London Photos | >Re-PHOTO

Denmark Hill, Ruskin and on to Dulwich

The previous post on this walk was Houses, Station, General Booth and more Houses.

I walked up Champion Hill to Denmark Hill and Ruskin Park, pausing briefly to take a photograph – not online – of what I later found to be a Grade II listed shelter before going further north towards the two hospitals further north.

*Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-2a-32*

Donations of £40,000 from psychiatrist Dr Henry Maudsley (1835-1918) went towards the establishment of a specialist hospital for the early treatment of recoverable mental disease, which was completed in 1915 when it was requisitioned for use as a military hospital, finally opening for civilian patients in 1923. Architects were William Charles Clifford-Smith, EP Wheeler and G Weald.

Although I’ve visited several of my family over the years in various mental hospitals, none has been in the Maudsley, which is the leading mental health training school in the UK. This was perhaps fortunate as it’s treatments have often been controversial over the years.

*Statue, Robert Bentley Todd, Kings College Hospital, Denmark Hill, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-2a-34*

Surgeon Robert Bentley Todd (1809-60) became a Professor at King’s College London in 1836 and took the lead in setting up King’s College Hospital in 1840 in Portugal St. The hospital moved to this new building designed by William Pite on Denmark Hill in 1909. The statue of Todd, financed by donations from his colleagues and friends was placed in the lobby of the Portugal St hospital in 1861, the year after his death, and moved here in 1913. The statue was not made to be displayed in the open air and has eroded.

Kings College Hosptial seems a rather random collection of buildings, few of any architectural interest. The photograph shows the statue in front of the Guthrie Wing, an Art Deco building dating from 1937 which is a private patients wing inside the main hospital, but was moved elsewhere on the campus when a new ambulance entrance and A&E department opened in 1997.

*Rose Garden, Gateway, Ruskin Park, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-2a-35*

I walked back to Ruskin Park and made a second picture of the Grade II listed shelter from the Rose Garden, which was looking a little sad, with no blooms but just the pruned growths with the odd leaf remaining. The shelter and its flanking walls was Grade II listed as long ago as 1951 and was built in the late 18th century as a part of the house which once stood here.

John Ruskin (1819-1900) moved to Herne Hill when he was five and the family moved to 163 Denmark Hill in 1842. The following year the first volume of his influential Modern Painters was publishing, promoting the work of JMW Turner. In 1871 he sold the house on Denmark Hill and it was demolished in 1949. Ruskin Park opened in 1907.

One of the few volumes I saved from my father’s books after his death was his copy of ‘WORK; FROM THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE’ by John Ruskin, a miniscule volume designed to fit the waistcoat pocket of a working man and published I think in the 1920s when my father was just such a young working man in his 20s. This roughly 3″ by 4″ book is the text of a lecture he delivered to the Working Men’s Institute in Camberwell in 1865.

Saint Faith's Church, Red Post Hill, Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2a-25 — *Saint Faith’s Church, Red Post Hill, Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2a-25*

I walked on southwards on Denmark Hill and then turned down Sunray Avenue to go down Red Post Hill. Early street direction signs were often painted red and one on the crossroads at the top of this road giving distance and directs to nearby villages was here by the mid-eighteenth century. It became a well-known local landmark by the 1800s, and the street it was at the top of was renamed from Ashpole Road (possibly also a reference to the post which could have been made from ash, a strong and durable wood) to Red Post Hill soon after. The post disappeared probably in the mid-nineteenth century, but in 2010 a new red post, the only one in London, was placed on the corner.

St Faith’s Church, North Dulwich began as an attractive Arts & Crafts church hall in 1908 which is now the neighbouring St Faith’s Centre. The church a large and rather plain brick box was only built and consecrated in 1957. On its west end is the sculpture at the right of my picture of Christ on the Cross with St John the Evangelist and St Mary Magdalene by Ivor Livi. The church no longer has what appears to be an excessively large flagpole.

*House, Red Post Hill, Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2a-11*

The road has a number of large suburban houses, including a row of similar semi-detached houses to this detached property and its neighbour close to North Dulwich Station.

*Bistro Italiano, restaurant, East Dulwich Grove, Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2a-12*

I don’t think Italian bistros were common – certainly not in the areas of London which I knew well, but I think this one stood out for the crudeness of its lettering and strange letter-spacing.

*Dulwich Hospital, East Dulwich Grove, Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2a-13*

Like many hospitals, Dulwich Hospital began life as a workhouse infirmary, built for the Guardians of the Poor of the parish of Southwark St Saviour and opened in 1887, though the building has the date 1886 at left. It became a military hospital in the First World War and in 1921 was renamed Southwark Hospital, becoming Dulwich Hospital ten years later.

The ward buildings in this picture were demolished around 18 months ago.

*Dulwich Hospital, East Dulwich Grove, Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2a-15*

The land for building the infirmary was sold with the stipulation that the public building erected “should be of an ornamental character” and local architects Henry Jarvis & Son did their damndest, though not entirely to my taste, receiving praise in the local press at the time. The hospital was built with a central adminstration building and long pavilions of ‘Nightingale Wards’, long narrow rooms with large windows for light and ventilation with beds along both sides. I spent around ten days in a similar ward in St George’s Tooting shortly before it was closed twenty years ago.

Until fairly recently this was still Dulwich Community Hospital, though most medical services had ceased in 2005. Part of the hospital has been demolished to build a school and health centre, but the buildings in this picture are still there.

To be continued. My account of this walk from 5th February 1989 began with A Pub, Ghost Sign, Shops And The Sally Ann.

Houses, Station, General Booth and more Houses

My account of this walk from 5th February 1989 began in Camberwell with the previous post, A Pub, Ghost Sign, Shops And The Sally Ann.

*House, Windsor Walk, Denmark Hill, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-2a-51*

I ended my previous post with pictures of William Booth College and a statue of Catherine Booth. Before-crossing the railway I had gone down Windsor Walk, and the overall picture of the college was taken from there across the cutting containing the lines and platforms. Even from there the top of the tower was only just in frame, and unfortunately I cropped it slightly when I made the scan. I think more recent building at Denmark Hill station now partly obscures the view.

This impressive house at 16 Windsor Walk is a part of local development in the 1860s-80s, largely a speculative development built as private houses but many pressed into service in post-war years as nurses homes and medical centres for the nearby Maudsley and Kings College Hospital. Although this house looks in good condition, it deteriorated rapidly and was boarded up for years before extensive refurbishment in 2014-6. From the outside it again looks much as it did in 1989.

*House, Windsor Walk, Denmark Hill, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-2a-53*

These houses at 17-18 Windsor Walk were also derelict a few years ago and have also been restored along with the next two properties on the street.

*Phoenix Firkin, Denmark Hill Station, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-2a-55*

Denmark Hill Station and its offices were Grade II listed only in 1998. The buildings date from 1864-66 and were gutted by fire in 1980. By 1989 the station was home to the Phoenix Firkin pub, named as it had arisen from the ashes. It remains in business, though now called simply The Phoenix. Denmark Hill, a busy station, is entered through the southern part of the building at right, from which several people are emerging in my picture.

*William Booth statue, William Booth College, Salvation Army, Champion Park, Denmark Hill, Southwark, 1989. 89-2a-41*

The station buildings with their pub are on a bridge over the railway lines, here in a cutting, and this leads to Champion Park with its Salvation Army College. Here I photographed both the statue of Catherine Booth in the previous post and this one of her husband and co-founder of the Army, William Booth, born April 10th 1829. Promoted to glory August 20th 1912. Sculpture by George Wade, 1929.

Their two statues are situated symmetrically on the lawn in front of the college, close to the road.

*Canning Cross, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-2a-43*

Champion Park leads to Grove Lane, and a few yards down from the corner is a narrow turning, Canning Cross, next to the George Canning pub, which leads to Stories Mews, and as a footpath only to Camberwell Grove. I took this picture from Canning Cross looking roughly north up Stories Mews, and although there has been considerable rebuilding in the area I think this view remains much the same.

Canning, a prominent Tory politician was until recently the British Prime Minister to have been in office for the shortest time, being Prime Minister for only 119 days in April to August 1827. But his time in office was cut short by his death and not as Liz Truss’s by disgrace. Canning was also the last PM to have fought a duel after he, then Foreign Secretary was challenged by the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. Fought with pistols on Putney Heath, Canning’s shot went extremely wide of the mark, but the war minister was a rather better shot and Canning was wounded in the leg.

*House, Champion Hill, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2a-46*

I walked on down Grove Lane to Champion Hill, turning down here and going past a two houses in what seemed to me an Arts and Crafts style dating from 1907, as the lozenge on the central chimney records. Champion Hill is an odd street with several branches and a central cross-roads where all four signs point to Champion Hill. Fortunately I had a map and knew to turn right to take me towards Denmark Hill and Ruskin Park, where the next post on this walk will continue.

A Pub, Ghost Sign, Shops And The Sally Ann

My next opportunity for a walk in South London was on Sunday 5th February 1989 a week after my previous walk. I returned to Camberwell, getting off the bus from Vauxhall on Peckham Road at Camberwell Green and walked down Grove Lane.

*The Grove House Tavern, Mary Boast Walk, Camberwell Grove, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-12*

At the end of an alley leading to Camberwell Grove I found the Grove House Tavern, then a Taylor Walker pub. I liked the way its chimney seemed to complement the spire of St Giles’s Church on the other side of my frame and the rather elegant pair of houses facing the end of Mary Boast walk at 53 and 55 Camberwell Grove, both Grade II listed along with many other houses on that street.

Mary Joyce Boast (1921-2010) was a local history librarian, and became a great expert on the history of Southwark. She was the borough’s first Local Studies Librarian, but had retired a few years before I first visited the John Harvard Library on Borough High St. I think this passage was unnamed when I took this picture and only got a name after her death in 2010.

The fence at left stops the balls for a tennis club. There was a pub on this corner in 1826, though the building in my picture dates from around a century later and has a rather unusual Mansard roof. For a while it became the Grand Union, but was renamed Grove House in 2017 and was taken over by new management in 2021.

*Gone Fishing, Shop Door, Denmark Hill, Camberwell, Southwark, Lambeth, 1989 89-1i-15*

The curved building reflected in the glass here is the former Odeon Cinema on the corner of Coldharbour Lane. I had walked back up Grove Lane and then along Daneville Road to here. The handwritten sign ‘CLOSED EARLY – Gone Fishing’ seemed to me to reflect a very healthy attitude to life.

*Shop, Ghost Sign, Daneville Rd, Denmark Hill, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-16*

Looking back up Daneville Rd from the corner with Denmark Hill I photographed the faded wall sign for DAREN, the Best Brown Bread. Only faint traces of this ‘ghost sign’ now remain. The ‘lower ‘Great Expectations’ section was painted over in white and then around 2010 with a colourful graffiti mural, perhaps related to the GX Gallery to its right down Daneville Road. Later this too was painted over, and became ‘Muhammad Ali’ after his death in 2016, only to be over-painted again more recently.

‘Daren The Best Brown Bread’ was a non-wholemeal brown loaf baked from flour ground at the Daren Mill at Dartford in Kent, at the time it was painted as big a brand as Hovis. The mill went bankrupt in the 1930s and the brand merged with Hovis. Personally I think their loaves are rather like eating sawdust and stick to proper wholemeal, fortunately home-made.

*Former Odeon cinema, Denmark Hill, Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell, Lambeth, Southwark, 1989 89-2a-01*

Looking across Denmark Hill with Coldharbour Lane and Valmar Ave visible at right. The Odeon here was the largest Odeon built in London and opened in 1939, seating almost 2,500. It had entrances on both Denmark Hill and Coldharbour Lane, and had shops on the corner here. It closed in 1975 and was empty until taken over briefly in 1981 by Dickie Dirt selling cut-price jeans and other clothing. But they went bust and the former cinema was empty for another ten years until demolished in 1993, when a block of flats for homeless young people was built on the site.

Tony's Corner Shop, 108a Denmark Hill, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-2a-61 — *Tony’s Corner Shop, 108a Denmark Hill, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-2a-61*

Tony’s is still there on the corner of an alley off Denmark Hill, though the former cinema which housed the Camberwell branch of Dickie Dirts which can be glimpsed at top right has been replaced by a block of flats. The alley, Coldharbour Place, leads through to Coldharbour Lane. There are no longer windows on the side of the shop which is covered other and now painted with graffiti.

*House, Grove Lane, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-2a-63*

I think I may have been attracted by the name to walk down Love Lane, though I took no pictures on it. On Grove Lane I photographed Cliftonville at No 83, a Grade II listed early 19th century villa with rather unusual ogge or ogive curves on the door and windows.

*William Booth College, Salvation Army, Champion Park, Denmark Hill, Southwark, 1989 89-2a-66*

I walked down Grove Lane and turned right into Champion Park to admire the Salvation Army’s William Booth College. Designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the college opened in 1929 and is a memorial to William Booth who died in 1912. It was completed in 1932 and has a similar monumental impressiveness to Scott’s power stations at Battersea and Bankside (now Tate Modern.)

The simplicity of this building was not by design but because of budget cuts which fortunately meant that originally planned Gothic stone detailing could not be afforded. This resulted in the Grade II listed building becoming a spiritual power station. It has recently been renovated and is still in use by the Salvation Army.

*Catherine Booth statue, William Booth College, Salvation Army, Champion Park, Denmark Hill, Southwark, 1989. 89-2a-41*

Mrs Catherine Booth was the wife of William Booth and co-founder with him of the Salvation Army. Known as ‘The Army Mother’ she died – or rather was ‘Promoted to glory October 4th 1890’. This sculpture by George Wade was erected in front of the new college in 1929.

This picture shows more of that Gothic stonework details that were meant to be rather more widely applied.

This walk will continue in further posts.

Santas, a Gay Objecter, Routemasters, Victorian Christmas & Ethiopia

Seventeen years ago on Friday December 9th 2005 I sspent the day photographing in London, and posted an account on My London Diary. Like all posts in the first few years of the site the text was entirely lower case, an affection I now regret, and so rather hard to read, and although there were plenty of pictures they weren’t well-connected with the text, a design fault that I only finally corrected in posts from 2007 on. So I thought today I would put things right for that one day. This is the post from 2005 in normal case and with a few typos and other minor corrections, with text and pictures connected and I hope not too many new mistakes.

Fathers4Justice: 24 Days of Christmas Chaos – Westminster, 9 Dec 2006

Santas, a Gay Objecter, Routemasters, Victorian Christmas & Ethiopia — *Santas and Mama Santas protest at Church of England and Dept of Education & Skills, Westminster*

I’ve photographed Fathers4justice on several previous occasions. Today they were taking advantage of Christmas and the Father Christmas idea to protest against the Church of England. being on a Friday, there were rather fewer Father and Mother Christmases (and Santa’s Little Helpers were mainly at school, though some of their dads behind the whiskers were pulling a sickie.) It was still an arresting sight to see so many figures dressed in red on the street, including some rather inflated figures in inflatable suits.

After rather a slow start events warmed up a bit outside the offices of the Church of England, and, a few yards down the road, the Department for Education and Skills. Of course our ‘serious crimes’ law now forbids the use of amplified sound in demonstrations in Westminster, so the fathers simply had to shout rather loud. The next place for a stop was of course opposite Downing Street, where there were more shouted comments. I left the march as it turned down Whitehall Place on its way to the law courts in the Strand.
more pictures

Free Mehmet Tarhan – Turkish Airlines, Pall Mall, Dec 9, 2005

Outside Turkish Airlines at the bottom of Haymarket there was a picket protesting against Turkish imprisonment of protesters, in particular Mehmet Tarhan, a gay conscientious objector.

Recently, his 4-year sentence for refusing military service was overruled on procedural grounds, and he is to be retried for insistent insubordination with the intent of evading military service.

London Transport – Last day for the Routemaster, 9 Dec 2005

The last proper bus service to use London’s signature Routemaster double-decker buses, route 159, ceased today, with its buses being replaced by more modern designs. I caught one of the last to run to take me down to Westminster, then photographed it. Although the official ‘last bus’ had already run, there were several others following on, with the final pair passing Big Ben 28 minutes after I made my picture.

There will still be a few Routemasters running in London on two special short ‘heritage routes’ both running. [The last of these came to an end in 2021 – and there is now a private company running ‘Route A’ at £5 for a day ticket – not covered by your Oyster or Travelcard.]

More pictures of this and other London Transport related images

Victorian Christmas Market – Chrisp St, Poplar, Dec 9, 2005

*Hat Trick – Jim and Bev James Singing Chimney Sweeps*

Chrisp street market was part of an early post-war public housing redevelopment, the Lansbury estate, built for the 1951 Festival of Britain. Fifty or so years later it was beginning to show its age and there has been some tidying up and its pedestrian precincts are now rather tidier than a few years ago.

The market is bustling with life, more so than usual when I visited, as there were two days of a special Victorian Christmas event. There were various special stalls in the market, and also entertainers wandering around and performing on a small stage. There were kids from two local schools who had come to perform but unfortunately I had to leave before they had really started.

I’d hoped to return on the Saturday, when things would have been livelier, but in the end I just couldn’t make it.

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The Ethiopian Tragedy – Stop UK Support – Marble Arch, Dec 9, 2005

*Ethiopians from across Europe protest against Ethiopian concentration camps and ask for end to UK support.*

At Marble Arch there was a crowd gathering of Ethiopians from across Europe, come to protest at the British government’s support of the oppressive communist regime in their country.

More than 70,000 people are detained by the regime, being tortured and dying in concentration camps. Britain is spending £30 million of our money to support the regime that is violating human rights there. The protesters want the British public to urge their MPs to support motions on the situation in Ethiopia and demand an end to these crimes.

more pictures

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

Olympic Area & Budget Cuts – 2012

December 5th 2012 was a fine winter’s day and I took advantage of the weather to try and walk around the area which had been fenced off for the London Olympics for around 5 years. In the evening I joined a protest in Westminster against the continuing cuts being aimed at the poorest and most vulnerable by George Osborne and the Conservative-led government.

Olympic Area Slightly Open – Stratford Marsh. Wed 5 Dec 2012

It was around April 2007 that an 11 mile long blue fence went up around the whole of the London Olympic site at Stratford, barring access to the whole site except for those working on it. Parts were replaced in 2012 with a 5,000 volt 4m tall electrified perimeter fence in 2012 for the games itself.

*St Thomas’ Creek still blocked to boats*

Even the public footpath along the Northern Sewage Outfall, the Greenway, had been closed in May 2012, but after I heard this had reopened on December 1st I had been wanting to visit the area again to walk along it.

The View Tube, a cafe and viewing area set up on the Greenway had also reopened, under new management, and it was only signs for this that kept me going past a maze of fencing and hostile signage. The Greenway was still closed between Stratford High Street and the main railway lines because of ongoing work for Crossrail, and roads north of the railway were still fenced off.

*Wire fences and yellow fences have replaced the blue*

Despite it being a fine afternoon for a walk I was the only customer to enter the View Tube while I was there and the Greenway, normally a useful through route for cyclists and pedestrians, was still deserted.

I could see no signs of work going on to bring the area back into use. Ten years later the area is still largely a desert and most of the promises about the ‘Olympic Legacy’ have been reneged on. This is still an Olympic waste; though the developers have done well out of it, the people haven’t.

I walked along the Greenway, finding there was no access from it to any part of the area, with those electric wire fences still in place, and made my way along the Lea Navigation to Hackney Wick, making a number of pictures on my way.

Many more pictures including panoramas at Olympic Area Slightly Open

Osborne’s Budget Cuts – Strand to Westminster, Wed 5 Dec 2012

I around 200 people outside Kings College at Aldwych who were meeting to march to join the rally at Downing St where Stop the War and CND were protesting against Osborne’s attacks on the vulnerable, continued in his autumn statement.

The march had been called by the UCU London Region, and was joined by students, trade unionists, socialists and others, and went down the Strand and into Whitehall shouting slogans against public service cuts, the rich, David Cameron and George Osborne in particular to join a similar number already protesting at Downing St.

Speakers at the rally pointed out the huge cost of military expenditure which was being poured into futile projects – and the pockets of the arms manufacturers:

“The Afghanistan war — which everyone knows is futile and lost — is costing around £6 billion a year. The yearly maintenance costs for Trident are £2.2 billion a year. The cost of renewing the Trident system — which this government is committed to do — would cost up to £130 billion. Two aircraft carriers are being built at a cost of £7 billion. Then there’s the £15 billion to be spent buying 150 F-35 jets from the US, each of which will cost £85 million plus an extra £16 million for the engine.”

By now it was freezing, and when the speeches began the speakers were asked to cut their contributions short because of the extreme cold. Among those who spoke were John McDonnell MP, Kate Hudson of CND, author Owen Jones, Andy Greene of DPAC and Green Party leader Natalie Bennett.

We heard from a nurse about the campaign to keep Lewisham hospital open, where a few days earlier 15,000 had marched and formed a human chain around the hospital. The hospital is successful and well run, but huge PFI debts from another hospital in the area threaten its future.

A NUT member talked about the problems the cuts were making in education and campaigners had come from Connaught School in Waltham Forest where they are striking against the decision by school governors to pursue academy status despite the opposition of the teachers, parents, the local MP and councillors.

A speaker from UK Uncut urged people to join the protests against Starbucks the following Saturday and many of those who spoke called for trade unions to take action against the cuts, calling on union leaders to stop simply speaking against them and start organising strike action.

More at Osborne’s Budget Cuts.

Laundry, Timber and Glengall Road

The previous post on this walk I made on Sunday 29th January 1989 was Housing and the Grand Surrey Canal – 1989 .

*Elite Laundry, Willowbrook Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-65*

The Elite Laundry at 48a Willowbrook Road was on the edge of the canal walk and had obviously been closed for some time when I made this picture. It has since been demolished but the property in the left half of the picture, behind the roadside structure made mainly of corrugated iron sheeting has been renovated and is now on the Surrey Linear Canal Park. For some time it was the Willowbrook centre, a community planning and education centre of Southwark Council but they decided to sell it in 2017. It is Grade II listed as Willowbrook Urban Studies Centre.

The canal bridge a little further down Willowbrook Road is almost identical to that on Commercial Way, and both were built for the St Giles Camberwell vestry around 1870. This was then named Hill Street Bridge, though the 2015 map still refers to it by the older name of Taylor’s Bridge. The map also names the wharf here as Langdale Wharf. It was the site of timber merchants William Sharvatt & Son Limited.

*Timber Yard, Colegrove Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-66*

Timber from the Surrey Docks was the main cargo of the barges which came down the Grand Surrey Canal, and this yard will once have been a wharf on the canal. I’m unsure exactly where on Colegrove Road it was as this side of the street is now a large run of modern flats and I think all the buildings shown, both those on the wharf and the more distant flats have been demolished.

*Factory, Glengall Rd, Latona Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-51*

Glengall Road and Latona Road were still full of the industrial units that grew up around the Grand Surrey Canal, twith the large building on the corner and the adjoining property on Glengall Road in 1989 being occupied by Hays Chemicals Ltd. These buildings still remain, now occupied by Gadmon Industries, a German company specialising in steel tubing and pipelines, but those further down Glengall Road at the left were demolished in 2022.

*Factory, Glengall Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-52*

Some of the older factories and warehouses in the area had been replaced by more modern buildings, which I have now also been demolished. I think this particular warehouse was built on the actual filled in canal where it went under Glengall Bridge, no trace of which remains. I’m unsure what these stacks are, but I think they were probably made from wood. The peeling paint at left looked to me like a map of some unknown part of the world.

Glengall Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-53

The house at left is 41 Glengall Rd, which has since been extended. The factory buildings have been replaced by a modern equivalent built with a slight echo of the previous structures and is not the Glengall Business Park. The canal ran just to the south of here. I think this was the Glengall Works, where Chubbs moved their Patented Safe Manufactory in 1868, producing fire and burglary resistant safes and strong-room doors. They closed the factory in 1908 moving all production to their Wolverhampton works.

*Travellers Camp, Surrey Linear Canal Park, Glengall Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-54*

Caravans were parked on a part of the canal park. The building at left is still there but the block of flats was demolished as a part of the North Peckham regeneration scheme.

Houses, Glengall Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-55

Houses on Glengall Road were built on open fields to the south of the Old Kent Road between1843-and 1834 in what was then called Glengall Grove to emphasize its rural nature – though a short walk would have taken the new middle-class occupants to some noxous industries beside the canal. The street was planted with lime trees, some of which survive.

*Houses, Glengall Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-42*

These houses are thought to have been designed by the well-known architect Amon Henry Wilds who also designed other houses in the area including some still remaining on the Old Kent Road. But I don’t think there is any sign of his trademark decoration and perhaps he was not personally involved in their construction though providing the look of the houses.

*Houses, Glengall Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-43*

Nos 1-35 (odd) & 24-38 (even) Glengall Road are all Grade II listed, as well as similar houses in Glengall Terrace.

*Houses, Glengall Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-46*

The listings date from 1972, but in 1989 some of the properties were still in a poor state of repair. This picture shows houses which are part of a terrace at 36-50, a later development probably from the 1860s. Having spent some time photographing the houses at the top of Glengall Road I was walking back down the street when I made this picture.

My walk will continue in a later post.

The first post on this walk I made on Sunday 29th January 1989 was Windows, A Doorway, Horse Trough and Winnie Mandela

Housing and the Grand Surrey Canal – 1989

The previous post on this walk I made on Sunday 29th January 1989 was Peckham – Pubs, Shops, AEU And A Fire Station.

*Derelict House, Peckham Hill St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1h-22*

These two large semi-detached houses are still there on Peckham Hill Street but now restored and in a very different condition. I think they are at Nos 102-108. Built around 1820 they were Grade II listed in 1972 and are part of the Peckham Hill Street Conservation Area designated in 2011. Although that at right seemed still occupied the left-hand pair looked to me as if it had been left empty to decay and I suspect may have once been squatted.

*Bonar Garage, Bonar Rd, Peckham, Southwark 89-1h-14*

Bonar Road was constructed across the back gardens of some of the houses in Peckham Hill Street and led to a depot for the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell formed in 1901. Although this is now a part of the conservation area, no part of the Bonar Garage has survived. The house with the chimneys at left is I think onf of the listed buildings in the picture above, but whatever building had the square brick chimney on the right side has been demolished.

*Surrey Canal Walk, Canal Bridge, Commercial Way, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1h-12*

A number of schemes for canals south of the Thames in London were proposed in the late 18th century and two were approved by Acts of Parliament in 1801. These were the Kent and Surrey Canal (later known as the Grand Surrey Canal) and the Croydon Canal from Rotherhithe. The horse-drawn Surrey Iron Railway roughly following the course of the River Wandle from Wandsworth to Croydon was also given approval the same year. A canal scheme for this was turned down as there were too many mills relying on the water from the Wandle.

Surrey Canal Walk, Canal Bridge, Commercial Way, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1h-16 — *Surrey Canal Walk, Canal Bridge, Commercial Way, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-02*

The Grand Surrey Canal was authorised to go from Rotherhithe to Mitcham, with provision for branches, including to Vauxhall, but the proprietors had ambitions to extend it as far as Portsmouth. They began at the Thames in Rotherhithe and soon became a part of the new Surrey Docks scheme with an expanded basin and ship lock completed in 1807 into what became Stave Dock, with the canal running what became Russia Dock. Plans to join with the Croydon Canal at Deptford rather than that canal having its own line from the Thames provided an incentive to open the canal as far as the Old Kent Road by 1807.

*Surrey Canal Walk, Canal Bridge, Commercial Way, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-61*

The Croydon Canal, not being involved with the new docks, got on with digging and the stretch from the Surrey Canal at Deptford was opened to West Croydon in 1809. It didn’t last too long never attracting a great deal of traffic and closed in 1836, though many of us will have travelled along parts of it as it was bought by the London & Croydon Railway company for their line from London Bridge to a station on the former canal basin at West Croydon. Parts of its route not needed for the railway are now parks and nature reserves.

The Grand Surrey Canal company had run out of money and needed another Act of Parliament in 1807 to raise money to go further and were able then to extend the canal to Camberwell, opening this section in 1810. Apart from the entrance lock there are no locks on the canal, but they would have been necessary to go further, and the company could not afford the extra expense, and this was the furthest it ever got, despite the original plans and dreams.

Two more Acts of Parliament were needed to enable the company to raise money to cover costs and a short branch to a a large basin at Peckham was added, ocpening in 1826. Other plans put forward for extending the canal to Vauxhall and even Reading failed to attract investors.

But the Surrey Docks were developing and the canal got a new entrance lock in 1860, close to the earlier lock but leading into a new basin, Surrey Basin. There was a new entrance lock into the canal itself at Russia Dock. When Greenland Dock was extended in 1904, a lock from there became the start of the canal, almost a mile from its original entrance from the Thames.

*Surrey Canal Walk, Canal Bridge, Commercial Way, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-64*

Surrey Docks were mainly used for timber, and this also made up much of the traffic on the canal, but an important customer was George Livesey’s South Metropolitan Gas Company with its Old Kent Road gas works relying on coal being brought to it on the canal on its own fleet of barges. Production of gas stopped on the site in 1953.

Other traffic on the canal also fell off dramatically, with many of the industrial sites which had sprung up beside it at various wharves along its length turned to road transport and new companies moved in which had no need for bulk transport. The canal became disused and most of it was filled in by 1960. The section down to the basin at Peckham now occupied by Peckham Library is a pedestrian and cycle route called both the Surrey Canal Walk and Surrey Canal Linear Path.

London Canals has a good account of the canal with some old photographs along with more recent images of various remaining features.

*Flats, Willowbrook Estate, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1h-14*

Close to the canal was the Willowbrook Estate constructed by the London County Council in the early 1960’s and handed over to the London Borough of Southwark in 1980. It became a part of Southwark’s drastic 1995 Five Estates Peckham Masterplan and the large block at the left of this picture, the 112 home Tonbridge House was demolished, along with Tilbury Close while most of the lower maisonettes remain. The regeneration of the estate had begun in 1988 and was completed by 1995, although there has been considerable refurbishment since the estate voted to be taken over by Willowbrook TMC in 1998.

My 1989 walk in Peckham will continue in a later post.

The first post on this walk I made on Sunday 29th January 1989 was Windows, A Doorway, Horse Trough and Winnie Mandela.

King’s Cross, Victoria Dock, Excel Arms Fair

2005 seems a long time ago now, but some of the same names are still often in the news. At a rally at King’s Cross station about fire safety remembering the victims of the disastrous fire in the Underground station there in 1987 that killed 31 people there were speeches from trade unionists and politicians including MPs John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn.

RMT leader Bob Crow died in 2014 but since 2021 RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch has been very much in our minds recently – and like Crow putting the case for his members and the working classes effectively to the mass media, challenging the silly class-based observations of many reporters and interviewers and making clear the facts about the rail dispute.

Trains were very much in my mind at the start of Saturday 26th November 2005, not because of strikes but because of the problems of our privatised rail system which led to me arriving in London half an hour later than anticipated. Privatisation only really made any sense when it could introduce real competition and that was never possible for the railways – and only by introducing an expensive and wasteful middle layer of companies for utilities such as gas, electricity and water. In all these sectors the results have been inefficienies, high prices and large profits at the expense of customers and taxpayers for the largely foreign companies who bought our ‘national silver’.

Kings Cross – never again! – 26th November 2005

So I arrived late, running up the escalators at King’s Cross and remembering the stories of those who had been caught up there in the terrible fire, thinking how hard it would be to find the way out in smoke-filled darkness. Even with good lighting and reasonably clear signage it’s sometimes difficult to take the correct route.

Outside I photographed the joint trade union protest in memory of the fire, made more urgent by the plans of the management to change safety rules which protect workers and public using the system in order to cut costs. As well as those mentioned earlier, there were also speakers from ASLEF, the Fire Brigades Union and others.

On the https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/museum/history-and-stories/historical-fires-and-incidents/the-kings-cross-fire-1987/ 18th November 1987 a fire started when a lit match was dropped on an escalator around the end of the evening rush hour, falling through a gap and setting fire to litter and grease beneath. The small fire this started quickly spread, engulfing the escalator. People were told to leave the station by an alternative escalator and trains were told not to stop at the station.

Then at exactly 7.45pm while the ticket hall was still crowded a fireball suddenly erupted from the escalator into the ticket hall, followed by dense black smoke which made it impossible to see the exits. The heat was intense, melting plastic wall and ceiling tiles which added to the blaze. It took two and a quarter hours to get the fire under control, and a further five hours to put it out completely. 31 people died in the fire including a senior fire officer who was in the ticket hall telling people to get out when the fireball burst in.

Government and management justify cutting safety as “getting rid of red tape” and simplifying procedures and 12 years after this protest we saw the terrifying consequences of their approach to safety at Grenfell Tower.

The inquiry into the fire established a previously unknown mechanism by which the fire had spread so rapidly and also found that an over-complacent management had not had sufficient concern for the dangers of fires underground. New regulations were introduced, smoking was banned and a programme of replacing wooden escalators begun (though it was only in 2014 that the last was taken out of service.) Heat detectors and sprinkler systems were installed and better communications systems, improvements in passenger flow and staff training meant that almost all of the reports recommendations were put into practice.

Things changed in later years as Government and management justified cutting safety as “getting rid of red tape” and simplifying procedures and 12 years after this protest we saw the terrifying consequences of their approach to safety at Grenfell Tower. Had the reports and the coroners recommendations following the Lakanal House fire in 2009 been implemented and the lessons learnt, the fire at Grenfell would have been a minor incident, confined to the flat inside which it started. There would have been no deaths and we would never have heard about it on the news.

Workers and their unions saw clearly the dangers of this change in attitudes to safety in this 2005 protest.

more pictures

Excel and Victoria Dock – 26th November 2005

I’d hoped to go from the safety protest at King’s Cross to a lecture at the ICA, but my work finished too late, and instead deciding first to go to Whitehall where I had expected to find another protest. There were still quite a few poppies from the Remembrance Sunday event, but I found nothing else to photograph in the area.

I decided the weather would be fine to take a trip to the Royal Victoria Dock and take some more photographs around there. It was a fairly quick journey now thanks to the Jubilee Line from Westminster to Canning Town and then a couple of stops on the DLR.

I got off at Custom House and walked past the entrance to the Excel Centre, making my way to the high level bridge across the dock, which had been closed on an earlier visit but was open now. And the lift was working.

I took rather a lot of pictures both on the dockside and from the bridge which has some interesting views of the buildings around the dock and further afield, including the Millennium Dome on the other side of the Thames, Canary Wharf and the London skyline in the far distance.

I took pictures with the full range of the lenses in my camera bag, from the 8mm fisheye to the a not very impressive telephoto zoom, which I think stretched to 125mm, equivalent on the DX camera I was then using to 187mm, which give a some quite different angles of view. I would now process these rather differently, partly because RAW software has improved significantly since 2005, but also because my own preferences have changed. Most of those fisheye images I would probably now partially ‘defish’ to render the verticals straight.

The camera I was using them, a Nikon D70 also now seems rather primitive, particularly as its images are only 6Mp and only offering a ISO 200 – 1600 range. But it did the job well, and the only real improvements in later models – unless you really want to make very large prints – were in the viewfinders. The D70 viewfinder was usable (and much better than the D100 which it replaced) but still not as good as those on film cameras.

Towards the end of the time I spent there, the sky turned orange, though perhaps the photographs slightly exaggerate the colour.

more pictures

East London Against the Arms Trade – Musical Protest, Excel Centre, 26 Nov 2005

I’d photographed more or less everything I could see and was beginning to make my way back to the DLR station when “I heard the brassy notes of the red flag, and made my way towards them.”

Musicians from ‘East London Against the Arms Fair’ were treating visitors to the Excel centre to a musical welcome. They were calling for Excel to stop hosting the DSEI (Defence & Security Equipment International) arms fairs which attract visitors from around the world, including many repressive regimes to come to London and see and buy arms.

London’s then Mayor, Ken Livingstone had spoken against having the arms fair in London as have the nearby London boroughs, and local residents had voted 79% against them, but the arms fairs continue every other year – with several days of protest against them.

One had taken place here in October, and the musical protest was calling for those already booked for 2007, 2009 and 2011 to be dropped. But their protest fell on deaf ears so fast as Excel’s owners were concerned and they continue, supported by the government, to be held there.

more pictures

As well as seeing more pictures on the links in this post you can also see the accounts I wrote back in 2005 by scrolling down the November 2005 page of My London Diary. You can see photographs of further protests against the DSEI arms fair by putting the four letters DSEI into the search on the front page of My London Diary.

Hampton Hill Christmas Lights 2011

Today’s date reminds me that Christmas is still a month away. Personally I’d like to see a moratorium on any mentions of the forthcoming annual festival banned before December 1st and after January 6th with stiff fines for those who breach the rules. Thirty-seven days is more than a tenth of the year and surely that’s enough?

But perhaps we – and especially photographers – need something to cheer us up ofter the imposed blackout each year at the end of October when the clocks are returned to our archaic Greenwich Mean Time (and usually I forget to change the hour on at least one of my cameras for a week or two.) And at least the event at Hampton Hill was only a month early.

I doubt if there would be a great deal of support for my idea of a time system which came to me in a dream as I was in bed at around 2pm (or was it 3pm) when our clocks were changing, of avoiding the two sudden jumps in time each year by making incremental changes to keep sunrise always at 7am, although it would now be possible when so many timekeeping devices take their time from a distant time-server rather than being altered by pushing around the hands of a clock. But it would be rather better to do as we did for some years to keep to British Summer Time all year, as we did from 1968-71, and perhaps appropriate as our global temperature rises.

I’ve never much liked taking photographs in the dark, and many flash photographs are horrible, with overlit forergrounds and pitch-black backgrounds. Fortunately digital cameras now enable us to get away from this, at least to some extent, by working at much higher ISOs, which enable us to make photographs more readily in low light. Flash systems have also improved tremendously, an Nikon’s iTTL was, at least in 2011, the best of all, though their camera systems were designed to frustrate its best use. I got better at fooling it in later years. And just introduced were cheap handheld LED lighting systems, powerful enough to illuminate subjects a couple of metres away, though not much further. I used both flash and an LED light on different pictures at Hampton Hill as well as making use of available light where I could.

So here is the whole of my introductory text from My London Diary (with a few minor corrections) for the event. You can find more pictures with the original article online along with some picture captions.

Hampton Hill Christmas Lights – Hampton Hill, Middlesex.
Friday 25th November 2011

Crowds filled the High St in Hampton Hill for the 43rd annual Christmas parade last night, along with music, Morris Dancing and many stalls on the street and in the URC church hall making this a real community event

Although Christmas is still a month away, the people of Hampton Hill, just to the west of Bushey Park in the London Borough of Richmond, were out on the streets celebrating last night. Many of the shops along the street were open late, with some holding special events and handing out balloons and sweets.

Santa was kept busy in his grotto seeing groups of children, and quite a few other Santas were out on the street, with a group in the parade accompanying the mayor. Morris Dancers performed in the middle of the road, closed to traffic, and tried to teach some brave young ladies one of their dances. The several pubs along the street were all kept busy, and it was also crowded at times inside the church hall, with several rooms full of stalls, as well as a continuing series of events inside the church itself.

The highlight of the evening was of course the parade, which included some children on ponies and people leading Christmas-decorated dogs behind Santa in a large sled, and a large engine. But it was the energetic kids from local schools and youth groups that really brought the event to life.

Unlike some other Christmas ‘lighting up’ events, Hampton’s seems very much to be one that involves large sections of the local community, which is perhaps why it is still very much alive after 43 years.

More at Hampton Hill Christmas Lights.

Fathers4Justice: 24 Days of Christmas Chaos – Westminster, 9 Dec 2006

Free Mehmet Tarhan – Turkish Airlines, Pall Mall, Dec 9, 2005

London Transport – Last day for the Routemaster, 9 Dec 2005

Victorian Christmas Market – Chrisp St, Poplar, Dec 9, 2005

The Ethiopian Tragedy – Stop UK Support – Marble Arch, Dec 9, 2005

Olympic Area Slightly Open – Stratford Marsh. Wed 5 Dec 2012

Osborne’s Budget Cuts – Strand to Westminster, Wed 5 Dec 2012

Kings Cross – never again! – 26th November 2005

Excel and Victoria Dock – 26th November 2005

East London Against the Arms Trade – Musical Protest, Excel Centre, 26 Nov 2005

Hampton Hill Christmas Lights – Hampton Hill, Middlesex. Friday 25th November 2011

Hampton Hill Christmas Lights – Hampton Hill, Middlesex.
Friday 25th November 2011