block, Mortimer Court, on the corner of Hill Road and Abbey Road is certainly not typical of the area, and I have to apologise that my picture fails to record the full horror of its architecture, best appreciated from the opposite side of Abbey Road. It can be seen on the web sites of many of London’s estate agents.

Onslow Ford, memorial, sculpture, Andrea Carlo Lucchesi, Abbey Rd, Grove End Rd, St John's Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-35-positive_2400 — *Onslow Ford, memorial, sculpture, Andrea Carlo Lucchesi, Abbey Rd, Grove End Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-35*

English sculptor Edward Onslow Ford RA (1852—1901) was one of the leaders of the British New Sculpture movement of the 1880s, becoming famous for portrait busts and roundels of many leading figures including Ruskin, Millais, Thomas Huxley and Herbert Spencer. A number of his statues including that of Rowland Hill remain on public display.

He produced a long series of “bronze statuettes of adolescent girls in poses loosely derived from mythology or allegorical themes” some of which were also sold widely in smaller scale copies for Victorian homes, though they might not be appreciated now. The monument in St John’s Wood, close to his home was sculpted by his former studio assistant Andrea Carlo Lucchesi and based on one of Ford’s sculptures.

Abbey Rd Studios, Abbey Rd, St John's Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-21-positive_2400 — *Abbey Rd Studios, Abbey Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-21*

It is probably a punishable offence to go to Abbey Road and not take a photo of the now famous studios, though I resisted any urge to photograph the famous pedestrian crossing nearby.

Abbey Road Baptist Church,Abbey Rd, St John's Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-24-positive_2400 — *Abbey Road Baptist Church,Abbey Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-24*

The Baptist Church on Abbey Road was founded in 1863 by a Mr Stott, a preacher from Hyde Park, who engaged leading church architects Habershon & Pite to build this Grade II listed structure in a ‘Free Byzantine’ style.

In 1874 the Abbey Road and St John’s Wood Mutual Benefit Building Society was formed in what was then the Free Church. This later became Abbey Road and St John’s Wood Permanent Building Society and in 1944 joined with The National Building Society to beceome the Abbey National Building Society, which sadly demutualised in 1989 and in 2004 become wholly owned by the Spanish Santander Group.

Abbey Rd, St John's Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-25-positive_2400 — *Abbey Rd, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-25*

This adjoining pair of gate-posts is no longer on Abbey Road, and the block of flats at No 20 have had something of a face lift since 1988. But to me they looked so much like an adult and child – and were perhaps a deliberate attempt to outdo the Joneses.

Abercorn Place, St John's Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-11-positive_2400 — *Abercorn Place, St John’s Wood, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-11*

This small group of three houses on Abercorn Place at the corner of Violet Hill stood out among the fairly varied architecture of the street for the flower motifs above their first floor windows – a reminder, like the name Violet Hill, that this was the first garden suburb.

The gateposts, one of which is at right of the picture I think used to have a more obvious pattern on them, unfortunately out of focus in my image, which made them appear less crude.

My wanderings around St John’s Wood on a Saturday in July 1988 will continue in a later post. You can click on any of the pictures here to go to a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos, from where you can browse the album.

Around Randolph Avenue 1988

Randolph Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 1988 88-7d-11-positive_2400 — *Randolph Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 1988 88-7d-11*

If you take the Bakerloo Line to Maida Vale, the station exit is on the corner of Elgin Avenue and Randolph Avenue, and within a few yards of the corner I found a number of scenes that interested me enough to take a picture, including several I’ve not put online, including one of the station itself. It’s a nice Underground station, with the typical maroon tiles of the period and Grade II listed, opened in 2015, designed by Stanley Heap for the London Electric Railway but I think I felt it it would look better in colour, though I don’t think I made a colour image of its exterior.

Instead I crossed the road and walked a few yards north up Randolph Ave for this picture of Burke Electrical Services and the White Rose Laundry, both seemingly in an outhouse on the rear of the rather grandiose buildings of Elgin Avenue. All three shops in this picture are now a Starbucks, and those single-storey blocks now have two additional floors above, rather nicely blending in with the surroundings.

Elgin Mews North, Randolph Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 1988 88-7d-12-positive_2400 — *Elgin Mews North, Randolph Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 1988 88-7d-12*

The left hand building of the above picture was a part of the archway leading east from Randolph Road into Elgin Mews North.

Most of the houses in Elgin Mews North seem modern, said to date from around 1984, but the gateway and those on Randolph Avenue are Grade II listed. The mews arch in an Italian Gothic style was built around 1864 but according to the listing text heavily restored and possibly reconstructed behind the facade around 1980.

Randolph Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 1988 88-7d-14-positive_2400 — *Randolph Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 1988 88-7d-14*

A very similar pair of houses and archway are on Randolph Avenue just to the south of the Underground station, and are again Grade II listed.

Randolph Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 1988 88-7d-16-positive_2400 — *Randolph Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 1988 88-7d-16*

According to the Victoria County History, Maida Vale gets its name from a victory in the Napoleonic Wars in 1807 when Sir John Stuart defeated the French at Maida in Calabria, and in 1810 a new pub on Edgware Road was named The Hero of Maida in his honour.

George Gutch (1790-1894) architect to the Bishops of London who owned the area made plans on a grand scale including a long avenue Portsdown Road parallel to Edgware Rd crossed by Elgin Road, but these were slow to be put into action, and it was only in the 1860s that the area began to be built up.

By this time the white stucco of earlier developments was being replaced by buildings in brick, often multicoloured which give the area its distinct look. Elgin Road was renamed Elgin Avenue in 1886, but it was only in 1939 that Portsdown Road was renamed to its current Randolph Avenue.

Randolph Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-02-positive_2400 — *Randolph Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-02*

These long terraces are just beyond the mews in the image above.

Randolph Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 198888-7e-51-positive_2400 — *Randolph Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 198888-7e-51*

The terrace continues for some length down Randolph Avenue.

Elgin Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 198888-7e-52-positive_2400 — *Elgin Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 198888-7e-52*

I walked back to the tube station and Elgin Avenue, where a couple of shopfronts took may attention. The pillar dividing 294 and 296 is spiral, like those Italianate examples in Randolph Avenue.

Elgin Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-54-positive_2400 — Elgin Ave, Maida Vale, Westminster, 1988 88-7e-54

And a little further east there was a blind stating ‘312 MEN’ above quite a few images of women which probably amused me slightly.

I walked out of Maida Vale across the Edgware Road and into St John’s Wood – where my next post from 1988 will continue. You can click on any of the images here to see a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos and browse the album from there.

South Hampstead & Kilburn

Hilgrove Rd, South Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-6d-12-positive_2400 — *Hilgrove Rd, South Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-6d-12*

This semi-detached pair of Gothic revival red brick house date from around 1870 and are locally listed. They have a very ecclesiastical look. Hilgrove Road was laid out as Adelaide Road North in the 1830s or 40s and named in honour of Queen Adelaide, born as Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen in 1792 who in 1818 was married to William, Duke of Clarence and became Queen who in 1830 became queen consort of Great Britain when her husband was crowned as William IV.

The road was renamed Hilgrove road in 1875 by developers who wanted to attract house buyers with a name that suggested it was a semi-rural location – something that is very common in this area. You can read more about Camden street names in a listing by David A. Hayes and Camden History Society.

Fairhazel Gardens, South Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-6d-13-positive_2400 — *Fairhazel Gardens, South Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-6d-13*

Fairhazel Gardens sounds like another of these ‘semi-rural’ estate agents names, but apparently was taken from a truly rural local property on the Sussex estate of the Maryon Wilson family. Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson (1800 – 1869) was the 8th Baronet of Eastbourne and Charlton. He was also lord of the manor of Hampstead and according to Wikipedia tried hard to cover the area with housing despite problems with the terms of his fathers will and the protests of local residents. You can read more in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Fairhazel Gardens (originally called North End Road) began to be developed in 1879 but the flats probably date from between 1886 and 1896. The area was developed by Sir Spencer Maryon Wilson, the tenth baronet (1829–1897).

Greencroft Gardens, South Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-6d-14-positive_2400 — *Greencroft Gardens, South Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-6d-14*

Greencroft was another genuinely rural name, coming from a farm near near Great Canfield on the Essex estate of the Maryon Wilsons (again according to the Camden History Society listing.) The houses here were built by Ernest Estcourt and James Dixon in the late 1880s.

Greencroft Gardens, Fairhazel Gardens, South Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-6d-15-positive_2400 — *Queen’s Court, Greencroft Gardens, Fairhazel Gardens, South Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-6d-15*

Canfield Gardens, South Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-6e-62-positive_2400 — *Canfield Gardens, South Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-6e-62*

Great Canfield on the Maryon Wilson Essex estate gave its name to Canfield Gardens – the estate there also contained a 16th century mansion Fitzjohns whose name also appears in the Hampstead area.

South Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-6e-63-positive_2400 — *Cleve Rd, South Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-6e-63*

Woodcote at 16 Cleve Rd, the road named after a property near Quex Park in Birchington-on-Sea, Kent, the home of the Powell Cotton family who developed their estate around Quex Rd from 1868 on, with Cleve Road coming in 1882-6. Woodcote is a village on the Chilterns in South Oxfordshire, not far from Goring. Woodcote House there was the home of the Cotton family from around the 1790s until some time in the following century.

Kingsgate Rd, Kilburn, Camden, 1988 88-6e-51-positive_2400 — *Kingsgate Rd, Kilburn, Camden, 1988 88-6e-51*

Walking back towards Kilburn Park station my usual wandering fashion I came across this food stall being prepared in Kingsgate Road, though I can no longer remember what was the occasion for it. It looks like some church group, perhaps from the church close to the Quex Road end of Kingsgate Rd.

Belsize Rd, South Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-6e-52-positive_2400 — *Belsize Rd, South Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-6e-52*

This long parade of shops is still there to the west of the junction with Kilburn Priory at 199-219 Belsize Rd. Belsize Rd was developed from 1851.

221 Belsize Rd, South Hampstead, Camden, Camden, 1988 88-6e-53-positive_2400 — *221 Belsize Rd, South Hampstead, Camden, 1988 88-6e-53*

Kilburn High Rd, Kilburn, Camden, 1988 88-6e-54-positive_2400 — *Kilburn High Rd, Kilburn, Camden, 1988 88-6e-54*

The Red Lion at 34 Kilburn High Rd claims to have been established in 1444 and rebuilt in 1890, then replacing a rather charming two storey building possibly a hundred years old. At some time after my photograph it became called The Westbury, then in 2012 a bar called Love and Liquor, and finally in 2017 Soul Store West, a dinner, cocktail bar and hotel, which closed after four months. You can read more on its history in ‘Professor Morris’ and the Red Lion, Kilburn. The authors of this say the earliest date they can trace for the pub is an alcohol licence for 1721.

Tin Tabernacle, Cambridge Ave, Kilburn, Brent, 1988 88-6e-55-positive_2400 — *Tin Tabernacle, Cambridge Ave, Kilburn, Brent, 1988 88-6e-55*

Finally as I walked towards Kilburn Park Station I couldn’t resist taking another picture of TS Leicester, Kiburn’s ‘Tin Tabernacle’.

This was my final picture in London for around a month, though I made more pictures of Hull and also on an industrial architecture visit to Sharpness and the Forest of Dean.