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A Submarine, Flats, Pub, Dog, Ducks & Milkmaid

A Submarine, Flats, Pub, Dog, Ducks & Milkmaid is the final post on my walk on Friday afternoon, May 5th 1989. The previous post was Around Camberwell New Road – 1989

*Camberwell Submarine, boiler room, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-35*

I crossed over Camberwell New Road to the southern side, turned own Vassall Road and then left into Langton Road. I’ve not digitised the one picture I took of a house here, nor the single image I made in Lothian Road, but I continued further south along here, lured by the sight of an unusual object in the centre of Akerman Road.

Two vertical concrete towers rose up from a more organic looking low concrete body. Later I was to learn that this was known as the Camberwell Submarine.

*Camberwell Submarine, boiler room, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-21*

I had no idea what this structure was, though clearly it was providing ventilation for some below ground installation. Was it Lambeth’s nuclear bunker, perhaps an underground city? Was there some secret tunnel underneath – though the nearest Underground line was well over a mile away. Later I looked it up to find others had made similar speculations to mine, but of course the real purpose is rather more prosaic.

This is the visible structure of the below ground Myatt’s Fields North Boiler House designed by Michael Luffingham in the mid-seventies for Lambeth Council, and described at the time as Hollamby’s submarine after his boss, borough architect Ted Hollamby. An attempt was made to get it listed ten years ago but failed.

*Camberwell Submarine, boiler room, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-23*

I could only walk around the outside of the submarine and although it had doors at each end, both were locked. In 2007, Mike Urban of Urban75 was photographing it and was invited inside by a maintenance worker and his post reveals some of the hidden secrets of the interior.

*Flats, Akerman Rd, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-26*

These are some of the flats on the Myatt’s Fields North which were heated by the submarine. The estate later got a very poor reputation and much was demolished and replaced in controversial redevelopment in 2014, mentioned in a previous post.

*Loughborough Hotel, Evandale Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-14*

I turned down Evandale Road and walked down to the Loughborough Hotel on the corner with Loughborough Road. The earliest record of a pub here – on the corner with what was then Cromwell Rd – was in 1864, and it was built on the site of Loughborough House which was demolished in 1854. This had been the Manor House of Lambeth Wick, home to the 1st Baron Loughborough, Henry Hastings. He had been given his title in 1643 for fighting for the Royalists in the English Civil War and returned to live here after a period of exile in 1661.

In 1900 the hotel was replaced by this splendid new building, designed as an entertainment palace with a large ballroom on the first floor. The name ‘Hotel’ simply meant it was a posher establishment than an inn, and it never had rooms where people could stay.

The nature of entertainment at the hotel changed from the late 1960s as did the local population. The Island Disco, a South Pacific Island themed disco opened in 1967 and various other night clubs followed including the legendary Latin and African music club, the Mambo Inn. There were drag nights too from !969.

All this finished in 2005, when the upstairs room s were turned into flats. The ground floor pub finally closed in 2007 and the former bar is now a café and possibly at times an art gallery.

*Fiveways, Loughborough Rd, Akerman Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-5b-15*

I turned east along Loughborough Road and made my way to Fiveways, the junction with Akerman Road, Lilford Road and Fiveways Road. This shows the house on the corner with Akerman Raod, which has since been considerably refurbished. This was once the end of a long terrace from the Loughborough Hotel with ground floor shops, but those at this end and some others have been converted to residential.

*Dog, Ducks & Milkmaid, Lilford Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-62*

I continued along Lilford Road, where at number 15 I photographed this small menagerie. I’m pleased to see that the ducks are still there on the short pillars at the front door, though now looking a little worn, but the milkmaid and dog have gone.

Auto Stores, Camberwell Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5c-63 — *Auto Stores, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5c-63*

By now it was getting a little late and I was getting hungry and I made my way quickly along Knatchbull Road towards Camberwell Green to catch a bus back to Waterloo for my train home. I only took this one last picture, though I’m not sure exactly where it was taken around Camberwell Green, though my contact sheet says Camberwell Road.

This is the third and final post on the walk which began with Naked Ladies, 3 Doors & A New Walk. But two days later I was back again on a new walk in South London which I’ll write about shortly

Around Camberwell New Road – 1989

My walk on Friday 5th May 1989 continued. This is the second post on the walk which began with Naked Ladies, 3 Doors & A New Walk.

*Houses, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-64*

These houses are 137-141 Camberwell New Road and seem fairly typical of the houses along the road, though unlike many of the others these appear not to be listed. I was interested in particulr at the link between 137 and 139, both with the archway and the butress above. I wondered if the terrace at right was a later replacement for an earlier house here, rather more like the house at left.

*Pub, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-66*

A dog sits at the entrance of the Taylor Walker pub on Camberwell New Road, with a small plaque proudly noting the brewery was established in London in 1730. They began in Stepney as Salmon and Hare, and only added John Taylor in 1796, becoming Taylor Walker when Isaac Walker became a partner in 1816. In 1823 they moved from Stepney to the Barley Mow Brewer in Limehouse. They were taken over in 1959 by Ind Coope who closed the brewery, continuing to brew beer under their name at Burton until the 1990s, but some London pubs continued to use the brand. The brand name was revived by another company for some pubs for a few years this century but has not gone.

I’m not absolutely sure which pub this was but it was probably the Skinners Arms, now known as The Kennington, on the corner with Foxley Rd. It closed around 2004, reopening as the Black Sheep Bar for a few years before getting its new name around 2012. Someone must remember the “Chute In Saturday Nights With Big Ray” and “Music Mirth & Melody” with “Max & Tom”, if only with dread.

*Shop, Wyndham Rd, Farmers Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-53*

Fineservice TV & Video Repairs is now a shop and post office, but it still has a reccognisble frontage with the two heads on Farmers Road with a matching pair at the other end of its frontage on Wyndham Road.

*Flats, Grenfell House, Comber Grove, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-55*

I think I walked on up Wyndham Road but took no pictures until I turned down Comber Grove and made this image of the stone ornament in front of Grenfell House, one of several large blocks of solid 1930s London County Council flats in the estate. This stone ball is no longer in the grass but has, like the flats, gone up in the world, and there are now of pair of them on solid brick columns each side of the gateway from the street.

*Calvary Temple United Church, Councillor St, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-44*

I walked back onto Camberwell New Road and couldn’t resits taking a few more pictures of Calvary Temple, including some slightly closer images of its frontage (not yet digitised) and a repeat of my earlier viewpoint, before making this view which concentrates on the church without the inclusion of a tower block behind it.

*Shops, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-45*

This whole block from 227-253 Camberwell New Road is Grade II listed as “14 houses, now mostly commercial premises. Early to mid C19 with several later C19 shop fronts of intrinsic interest.”

I’m not sure my photograph shows that intrinsic interest, but the lettering and clutter on the pavements certainly interested me.

*Clifton Cottage, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-46*

Clifton Cottage at 189 Camberwell New Rd conveniently announces it was built in 1833 at the time of the earliest developments on the road which was created under the 1818 Turnpike Act. It is Grade II listed – and was for some time by mistake listed twice. Possibly the confusion arose as from the annoying failure of listings always to include the full street address, or perhaps because the boundary between the two boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark runs down the middle of the road here. I’ve tried hard here to put my pictures into the correct boroughs, but I know I’ve not always got it right everywhere in London.

My walk on Friday 5th May 1989 continued and there will be more in later posts.

Naked Ladies, 3 Doors & A New Walk

*Naked Ladies, York House Gardens, Twickenham, Richmond 1989 89-5a-53*

I took few pictures in the rest of the month after my walk on Sunday 9th April 1989, my time being taken up with other things. I did make a few pictures on a CND demonstration in Lambeth with family and friends which I’ve yet to digitise, and some when the photography adult class on which I was assisting went to photograph Twickenham’s famous ‘Naked Ladies’, who now have a beer named for them. Some of my pictures of this were made on large format 4×5″ film so I could contact print them using historic processes such as platinum and kallitype, and I helped make at least one on 8×10″ for the tutor.

Upper St Martin's Lane, Covent Garden, Westminster, 1989 89-4l-13 — *Upper St Martin’s Lane, Covent Garden, Westminster, 1989 89-4l-13*

And there were a few other pictures such as this, made on my way to the Photographers’ Gallery, then in Great Newport St, a short walk around the corner, or on my way to meetings in other parts of London, and a few closer to home.

Cowley Rd, Myatt's Fields, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5a-35 — *Cowley Rd, Myatt’s Fields, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5a-35*

But my next walk to take pictures came on Friday 5th May when I rushed out of college after around four hours of teaching and jumped on a train to Vauxhall and a bus to the Oval, walking down Foxley Road, then Vassal Rd to Cowley Rd, eager to continue to photograph in the area around Myatt’s Fields. I paused to take half a dozen pictures on the way, but have yet to digitise any of these.

Cowley Rd, Myatt's Fields, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5a-22 — *Cowley Rd, Myatt’s Fields, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5a-22*

The top end of Cowley Road is in the Vassall Rd conservation area and this terrace is a remnant of the Holland Town Estate development begun by Henry Richard Vassall, Third Baron Holland in 1818 when Camberwell New Road was laid out. This terrace is possibly from around 1830 and its Grade II listing describes it as Early-mid C19.

Cowley Rd, Myatt's Fields, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5a-25 — *Cowley Rd, Myatt’s Fields, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5a-25*

No 25 at the right of the previous picture is the last house in this section of the street. On the west side of the road, behind me as I took the picture is a large block of redbrick five-storey council housing, Knowlton House, built by the LCC as part of the Cowley estate in 1934-6. There is another similar block, Stodmarsh House further south on the street.

The park here appears to have had a number of names and is now Eythorne Park, though Google Maps hedges its bets by also calling it Myatt’s Field Common Park and on the old A-Z I used on my walks it was Mostyn Gardens, given to Lambeth Borough Council in 1925 who passed on the the LCC in 1958. They extended and renamed it Melbourne Fields. Parts of it were built on in the 1970s the low-rise Myatts Field North council estate in the 1970s and disastrously redeveloped under a Private Finance Initiative programme hit by various cost-cutting directives and carried out with little or no regard for the residents.

Eythorne Rd, Myatt's Fields, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5a-26 — *Eythorne Rd, Myatt’s Fields, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5a-26*

You can see these roofs over the mound in the park in the previous picture, though the park is now flat and surrounded by the redeveloped buildings. These buildings looked in good condition in 1989 and the estate looked well designed and a pleasant place to live. But years of neglect by the council meant that in 2004, as Zoe Williams wrote in The Guardian “Myatts Field North in Lambeth, south London, was a byword for what goes wrong on a housing estate. It had been poorly maintained; the interiors were shabby. Garages had become hazardous and were out of bounds; shared spaces were desolate and only teenagers and children used them, “engaged in nothing very positive”, according to a council report at the time.”

The state of the estate in 2004 led residents to vote by a fairly small majority for the council’s plans for regeneration, “demolishing and rebuilding 305 homes, refurbishing 172“, but work only began in 2012, by which time the plans had been considerably altered with cuts to the budget. Five years later when Williams wrote her article the problems with the regeneration were clear, with the refurbished homes poorly plannede and shoddily implemented and the residents many complaints largely simply ignored.

Mike Urban’s 2020 photographs on Brixton Buzz, the prairie like fields of Eythorne Park, Myatt’s Field North, south London, give a good impression of the present state of the park.

St John's Schools, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-62 — *St John’s Schools, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-62*

St John The Divine Junior Mixed and Infants School is still there on Camberwell New Road, though ILEA has long gone and the entrance to the school is now on Warham St, as it probably was when I took this picture. The church itself is a short distance away in Vassall St and is a good example of Victorian gothic by George Edmund Street. The parish was created in 1871.

The school, with buildings in Warham St (then James St) opened in 1872 for 400 children but this building on Camberwell New Road came some years later.

*Shops, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-63*

The school building in flanked on both sides by shops and is in the centre of a terrace. Edward Wells & Sons Ltd at 143-145 offered a wide range of printing services. I think the businesses closed soon after I made this and other pictures.

My walk will continue in a later post.

Flats, School, College, Houses, Temple, Shop

Flats, School, College, Houses, Temple, Shop: The final post on my walk on Sunday 9th April 1989. The previous post was Cold Harbour & Myatt’s Fields.

Houses, Cormont Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-44 — *Flats, Cormont Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-44*

From Longfield Hall I wandered up Knatchbull Road to Cormont Road, which runs halfway around Myatt’s Fields Park on its southwest and northwest sides. I took half a dozen pictures which I haven’t digitised before coming to this on the corner of Brief Street which I think was built as flats. Almost all the buildings in the area are fine examples of late Victorian housing, largely in the Queen Anne style but there is perhaps a slightly overpowering amount of red brick directly onto the streets.

Houses, Brief St, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-45 — *Flats, Brief St, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-45*

Another finely designed large block of flats a few yards down Brief Street, Burton House, its hedges a few years ago more tidily trimmed but now again reverting to wild. On the opposite side of the street is a short terrace of two storey houses with brief front gardens and Brief Street is appropriately short – a little under a hundred yards in length.

*School, Cormont Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-34*

According to Lambeth’s 2018 Character Appraisal for the Minet Conservation Area, “Kennington Boys’ High School (latterly known as Charles Edward Brooke School), Cormont Road opened in 1897.” This was a LCC board school and the Grade II listing states that this building dates from 1912, architect T J Bailey. It is listed on Historic England’s Heritage At Risk Register.

Confusingly – and I hope I have got this right – the school renamed itself Saint Gabriel’s College when it became co-educational as a Specialist Arts and Music College in 2012, and then moved out to Langton Road a few years later.

*Myatts House, Cormont Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-35*

Again from the Lambeth appraisal, “The former St. Gabriel’s College on Cormont Road opened in 1899 as a training college for Anglican schoolmistresses, the vision of Charles Edward Brooke, a senior curate of nearby St. John the Divine church; the attached chapel was added in 1903.” The style is described as “vaguely Art Nouveau“. In 1989 it was Myatts House, run by the ATC Group of Training Companies and offering courses in Accountancy, Finance, Management and I think Computers, though the final word on the sign is hard to read. Grade II listed.

The building was requisitioned in the First World War, becoming part of the 1st London General Hospital, and was where Vera Brittain was first stationed. Later it became a LCC rest Home. It is now residential, converted to expensive flats as St Gabriel’s Manor.

Calais Gate, Mansions, Cormont Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-36 — *Flats, Cormont Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-36*

This is Calais Gate, also Grade II listed and said in the listing to date from the early 20th Century, though the Myatt’s Park history site dates that these large mansion blocks as c. 1895.

Perched on top of the fine stepped gable is a terracotta cat, one of a number of cats on buildings on the Minet estate, though most are rather less prominent. The whole estate was developed by the Minet family who were of French Huguenot origin, and their name is an affectionate or childish French term for a cat, (minette if the cat happens to be female.)

*Houses, Calais St, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-22*

Substantial houses in Calais St facing the park on the north-east side. I wondered when I took this on the significance of the gateway at left with the cross above, but am no wiser now. Hard to make out from this picture but those are cats heads above the doorway.

*Houses, Flodden Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-24*

Fine railings and decorative elements on these houses at 22 and 24 Flodden Road make them stand out and the absence of cats perhaps suggests these large semidetached Queen Anne style houses were not a part of the Minet development. Instead there are leaves and floral motifs and human heads.

Flodden was the site of a battle in 1513 in Northumberland, close to the border with Scotland when the English Army soundly defeated the army of King James IV of Scotland. England were engaged in a war with France and the Scottish invasion was in support of the ‘Auld Alliance’ they had made with France in 1295.

*Calvary Temple, Councillor St, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-11*

It was time for me to leave the area, and I walked up Flodden Road to Camberwell New Road to get a bus, coming out almost immediately opposite Calvary Temple of the United Pentecostal Church a few yards to the north of the road in Councillor St.

The church incorporates a memorial stone “laid by William Appleton Esq (Sutton), June 2nd !890″ with the text “Hitherto Hath the Lord Helped Us” (1 Samuel 7:12), naming George Baines Architect and H L Holloway Builder. The church, then Clarendon Chapel, opened as a Baptist church in March 1891, replacing an earlier ‘tin tabernacle’ which had burnt down in 1889. Clarendon Street became Councillor Street some time before 1912 and the church was renamed Camberwell New Road Church, continuing in use for Baptist worship until the 1950s.

It narrowly escaped demolition in 1959 when it was saved by Caribbean immigrants who were looking for a building for their Pentecostal worship and they held their first service there in March 1959. They kept and restored the churches original late Victorian fittings and it remains in use.

Then and now it makes a dramatic composition with the tower block behind, Laird House on Redcar St, one of five 22-storey 210ft blocks on the 1966 LCC Wyndham & Comber Estates.

*New Road Bargains, Camberwell New Road, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-12*

There are few if any shops in Myatt’s Fields but several parades within walking distance including on Camberwell New Road where at 243 was New Road Bargains with a small chair fixed above its door and a wonderfully packed window of assorted items. For some years this has been Camberwell Daily, now with a shop front that offers GROCERIES | FRUIT & VEG | OFF LICENCE | NEWS & MAGS.

I might have photographed other shops in the row, but my bus came and I got on it to begin my journey home.

This was the end of my walk on on Sunday 9th April 1989. The posts on it begin at Peckham and East Dulwich 1989.

Cold Harbour & Myatt’s Fields

My walk on Sunday 9th April 1989 continues in this post, Cold Harbour & Myatt’s Fields. The previous post was Camberwell & Myatt’s Fields.

*Church, Shop, Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-61*

Back in 1989 I was still pretty pressed for cash, still buying film in bulk 100 ft lengths and loading it into cassettes myself in total darkness.

Over the years I’d perfected my method. Two nails on the back of my darkroom door, hang one of the sprocket holes at the end of the roll of film on the top one, unroll it down to the second, cut across, replace film in can. Pick up first spool from a waiting row on the bench, already with a short length of masking tape on it, attach to the bottom end of the hanging length of film, carefully roll it up to the top, remove from nail, pick up cassette body, insert spool with film end though velvet light trap, pick up end cap and pinch cassette to push it into place. Repeat another 18 times until the film roll is finished. Turn on light, trim film ends to fit cameras and put into plastic pots to go into camera bag.

Slow, tedious but then less than half the cost of buying film in 26 exposure cassettes, though I did ocasoinally treat myself – and if I bought Ilford film rather than Kodak I could reuse the cassettes with bulk film. Kodak had crimped on ends which had to be removed with a bottle cap remover destroying them.

I had learnt to be very careful with film in this project to photograph London, working with 35mm cameras much as I would have done with large format camera, carefully considering various viewpoints before deciding on an exposure. But when working with people I had to respond rather more quickly, and seeing these two men in front of the white church door my response was immediate.

*Shops, Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-62*

After that rather snatched image I continued with photographing the two shops which had attracted my interest here, making first a vertical image and then moving back across the road for a wider view. In this (below) you can see the notice for the Celestial Church of Christ and the alley leading to this.

*Shops, Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-63*

As well as these black and white images I also took a couple in colour which you can see in another album. I had two Olympus OM bodies with me and only brought the one with colour negative film out of my bag occasionally, while the black and white camera was usually on a strap around my neck. When I was intending to photograph people rather than buildings I usually went out with a Leica M2 instead.

Coldharbour Lane leads from Camberwell to Brixton and got a very bad reputation after the 1981 clashes between police and locals in Brixton. In 2003 it was called in an article in the London Evening Standard the most dangerous street in the most dangerous borough in London, but that was lagely rabid tabloid journalism. Wikipedia gives several theories about its name none of which seem entirely convincing, but the name seems often to have been associated with the ruins of Roman or Romano-British settlements, The area we know usually call Loughborough Junction around the station on early maps was called Cold Harbour. Coldharbour Lane was then known as Camberwell Lane.

Cafe, Hinton Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-65 — *Café, Hinton Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-65*

The S&J Corner Café was on the corner with Wellfit Street, close to Loughborough Junction station. The railway line here is just south of the station. A second bridge can be seen going above this and the cafe which is the line from Brixton to Denmark Hill, now used by London Overground services.

Cyclist, HInton Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-51 — *Cyclist, Hinton Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-51*

Another picture I took on the spur of the moment as I saw a cyclist coming towards me under the bridges on Hinton Road. I was standing on the pavement beside the cafe in the previous image, and the cyclist is on the pavement, rather safer than roads like this in London. At the end of the row of shops on the left are the traffic lights and Coldharbour Lane whch I had just begun to walk towards.

*Hinton Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-52*

The pub at right of this picture is The Green Man on the corner with Coldharbour Lane. According to a post on the Brixton Buzz, this had been on the site since 1881, but that is the date of the current building which replaced an earlier pub on the site important enough to be marked on Stanford’s 1862 map. The Buzz says it was closed in 2003 because of drug dealing and crime, and it quotes from the Urban75 blog that it was “was frequented by dealers (crack, heroin you name it), prosi’s and general madhatters.“

The buildings at the left date from around the same time as the area was developed around the railways, and number 6 at left has a barely legible road name ‘Hinton Terrace‘ and I think at the top the illegible name of a builder and decorator whose sign presumably once hung on the bracket beside the street name.

House, Lilford Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-53 — *Houses, Lilford Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-53*

I walked up past Loughborough Junction and made my next picture on Lilford Road at the corner of Minet Road, returning to the area I had been earlier on this walk, the Minet Estate around Myatt’s Fields. This is on the corner of a terrace with basement flats with an entrance here under the steps which extends along both streets and this grand entrance is actually for two adjoining houses above the flats, one on each street. The Grade II listing calls these “Early-mid C19″ and describes this a “double prostyle composite porch with fluted composite columns.”

Longfield Hall, Knatchbull Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-54 — *Longfield Hall, Knatchbull Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989*

William Minet founded this Grade II listed community hall, architect George Hubbard, which opened in 1889, as well as the Minet library opposite which was destroyed by bombing and rebuilt in 1956 in what Pevsner described as ‘a meek replacement’. The Library was a memorial for his late wife. The Hall is still in use for various community activities including three church congregations and from 1969 -1975 was the base of Britain’s first Black Theatre Company, ‘Dark And Light’, recently marked by a Blue Plaque. It was Grade II listed in 1979 and is now run by a charity, The Longfield Hall Trust.

My walk made on on Sunday 9th April 1989 will finish in a later post. The first part from it is at Peckham and East Dulwich 1989.

No Third Runway at Heathrow – 2016

No Third Runway at Heathrow: Heathrow Airport celebrated its 70th anniversary on Monday 30th May 2016. and local residents marked the occasion with a protest on the village green at Harmondsworth against the plans to build a third runway which would destroy over 750 local homes.

I grew up under the flightpath a couple of miles from touchdown on the main runway used for incoming flights, standing in my back garden and crossing off the registration letters of the planes passing rather close overhead in my spotters book. Those early planes – like the Douglas DC3 and the Vickers Viscount – were small and relatively quiet and gave young boys like me hours of interest with little disruption of normal life, but the generations that followed were very different, larger and ear-shattering. The complaints against their noise grew rapidly – and those easy to read letters on the underside of the wings disappeared so it was harder to identify flights in our complaints.

Heathrow had been planted on the edge of London’s built up area by deception, beginning as a ‘military’ airport towards the end of the Second World War when it was known it would never be used as such, by people who were determined to make it London’s major civil airport. They did it to get around the objecteons there would have been later to a civil airport here.

Over the years Heathrow continued to grow and grow. More flights and more terminals. More local traffic and more pollution. Every new development was made with promises that were later broken. T4 was promised to be the last new terminal – but then came the application to build T5. With this came the promise that Heathrow would never ask for another runway – but this was broken even before T5 had opened.

The enquiry into the third runway was said to be final – but while the local community were still celebrating their victory – and David Cameron was saying ” No Ifs, No Buts, No Third Runway”, Heathrow Airport was already plotting the setting up of a new inquiry that would somehow against all the evidence come up with the result they wanted – the Davies Commission.

*John Stewart – HACAN – Heathrow want taxpayers to pay for the new roads, tunnels etc needed*

In 2016 the threat of the new ‘third runway’ loomed dangerously over the area again, with the Conservative Government backing the proposals. Many of those who came to the event at Harmondsworth feared they would soon lose their homes – and property in the area was blighted as it had been for many years. Others outside the actual development would find their lives made impossible by aircraft noise, with people from almost the whole of West London suffering, particularly from flights in the early morning, with plane after plane passing overhead.

*The Heathrow Adobe Hat, with portable air purifier and environmentally biodiverse suitcase*

Heathrow’s noise and pollution affect a surprisingly large area of London. Twenty years ago I was in a hospital bed in Tooting in south London, around 12 miles away as the jet flies, awake early in the morning partly by their noise, watching and hearing a whole line of plane after plane in line for touchdown.

*Neil Keveren, Chair of Stop Heathrow Expansion (SHE)*

In our local area we get the pollution from the planes, both from running their engines on the ground and also from takeoff and landing. But more importantly the airport generates huge amounts of road traffic, both on local roads and the motorways serving the area – M3, M4 and M25.

Seven years on it seems increasingly unlikely that there will ever be a third runway built. Even the most jet-headed politicians are beginning to see that we cannot continue with airport expansion and meet the need to cut carbon emissions. Financial constraints increasingly make it less likely too.

My post on My London Diary has the details about the event on Monday 30th May 2016 and of course more pictures, including some of the village itself, including its pubs, church and remarkable Grade I listed tithe barn, said to be the largest wooden structure in the country, dating from 1426. Local campaigners saved that a few years ago and it was bought by English Heritage in 2012 and has been much restored. It lies just outside the area the airport would take over for the new runway and would be at serous danger from vibration – and would almost certainly need to be re-sited.

*A church window remembers Ann & Bryan Sobey who led the ‘Right to Sleep’ campaign for restrictions on night flights into Heathrow*

Though on the edge of London Harmondsworth still has a village atmosphere, and still seems much like the village I cycled through in my youth. I hope it remains that way.

More at No 3rd Runway Heathrow 70th Birthday.

Beltane, Chariot Festival, Barking & Whitechapel

Beltane, Chariot Festival, Barking & Whitechapel: I had an interesting and varied day at events and places across London on Sunday 28th May 2006, taking rather a lot of photographs. Appropriately for a Sunday I covered two religious events.

Pagan Pride – Beltane Bash – Holborn

My working day began at Holborn, having caught a fairly early train into London. Now I like to relax a bit on Sundays, but for many years I often came up by the first train to take photographs. Though it wasn’t that early on Sundays, departing around 8am.

I took a bus from Waterloo to Holborn and walked the few yards to the Conway Hall at the north-east corner of Red Lion Square.

Here (with corrected capitalisation) is what I wrote about this event on My London Diary in 2006.

The Pagan Pride Parade in Holborn is now a regular annual event, a part of the Beltane Bash that takes place in the Conway Hall in Red Lion Square. Mostly it was the same people as last year, but I found it hard to get into the mood to take pictures.

As usual the parade was led by Jack In The Green – a dancing bush – the Green Lady and the Bogies. The Giants included the Morrigan (in green and flowers to welcome summer) with Black Ravens, Old Man Thunder and Old Dame Holder, along with the rest of it.

Dancing round the fountains was energetic, but somehow for me the event didn’t really get going, and lacked any real climax, people just slowly began to fade away.
My London Diary – May 2006

Chariot Festival, Sri Mahalakshmi Temple – East Ham

Those taking part in the Pagan Pride parade began to make their way back to Conway Hall for the rest of their day of events, but I rushed to Holborn underground station to take the Central line eastwards, changing at Mile End to get to East Ham. But I had stayed too long with the pagans.

The Sri Mahalakshmi Temple had been built in 1989 and opened and was almost opposite the station. Before that Hindus and worshipped at a converted shop on the corner of Kensington Avenue and High Street North, around 300 yards north from the station.

Unfortunately I had arrived too late and the procession on the streets had ended, though I was still able to photograph the chariots outside and a few of the people. I made a mental note to come back and cover this event another year, but although I photographed other chariot festivals including one in Manor Park, East Ham, I’ve never returned for this one.

My London Diary – May 2006

Barking and River Roding – Barking

I was in East Ham and the afternoon lay ahead; it was a fine day and I decided this was a great opportunity to take a walk a little further to the east by the River Roding. I took a few pictures of the chariots, then went to walk along by the River Roding and to photograph a new development by the railway in Barking.

The half-mile walk along unkonwln was rather uninteresting. It’s a long suburban street lined with terraces of working class housing from the early twentieth century on both sides, named for the family who once owned the estate on which it was built. As Stephen Benton points out in his London Postcode walk it has one small claim to fame, and almost every famous pop guitarist from the the 70s and 80s – including those from the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, The Who as well as musical failures like me will have started with Bert Weedon’s ‘Play in A Day – Guide to Modern Guitar’, first published in 1957. Weedon (1920-2012) was born here, though he had probably moved away long before he became famous.

The path led on to Watson Ave, with a view of the Leigh Road gasholder in what is now the derelict Leigh Road Sports Ground. The Barking Gas Works opened here in 1836 but was purchased in 1912 by the Gas Light and Coke Company, who closed it as they had the much larger and more economical works they had opened at Beckton in 1870. But the holder remained and was I think still in use by the North Thames Gas Board possibly until the change from coal gas to natural gas. The area around it became their sports ground.

At the end of Watson Ave is a long footbridge which took me over the North Circular Road, from which I took a few pictures before going through an industrial estate.

I made quite a few pictures in the Tanner Street area, where a considerable amount of new development was taking place.

I told myself I would return here later, but I don’t think I’ve done so yet.

My London Diary – May 2006

Whitechapel

I think I had travelled back from Barking on a Hammersmith & City line train and needed to change soemwhere to the District Line. Having got off the train I decided I had time for a short walk around on before needing to continue my journey. I only taok a few pictures, perhaps making 20 exposures, and there are only four pictures on My London Diary.

My London Diary – May 2006

Camberwell & Myatt’s Fields

My walk on Sunday 9th April 1989 continued. The previous post was Hairdressers, Mansions, Baptists, Tiles and Greeks.

*Escort Parts Centre, Camberwell Station Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-4i-43*

Camberwell Station Road runs south from Camberwell New Road alongside the railway line, and along its west side are a number of small businesses in the railway arches, almost all garages of some kind.

The Escort Parts Centre was on the corner with Camberwell New Road and remained in business here until around 2010. The premises are now covered with graffiti and look derelict. The number 344 does not appear to be for either street and I think is some numbering for the arches in the viaduct.

*Sacred Heart of Jesus, RC Church, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-4i-32*

The Roman Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart is in Knatchbull Road, just past the railway bridge and is on a dramatic scale, towering above the railway viaduct.

The Grade II listing text states it was built in 1952-8 from designs by D Plaskett Marshall in a moderne style, reminiscent of the inter-war churches of Cachemaille-Day. According to Wikipedia, “Nugent Francis Cachemaille-Day (1896–1976), often referred to as NF Cachemaille-Day, was an English architect who designed some of the most “revolutionary” 20th-century churches in the country.“

Again according to Wikipedia he designed his first church in Northenden in 1936-7 and by 1963 had been responsible for at least 61, many Grade II listed. Because of its location it is difficult to get a picture of this one which provides a good overall impression.

*Tyre Fitting Bay, Camberwell Station Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4i-36*

This was little further down Camberwell Station Rd which hasn’t had a passenger station since 1916 , though if you go down far enough you can still see the former station building, now occupied by a motorbike repair shop.

Camberwell station opened in 1862 on the London, Chatham and Dover Railway’s line into Blackfriars from Herne Hill. After the closure for passengers it remained in use for goods until 1964. The goods yard is now a housing estate.

Various schemes this century have looked at the reopening of the station but all so far have been abandoned.

Houses, Myatts Fields area, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4i-25 — *Houses, 22-24, Flodden Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4i-25*

I walked back up to Camberwell New Road and took three pictures of terraces there ( not on-line) before going down County Grove. These houses are 22 and 24 Flodden Road. On my map the Southwark-Lambeth boundary runs down the middle of the road, making these in Lambeth.

The Survey of London states that this area was bought from Sir Edward Knatchbull in 1770 by Hughes Minet, the grandson of a French Hugenot refugee, but it was only after the railway was opened in 1863 that it was developed to meet the demand this generated for small suburban houses. Builders obtained leases from the Minet family who were public-spririted landlords and provided a church and the Minet library and also closely controlled the building ensuring a mix of house sizes. In 1889 William Minet gave the 14.5 acres to the London County Council for a permanent open space, Myatt’s fields.

Houses, Myatts Fields area, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4i-11 — *Upstall St, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4i-11*

The Metropolitan Public Gardens Association spent around £10,000 to lay it out as a park to the designs of Fanny Wilkinson, a suffragette and one of the first women to be a professional landscape designer. The new park was named for Joseph Myatt, a well-known market gardener who produced a number of then famous strawberry varieties including Eliza, British Queen and Deptford Vine at his nursery in Deptford. His son James Myatt brought the business to the fields here.

Joseph also experimented with various varieties of rhubarb, hoping that he could get people to eat this together with strawberries, but this proved rather less successful, though rhubarb did become popular later.

Lambeth Council became the freeholder of the Minet estate in 1968.

*Paulet Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4i-12*

Lambeth Council redeveloped a large stretch along the west side of Paulet Road in the early 1970s. Although the long terrace blocks of the Paulet Road Estate are in a modern style they have a similar scale to the Victorian terraces opposite and were built using yellow stock bricks and slates like them. But they still look like monolithic slabs rather than the repeating units of the earlier houses.

*Paulet Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4i-13*

The side and rear of one of the blocks on the Paulet Road Estate. I think that these stairs lead up to the front doors of the upper level flats. These buildings are some of relatively few modern buildings in the Minet Conservation Area designated in 1980.

*Provision Shop, Lilford Rd, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4i-15*

The south end of Paulet Road ends at Lilford Road and I turned east along it, going under the railway again. I think this shop just a little to the east of the railway bridge was at No 106 and has been converted into a private residence and is no longer recognisable. There are many fewer small corner shops now.

My walk will continue in a later post. The first part my walk on Sunday 9th April 1989 is at Peckham and East Dulwich 1989.

Christian Aid Circle The City 2009

Christian Aid Circle The City: This week every year is Christian Aid Week, when thousands of people engage in various activities to raise money for the work of this charity in the majority world. These include people trudging the streets of towns and cities delivering and then collecting gift envelopes, tea parties, sponsored walks and many other activities which to raise money.

Christian Aid is a charity embodying Christian principles but its support goes to people and grass roots organisations in many countries in the global south, many not Christian. It states it “exists to create a world where everyone can live a full life, free from poverty” and in 2021-2 helped 1.4 million people through its programmes. It provides humanitarian aid in emergencies but also runs many projects, particularly with women and promoting women’s rights and supporting the poorest and marginalised people.

Their web site lists the 25 countries in which they are currently active, working with local people and partner organisations – Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominican Republisk, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iraq, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, Kenya, Lebanon, Malawi, Myanmar (Burma), Nicaragua, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Syria, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Although I think they are a very worthwhile charity I’ve long supported others which work in similar ways but my wife is a local Christian Aid organiser and I’ve supported her in this work – including this year helping with a sponsored walk around the churches in our own area.

For a number of years she took part in an annual sponsored walk around the City of London, Christian Aid’s ‘Circle the City‘ a fund-raising sponsored stroll from church to church to church in the city. And often I went with her to keep her company and make sure she didn’t get lost. Of course I took a camera with me and took a few pictures, mainly of the many Wren churches we visited on the route. But in 2009 I decided to photograph it a little more seriously.

The pictures here are all from the walk on Sunday 17 May, 2009, and this is the post I made on My London Diary about it.

Sunday afternoon I followed a woman with a red balloon on a six mile (10 km) trail around the city, or rather two cities of London and Southwark, which led us to around 30 different ritual locations. We gained access to many of these and in several were offered drinks and food.

It was Christian Aid’s ‘Circle the City’ a fund-raising sponsored stroll from church to church to church… the woman was rather well known to me and all I got to drink was tea, coffee and lemon squash, though the asparagus quiche at All Hallows by the Tower was delicious.

In the course of our walk we got to see – if only rather briefly – the interiors of some of Wren’s finest, and one or two by other architects. And the event at the end of Christian Aid Week had raised a considerable amount for the projects that Christian Aid supports in the majority world.

More pictures from the walk and captions on My London Diary at Circle the City: Christian Aid.

If you don’t get a collector calling this week you can still make a donation to this worthwhile charity online at the Christian Aid web site. And of course donations are welcome at other times too, so if you are reading this later you can still support their work.

Estuary

Ten years ago on Thursday 16th May 2013 I was pleased to attend the opening of the exhibition Estuary, held to mark the 10th anniversary of the Museum of London Docklands at West India Quay, a short walk from Canary Wharf. I was delighted to be one of the dozen artists in various media to be included, with ten of my panoramic images from my work on the north and south banks of the Thames.

I’d begun photographing the lower reaches of the Thames back in the 1980s, then working largely in black and white and my work concentrated on the then fast disappearing industrial sites along the river. At first I worked on the Kent bank on the south of the river, having a particular interest in the cement industry that occupied and had radically changed much of area between Dartford and Gravesend. Later I also worked along the north bank.

Estuary is a term that has various definitions, and both its upstream and downstream limits have, as Wikipedia states, “been defined differently at different times and for different purposes.” For my own purposes it has been rather elastic, usually beginning at the Thames Barrier and going east as far as it was convenient to travel by public transport, on foot or by bicycle from convenient stations. In earlier years I went further along the Kent bank by car in some outings with friends including Terry King as far as Sheppey.

The exhibition had come as a surprise. The ten picture in it were from around a hundred images the Museum of London had bought from various of my projects for its collection a few years earlier and I think the first I knew about it was when I received the invitation to the opening, or perhaps by an email a couple of weeks before that.

These pictures all dated from the early years of this century, those from Kent in 2000 and from Essex in 2004 and all were in panoramic format. In 2000 I was working with two swing lens cameras, a Japanese Widelux F8 and a much cheaper Russian Horizon 202. Both work with rotating lens and a curved film plane, invented by give Friedrich von Martens in his Megaskop-Kamera in 1844, but instead of the daguerrotype plates he worked with use standard 35mm film, producing negatives around 56x24mm.

The two cameras have a similar field of view horizontally around 130 degrees and have a cylindrical perspective which renders lines parallel to the film edges straight but gives an increasing curvature to horizontal lines away from the centre of the image. The image quality of the two is very similar but the cheaper camera has a rather more useful viewfinder.

By 2004 I had two further pieces of equipment which extended my panoramic photography. One was a new camera, the Hassleblad X-Pan, which had generally received rave reviews. I found it rather disappointing at first and it was only after I added the 30mm wideangle lens that it became useful for me. The X-Pan is a standard rectilinear camera design but gives negatives 65x24mm rather than the normal full-frame 36x24mm. The horizontal angle of view it produces with the 30mm is at the limits of rectilinear perspective, before stretching at the edges becomes too apparent, and is considerably less than the swing lens cameras at 94 degrees. The lens comes with a separate viewfinder that fits on the top of the camera, but does make operation a little less convenient.

The second, and very important for working along the north bank was a Brompton folding bicycle, which enabled me to travel the greater distances needed there. Of course I also used this and the X-Pan for later pictures elsewhere.

You can see more of these pictures in two sections of the Urban Landscapes web site, which also includes work by other photgraphers, both British and overseas. Some of the pictures I’ve chosen for today’s post were in the Estuary show, but others were not – I have a rather larger body of work to select from than the Museum, some of which appears in my book Thamesgate Panoramas.

The site has separate sections on the Thames Gateway in Essex and Kent, as well as from my Greenwich Meridian project in 1994-6 and a wider selection of panoramic work from around London from 1996-2005, though there is much more that I still have to put on-line. Some is also now on Flickr.