1989 | >Re-PHOTO

Some Madness and Houses in Clapham

Some Madness and Houses in Clapham: On the 29th July 1989 my walk began in Clapham and I found this sign on The Pavement. I could make very little of it then and still can’t now.

*Notice, The Pavement, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-43*

At the top of the painting on the wall is a geometric device surround by a circle with a square inside divided into four quarters and various triangles inside and on its two vertical edges. Four arrows from the circle have a 90 degree left turn and point anticlockwise and to the letters ‘PH.’, ‘MAY’, ‘MARY’ and ‘C.R.’. Underneath I can just make out the scrawled word ‘MADONNA’, though I think think this has been overwritten at the start to read ‘CRAP’ and there are some other letters and numbers including a ‘6’.

Below this, boldly painted in the same script as the words around the device are a series of words or rather letters in which there are some actual words and some plausible inventions. The whole is a mystery though I rather suspect one that many have involved copious amounts of illegal substances. There was some colour in this notice which you can see in the different shades of grey, and a few sections were in red, particularly the only lower case line just above the bottom, ‘dunhillthwaiton’ while the bottom line, ‘HYPOSTASISTA’ was in green.

I think this was a part of the block called The Polygon which was demolished in the early 2000s. But it is difficult to understand street names in this area of Clapham, and this writing on the wall is impossible.

*Houses, Rectory Gardens, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-45*

I wrote about Rectory Gardens at more length in the post about an earlier visit there in May 1989. Built in the 1870s as philanthropic housing for low paid workers after being damaged in the war they were squatted in the late 1960s and 70s and a unique artistic community grew up there. Lambeth Council bought the area and intended to develop it in 1970, but there was strong local opposition both from residents and others in the local area.

*Houses, Rectory Gardens, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-46*

The Clapham Society wanted them to be kept as a group and run by a housing association but eventually Lambeth Council evicted the residents and in 2016 sold them off to a developer to build expensive luxury properties in “a triangular mews-style development“.

*Porch, 39, Turret Grove, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-32*

I walked up Rectory Grove to Turret Grove, developed on the site of the Elzabethan manor house, Clapham Manor, demolished in 1837. Some of the houses in it date from 1844-5 and are in the Rectory Grove Conservation Area which notes their “attractive trellis style porches“.

*Doorways, Clapham Common Northside area, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-35*

I made my way through the backstreets towards Clapham Common. One of the streets I walked down was Macaulay Road and this has some impressive doorways and I think this pair were probably on this road.

Zachary Macaulay, born in Scotland had emigrated to Jamaica in 1784 when he was 16 and worked as an assistant manager on a sugar plantation, returning to London five years later. In 1790 he visited Sierra Leone, set up as a home for emancipated slaves many of whom had fought for Britain in the American War of Independence, returning in 1792 and becoming its Governor from 1794-9. He became one of the leading members of the Clapham Sect working for the abolition of slavery, able to provide William Wilberforce with first-hand information and statistics.

In 1799 he came back to Clapham with 25 children from Sierra Leone and set up a the School of Africans to train them with skills to support the development of their country when they returned. Unfortunately “one by one they succumbed to the cold“, though in fact what killed most of them was measles and only six survived.

Further down the street was once the site of the Ross Optical Works which made cameras, lenses and projectors which moved here in 1891 and expanded greatly in 1916 when their work was considered essential to the war effort. At its peak the company employed 1200 people. Ross Ensign was said to be the premier optical company in the United Kingdom, but was unable to compete with foreign competition and closed in 1975.

*Clapham Common Northside, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-23*

I think I probably photographed this house on the corner of Clapham Common Northside and The Chase mainly because it was so different from the rest of the properties, terraces and blocks along there. A large house, but only two storeys and with an attractive upper floor window, but largely hidden behind its rampant bushes and trees in its front garden.

On its side in The Chase are three plaques commemorating street parties for the Queen’s Birthday, a royal wedding and the Golden Jubilee in recent years.

To be continued.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Latchmere, Shaftesbury & Park Town Battersea – 1989

Latchmere, Shaftesbury & Park Town Battersea – 1989: More pictures from my walk which began at Vauxhall on Friday 28th July 1989 with Nine Elms Riverside. The previous post was Shops, Spurgeon, Byron, Shakespeare & a Café.

*Freedom St, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7m-17*

Battersea was one of the most progressive areas of the country in the late nineteenth century and in 1886 Battersea Vestry came to the decision that the parish should itself erect working class dwelling on the site of the Latchmere allotments, themselves enclosed from Latchmere common in 1832 to provide allotments for the poor.

But, as the Survey of London which recounts the development of the area in some depth states, the Local Government Board told them that they did not have the power to build houses. The Vestry put forward a bill in parliament to enable them to go ahead but it met wide opposition and had to be withdrawn.

Things began to move again in 1898 when Fred Knee, a member of the UK’s first organised socialist party, the Social Democratic Federation and of the Co-operative Society, moved to Battersea and founded the Workmen’s Housing Council to campaign for better housing for workers to be built by public authorities on a non-profit basis. He tried to get the London County Council involved as they had the powers to build homes. But this shortly became unnecessary as the 1899 London Government Act replaced the Vestry with the Metropolitan Borough of Battersea which under the 1900 Housing Act was able to apply for the power to build housing itself. Knee continued to play an important role in the development by the council.

In 1901 Battersea Council set up a competition for plans asking for designs for five house and flat types, and prizes were eventually awarded to five of the 58 entries, and work began by Borough Surveyor, J. T. Pilditch and his architectural assistant William Eaton on finalising the designs and estate plan.

*Maisonettes, 2-8, Reform St, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7n-62*

The Survey of London states that the final plans included “eight five-room houses, 69 houses with a three-room flat on each floor, 73 houses with a four-room flat on each floor and six odd houses of four or five rooms“. The competition-winning designs were simplified with their more picturesque features “expunged in the interests of economy” which perhaps makes them more aesthetically pleasing to modern eyes.

Where expense was not spared was in the internal facilities for the new tenants, with electric lighting (and slot meters), unusual at the time and “patent combined kitchen range, boiler and bath … fitted in all the houses at the high cost of £18 10s apiece.”

The area was designated in 1978 as the Latchmere Estate Conservation Area.

*Yard, Railway, Culvert Rd, Shaftesbury Estate, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7n-63*

Battersea is cut through by the railway lines from two of London’s major termini, Waterloo and Victoria with junctions, goods yards, engineering works and a number of branches creating an incredible maze of tracks, viaducts, and bridges, now only slightly simplified.

Culvert Road predates the Shaftestbury Estate and was important as an entrance to Poupart’s market garden on which that estate was built. It originally had a level crossing over the railway line here – four tracks leading from Clapham Junction and from the rail bridge over the Thames at Battersea to Wandsworth Road – but this was closed and a narrow footbridge reached by slopes on each side provided in 1880. This footbridge provided may vantage point for this picture.

Culvert Road continues to the north in a tunnel out of picture to the left under around 13 more tracks leading to Victoria or Waterloo. Over the railway viaduct you can see the blocks of the Doddington Estate.

*House, Culvert Rd, Eversleigh Rd, Shaftesbury Estate, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7n-64*

The history of the Shaftesbury Park Estate, developed by the the Artizans, Labourers and General Dwelling Company between between 1873 and 1877 was roughly based on workers cities (cités ouvrières) built earlier in France.

Its development was overshadowed by one of the era’s largest scandals which resulted in the entire board of directors being replaced in 1877 and its secretary/manager William Swindlehurst and chairman Baxter being jailed for conspiracy and fraud, and another director fleeing the country. You can read more of the details on the Survey of London.

*Doorway, Shaftesbury Estate, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7n-66*

When the disgraced board of the Artizans, Labourers and General Dwelling Company was replaced in 1877 their architect, the self-taught Robert Austin was sacked. His more conventionally qualified assistant was also dismissed the following year to save money. But the work of the pair has stood the test of time with a remarkable overall unity about the estate, planned on a grid system, enlivened with some minor and varied decorative features.

Despite its board’s fraud, the estate was generally well-built and houses provided with good ventilation and an improved system of drainage, though this was a cause of arguments with the local authority which favoured traditional methods. There were also various community buildings, but the estate is best-known for not including a single pub, influenced by the temperance movement of the times. William Austin, usually thought of as the founder of the company, was a poor and illiterate navvy before taking ‘the pledge’ and becoming a successful drainage contractor and builder. He set up the company as largely a business enterprise, aimed at making an annual profit of 6% rather than for any great philanthropic intent. He was voted off the board before the scandal with The Survey of London quoting him as later explaining ‘I was too
honest for them’.

*Houses, Broughton St, Park Town, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7n-52*

Broughton Street runs from the end of Eversleigh St east parallel to the railway lines before turning to cross Queenstown Rd and ending on Silverthorne Road. I think I was probably standing on the end of Eversleigh Street to photograph this long terrace on the north side which according to the Survey of London were built by partners Robert Lacy and James Flexman shortly after an agreement they made in 1867.

This block of over 20 virtually identical houses (that nearest the camera has a carriage entrance, as No 1 still does) is followed past a narrow entrance road leading to a tunnel to the London Stone Business Estate between railway lines by another long block much the same. The houses here along this side of the road are numbered consecutively from 1-52.

The houses in these terraces are quite substantial, three floors each with two main rooms and rather than their front doors opening directly onto the pavement all except the two end houses have vestigial front gardens.

*Shops, 56-64, Lavender Hill, Battersea, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-56*

I walked down Prairie Street to Queenstown Road taking a couple of pictures there before turning down Lavender Hill where I made another three, only this one on-line. I’d photographed this row of shops earlier but took this second picture showing the multiplicity of signs – a cinema poster with dinosaurs, Ice Cream, the two posts with signs for the off licence and vegetarian food. the shop fronts and a large JEANS up one of the curved ends of the houses. The area in front of the shops looks very different now.

This was the end of my walk on Friday 28th July but I returned to Clapham the following day to take more pictures – in a later post.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Shops, Spurgeon, Byron, Shakespeare & a Café

Shops, Spurgeon, Byron, Shakespeare & a Café: More pictures from my walk which began at Vauxhall on Friday 28th July 1989 with Nine Elms Riverside. The previous post was Rail, Housing, Matrimony & A Warning.

Shops, 56-64, Lavender Hill, Battersea, Lambeth, 1989 89-7m-22 — *Shops, 56-64, Lavender Hill, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7m-22*

The six houses between Woodmere Grove and Shirley Grove at 56-66 on the north side of Lavender Hill were built at a slight angle to the road. Each of them also has a rounded corner at the south-east, making them look from the east side as a series of round towers, some strange castle beside the road. Unlike the other terraces on the road this makes them stand out as individual buildings, though shop extensions on the ground floor present a straight line on the pavement.

These houses were built as a part of Seymour Terrace in around 1870 as private houses with basements on a part of an estate bought by Clapham surgeon and GP Henry Meredith Townsend who lived nearby on Clapham Rise. The ground floor was converted into shops in 1882. The Survey of London which gives more detail describes them as “a minor masterpiece of street architecture.“

Queen's Road Stores, Hartington Terrace, Stanley Grove, Queenstown Rd, Clapham, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7m-24 — *Queen’s Road Stores, Hartington Terrace, Stanley Grove, Queenstown Rd, Clapham, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7m-24*

Hartington Terrace on Queenstown Road is still there though the shopfronts have changed a little over the years they are still basically the same. No 43 on the corner has lost those ‘decorative’ blinds and looks very much more sober, not welling bathroom fittings rather than wine. This whole area of Battersea, Park Town, was the heart of a single farm, Longhedge Farm, which began to be developed after the opening of Battersea Park in 1858. Its long and complex story is told in great detail in the link cited.

Developments at the southern end included some large villas close to Clapham Common, and the developers of the northern part under Philip William Flower (1810–72) originally hoped to make this a middle-class area with its location between Clapham and Chelsea but later had to lower their expectations largely because of railway expansion in the area and develop it as homes for working-class artisans.

An Act of Parliament in 1863 allowed the laying out of Queens Road (known since 1939 as Queenstown Road) and building on the estate continued over the next 30 or so years. One of the two major builders was Walter Peacock who began Hartington Terrace (named by Cyril Flower, (1843–1907), Philip’s eldest son and first Lord Battersea) in 1885. No 43 was built as a pub and there was a parade of 7 shops with stabling and workshops behind. A few more shops were added to the north in 1888 by another builder.

Stanley Grove at left was an earlier development with houses built by a number of builders in 1867-8.

*Life Tabernacle, United Pentecostal Church, 32, Battersea Park Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7m-26*

The church is still there, set back from Battersea Park Road, but the temporary looking building occupying most of the picture has been replaced by a rather nondescript block with a large ground floor betting shop.

The land for the church building was, according to the Survey of London, acquired in 1868 “from the Crown’s Battersea Park purchase, to be used ‘as a branch from Mr Spurgeon’s tabernacle’. ” One of the leading Baptist figures of the age, Spurgeon was for 38 years pastor of the New Park Street Chapel (later the Metropolitan Tabernacle) at the Elephant & Castle. He was a powerful preacher and prolific writer and supporter of many practical schemes to improve the lot of the urban poor as well as missions such as this to convert them to his Calvinistic Christianity.

The first building erected was this, built as a lecture hall seating almost 500 by Lambeth builder and architect William Higgs, and it was 25 years later that a chapel was added to Battersea Tabernacle. This occupied the space between the hall and Battersea Park Road and was demolished probably in the 1970s having been damaged by wartime bombing. The hall was purchased for £25,000 by members of Calvary Temple in Camberwell and became Life Tabernacle.

*Decoration, Battersea Park Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth 1989 89-7m-13*

Somewhere on the stretch of Battersea Park Road between Propert’s blacking factory at 142 (photograph not on-line) and the villas at 445-7 I made this picture of terracotta decoration in panels on a building, but I can no longer find it. Unfortunately although my note says Battersea Park Road it does not give a street number. From the picture I think it must had been only a few courses above street level.

The central panel seems more generic, with a vessel with appears to have a fruit tree growing out of it, perhaps with apples, but the two roundels at the sides are perhaps more interesting. I think they probably represent some trade or other, but can’t decide which. Perhaps someone reading this can solve the mystery and make a comment.

*Shakespeare Villa, Byron Villa, 445, 447, Battersea Park Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth 1989 89-7m-14*

This remarkable pair of villas, now apparently a hotel, were built in the 1850s and the architect is thought to have been Charles Lee. The two are Grade II listed. The gable has a distinctive scalloped bargeboard or decoration and this continues for a short length along each side of the house to a low wall bearing an urn.

Cafe Window, Battersea Park Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7m-15 — *Café Window, Battersea Park Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7m-15*

This café on Battersea Park Road, I think in the parade between Stanmer St and Balfern Street, seems a suitable place to pause my walk which will continue in later posts. Although it looks as if it was taken from inside I think it was probably closed and I was standing in a recessed doorway.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Rail, Housing, Matrimony & A Warning

Rail, Housing, Matrimony & A Warning: More pictures from my walk which began at Vauxhall on Friday 28th July 1989 with Nine Elms Riverside. The previous post was Marco Polo, Chelsea Bridge, MAN holder & Convent.

*Works, Silverthorne Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7m-43*

These buildings are still there in a side turning from Silverthorne Road now leading to Battersea Studios. Battersea Studios were built in 1970 as a warehouse for BT and in 1994 became the home of the short-lived BBC Arabic Television, closed precipitately on Sunday, April 21, 1996 having angered the Saudi regime (and the UK government) by its accurate and impartial reporting. At extreme left you can see the barrier leading to that site.

The buildings in the picture were part of the Stewarts Lane Goods Depot, a huge area bounded by this and Dickens Street to the south and going east to the railway lines at Portslade Rd. It was first set up by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway in 1860 as Longhedge and used to build and house locomotives for their services from Victoria Station a short distance away north of the river. The original buildings were demolished in 1880/1 and replaced by these as Stewarts Lane which housed steam locomotives until 1963 and then diesels. Much of the building was destroyed by fire in 1967.

The depot remains in use as the Stewarts Lane Traction Maintenance Depot and is used by both DB Cargo UK and Govia Thameslink Railway.

*Houses, 133-139, Heath Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7m-44*

Further down Silverthorne Road to its west is Heath Road, the north side of which retains its attractive Victorian housing, with a block of four houses with basements and steps to their paired entrances followed by five without basements but with the same style and decoration. At the end at left of picture is the recently build Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

*Heath Terrace, Silverthorne Rd, 514 Wandsworth Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7m-46*

Heath Terrace is on the corner of Silverthorne Road and Wandsworth Road and as well as this corner entrance has two similar but slightly less ornate doorways on Wandsworth Road leading to sixteen Flats A to P as well as another door for a shop on Silverthorne Road part visible in my picture then occupied by taxi and transport company Guy Payne Of London Limited.

The building was built in 1897 and the corner door, in use when I made my picture in 1989 by Dr A J K Ala, still led to a surgery until around 2012. At the front of the traffic queue is a man on a moped with a large clipboard, studying the ‘knowledge’ required of taxi drivers.

*Matrimony Place, Wandsworth Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7m-32*

Matrimony Place is one of my favourite street names, though this place is only an alley with steps leading from Wandsworth Road to St. Paul’s Churchyard. I’d photographed it a few years earlier and made a deliberate detour to see if had changed – it was still much the same.

Possibly it was once the custom for local couples to walk up the 29 steps to the church to be married – or down them after the ceremony, and the name appears to of some antiquity. The railings have since been replaced by a fake antique design (probably thanks to the Clapham Society) which I find rather less attractive. It’s probably still a place to avoid after dark unless you a looking for drugs.

St Paul’s, Clapham was built on the site of the original parish church of Clapham, St Mary’s, renamed Trinity Church at the Protestant Reformation, then demolished in 1774 to be replace by Holy Trinity on Clapham Common. St Paul’s was built simply in 1815, became a rather odd lump after later extension by Sir Arthur Blomfield in 1875, was burnt down in World War 2 and restored in 1955 and is Grade II* listed.

*Houses, Victoria Rise, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7m-34*

I didn’t go up Matrimony Place but instead turned back westwards down Wandsworth Road, hardly stopping until I came to the top of Victoria Rise which has these rather impressive Victorian Terraces on both sides. Looked at from this end the street should perhaps have been called Victoria Fall as it goes down noticeably to Clapham Common, but you can see why the developers decided against this. In fact they called it Victoria Road, but it was changed later as there were too many of these in London.

The street was laid out around 1853 its lower end on the site of an C18 villa built for the banker Henry Hoare by Henry Flitcroft known as The Wilderness. These houses on the east side were there by the time of the 1869/70 OS survey, though those on the west side are a little later.

*Doorway, 144, Victoria Rise, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7m-35*

A notice in the window at right states:
YOU ARE WARNED
REPENT AND RECEIVE
THE LORD JESUS AS
YOUR SAVIOUR FOR
LIFE ETERNAL, LEST
YOU DIE SUDDENLY
AND GO TO HELL
WITH THE DEVIL
THE MURDERER.

*Victoria Rise, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7m-36*

At left is a window on the corner with Wandsworth Rd with plaster mouldings in a shop demolished in 1998, and at right is Clapham Baptist Church on the opposite corner.

The houses on this side of Victoria rise were built between the 1869/70 survey and the 1893 to 1894 revision. There was also a chapel here, the Victoria Baptist Church, built in 1873 but this was badly damaged by bombs in 1941. it was rebuilt in the 1950s, incorporating some of the Victorian remains on its west end on Wandsworth Road.

My walk continued – more later.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Marco Polo, Chelsea Bridge, MAN holder & Convent – 1989

Marco Polo, Chelsea Bridge, MAN holder & Convent – More pictures from my walk which began at Vauxhall on Friday 28th July 1989 with Nine Elms Riverside. The previous post was Kirtling Street to Battersea Power Station & the Dogs – 1989

*Marco Polo House, The Observer, Queenstown Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-13*

One of few interesting postmodern buildings in London, Marco Polo House, designed by architect Ian Pollard for The Observer and British Satellite Broadcasting this was completed in 1989. It was demolished in 2014, probably to prevent it being listed and replaced by the rather anodyne flats now on the site.

*Marco Polo House, The Observer, Queenstown Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-12*

Another picture of Marco Polo House with cars parked giving a good impression of the impressive scale. At right is the railway viaduct with a train passing on the line from Victoria Station. This is the southern end of the building with a fairy mature tree newly planted in the foreground; it only briefly survived the demolition of the building.

*Marco Polo House, The Observer, Queenstown Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-14*

This giant stone carried the name of the building and I think was at the north end of the building on the corner of Sopwith Way or perhaps a little down that minor side-street. At right you can see a little of Marco Polo House and above it the unmistakable chimneys of Battersea Power Station, with the cranes with which McAlpine had removed the roof in the then recently abandoned scheme to convert it into a theme park.

*Chelsea Bridge, River Thames, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7m-64*

I walked up Queenstown Road to the foot of Chelsea Bridge and went a few yards down the path into Battersea Park to take this picture looking across the Thames to Pimlico.

Although this was the side of an ancient river crossing fordable when the tide was low, the first bridge here was only opened in 1858 to provide access from north of the river to the new Battersea Park opened in the same year. This was a rather narrow and flimsy looking structure was named Victoria Bridge – and at the other end of the park Albert Bridge was built a few years later. Both were originally toll bridges but failed to be a commercial success and were taken over by the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1877 with the tolls being abolished in 1879.

It was renamed Chelsea Bridge when it was found to be structurally unsound to avoid any embarrassment to the Queen should it collapse but it was not until 1926 that a replacement was proposed. In the meantime the old bridge had appeared in many paintings, drawings and photographs, although the bridge that inspired Billy Strayhorn – probably from the painting by Whistler or Turner to name his impressionist composition Chelsea Bridge, was almost certainly of Battersea Bridge. The jazz standard was first recorded by the Ellington orchestra in 1941, after both had been replaced by more modern structures. Somehow I think the tune would have been less successful had it been named Battersea Bridge.

The current bridge opened in 1937 and “was the first self-anchored suspension bridge in Britain, and was built entirely with materials sourced from within the British Empire.” The main cables attach to the end of the bridge deck rather than onto the bank.

*Marco Polo House, The Observer, Queenstown Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7m-66*

I turned around and walked back down Queenstown Road, and could not resist taking more pictures of Marco Polo House from the opposite side of the road.

Towering above it was the giant gasholder and I carefully chose my position to make this into an unlikely addition to the post-modern building. This was the largest and seventh gasholder to be built on the site for the Nine Elms gas works which was further down Nine Elms Lane and was built in 1932 to the innovative designs of the German company Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg and so was the MAN holder. It and the other remaining holders were finally demolished in 2015.

*Marco Polo House, The Observer, Queenstown Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7m-51*

And this was the final picture I took of Marco Polo House on the walk, showing the south end of the building and attaching to it at right two of the Battersea Power Station chimneys.

*Convent of Notre Dame, School, Battersea Park Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7m-53*

I turned back onto Battersea Park Road to make this photograph of the former convent school, with the MAN gasholder appearing on the right edge of the picture. The Sisters of Notre Dame came to Battersea in 1870 to provide Catholic education for the poor children of the area with a public elementary school and also a private day school. In 1901 it reopened as Notre Dame High school for Young Ladies and in 1906 increased in size as it began to admit girls on LCC County Scholarships and a new wing was opened in 1907. Until 1919 there were some dormitories for boarders which were then converted to more classrooms and a library.

The grammar school expanded further after the Second World War and became a comprehensive in 1972, closing in 1982 when the building was sold. It was later converted into flats as The Cloisters.

More from my walk into Battersea in later posts.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Kirtling Street to Battersea Power Station & the Dogs – 1989

Kirtling Street to Battersea Power Station & the Dogs continues my walk which began at Vauxhall on Friday 28th July 1989 with Nine Elms Riverside. The previous post was More from Nine Elms Riverside.

*Works, Kirtling St, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-36*

The riverside path still ends at Kirtling Street but Greenham’s aggregate wharf has now been replaced by the central site of the Tideway 25km London super sewer project underneath the River Thames due for completion in 2025, when it should prevent 95% of sewage spills in London entering the river. It was here that the two tunnel boring machines were lowered 50 metres below ground to make their way east and west to produce the central section of the tunnel between Fulham and Bermondsey.

*T & W Farmiloe, paint factory, Cringle St, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-21*

This bricked up entry in a tall brick wall on the corner of Cringle Street was for many years all that remained of the 50-year-old glass, lead, paint and sanitary ware manufacturing company which had opened a large 4-storey factory here in 1884 with a frontage on Nine Elms Lane. The Farmiloe brothers had set up in business in Westminster in the 1840s as glass cutters and taken over the Island Lead Mills in Limehouse in 1885, and expanded with a brass foundry on Horseferry Road, a varnish works in Mitcham and this large warehouse in Nine Elms, producing everything a plumber could need. In the twentieth century their main business moved to sanitary ware and paint, including ‘Nine Elms’ white lead paint which was made at this white-lead factory built around 1910. I think the company which had trademarked ‘Nine Elms’ had long vacated the site before it was dissolved in 1988. The trademark passed to Akzo Nobel and expired in 2005.

*Works, Sleaford St, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-23*

Sleaford Street was on the eastern side of one of the earliest developments in the area, Battersea New Town, begun in the 1790s and was first developed on its west side the by Southwark butcher William Sleford. Apparently later “One side of Sleaford Street was formerly derided as Ginbottle Row, while the other was called Soapsuds Bay, presumably because it accommodated laundresses.”

I can find no signs of the building in this picture and most of the west side of Sleaford Street is now occupied by a large block of flats extending back from the corner with Nine Elms Lane completed around 2008. John Oswald and Sons had a foundry in the street from 1871 and this may be their building.

At the left of the picture you can see the Battersea gasholder, demolished 2014-7 and at right Battersea Power Station.

*Battersea Power Station, Battersea Park Rd, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-24*

A slightly unusual view of the power station six years after its final closure. Planning permission was obtained for it conversion to a theme park, but the scheme was halted when money ran out in March 1989. By this time the roof had been removed, presumably by McAlpine whose name adorns the building, which led to considerable subsequent deterioration of the steelwork and foundations.

After various failed redevelopment plans the power station was eventually refurbished as an expensive tourist destination surrounded by new homes, a hotel, shops and restaurants and a new London Underground station. McAlpine was the construction manager for the final phase three of the development.

*Battersea Power Station, Battersea Park Rd, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-25*

Another view of the wrecked power station, along with a rather unconvincing double at the right with a view of the abandoned scheme.

*Battersea Dogs Home, Battersea Park Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-11*

Then there was no way back to the riverside before reaching Chelsea Bridge at the north end of Queenstown Road. A long detour away from the river around the power station and gas works site took me past Battersea Dogs Home where I took this picture with one dog begging on the top of the wall and another emerging from the Exit to the building. There is now a rather larger building on the site and it has added ‘and Cats’ to its remit.

The description of my walk will continue in a later post.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

More from Nine Elms Riverside

More from Nine Elms Riverside: My walk on Saturday 29th July continued from yesterday’s post.

*Libation, River Thames, Riverside Walk, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-66*

At the end of the William Henry Walk I photographed a small coastal vessel, the Libation, moored at a short pier.

*Libation, River Thames, Riverside Walk, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-51*

As a took a few photographs the skipper of the vessel came up to talk with me. He told me that he and his mate brought the ship up on the tide every day with a load of gravel dredged from the estuary, where it was unloaded by the crane with a grab into the hopper at left of the picture. As soon as I ended the conversation and moved on I regretted I had not asked him if I could take his picture, but it was too late to go back.

*The Battersea Barge, Bistro, River Thames, Nine Elms Lane, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-41*

The Battersea Barge is at the west end of this section of walk, immediately west of the Heathwall pumping station. And although the area around has changed completely the Battersea Barge is still there, a 1930s Dutch barge converted to a floating bar and restaurant, much in demand for private parties, though it now seems only to offer a bar to which people are welcome to bring their own food – and there are many local outlets which have now opened. And it now has a sister ship nearby, another converted Dutch barge, the Tamesis, a “walk-on neighbourhood bar, live music & events space” moored nearby.

Until around 2008 the path here was reached by an fairly narrow alley beside a warehouse, but the commercial properties along this side of Nine Elms Lane were replace from 2012 on by tall residential blocks, part of the immense development that has taken place in the Nine Elms area.

*River Thames, Riverside Walk, Nine Elms Lane, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-44*

The dock here was originally Manor House Wharf and a dock ran into the gas works on the other side of Nine Elms Lane. The jetty at Imperial Wharf allowed larger ships to unload coal here.

*Jetty, River Thames, Imperial Wharf, Nine Elms Lane, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-31*

The jetty for the Nine Elms Gas Works was rebuilt in 1952 to handle the flatiron coastal colliers which brought coal to the works. The gas works had begun here in 1858 and were taken over by the Gas Light and Coke Company in 1883 who ran them until nationalisation in 1949. The gas works closed in 1970 when the UK changed to natural gas.

There are now more houseboats moored here in what is now called Nine Elms Pier.

*Pier, Riverside Walk, River Thames, Kirtling St, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-34*

At the west end of the Tideway Walk I used the steps up to the jetty to take this and a landscape format image from the same position – below. Both are looking upstream towards Battersea Power Station at left and its jetties and cranes, and on the other side of the river the 1875 chimney for the Western Pumping Station on Grosvenor Road.

*Pier, Riverside Walk, River Thames, Kirtling St, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-35*

The Tideway Walk ends here, turning south to Kirtling Street, which leads back to the main road. The riverside here is still in industrial use as the Cringle Dock Solid Waste Transfer Station. Back in 1989 there was a long walk before you could access the river at Chelsea Bridge and Battersea Park, but now you can go down Cringle Street to the Battersea Power Station development.

My description of this walk continues in a later post towards Battersea.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

Nine Elms Riverside – July 1989

Nine Elms Riverside – July 1989: One of the benefits of working as a teacher as I still was in 1989 was certainly the long Summer holiday and I spent quite a lot of these taking photographs as well as going away for several weeks with my family – though some years this was also a photographic opportunity. And most years we also spent a week or so in Hull where I was able to add a few pictures to the work that had resulted in my exhibition Still Occupied in the Ferens Art Gallery there in 1983.

But our travels around the country in the Summer of 1989 – which as well as Hull included a week with a group of friends in a large holiday cottage in Scotland – only began in August, and the day after my visit to Hackney on Friday 28th July 1989 I returned to take up my work where I had left off earlier in Nine Elms.

*Brunswick House, Market Towers, Wandsworth Rd, Vauxhall, Lambeth, 1989 89-7k-13*

Tuuning west out of Vauxhall Station took me to the junction of Wandsworth Road and Nine Elms Lane. Brunswick House at right appeared in an earlier post on my walks in 1989. This mid 17th century house, extended in 1758, bought by in 1869 by “the London and South West Railway Company who used it as offices and a Scientific and Literary Institute. In 1994 it was sold to the railway staff association who again sold it in 2002. It is now a restaurant and the yard around it is used by an architectural salvage and supply company.“

Market Towers was clearly a very much later building, or rather pair of buildings, the taller 290ft high with 23 floors, completed in 1975, with offices a pub, the Market Tavern, on the first floor. The pub was built to serve workers at the adjoining New Covent Garden Market completed in 1974 and its licence allowed it to open in the early hours. By the 1980s this had made it into “South London’s first gay pub with a 2am licence“.

According to Wikipedia, the buildings were bought by the misleadingly named property developer Green Property in 2008 and four years later they were given planning permission to redevelop. Instead they sold it to Chinese developer Dalian Wanda. It was demolished in 2014-5 who gained revised planning permission for two buildings containing 436 flats and a hotel, City Tower with 58 floors and 654ft tall and River Tower 42 floors and 525ft. The project was sold on to another Chinese company, and there were various problems over building contracts which delayed completion. The Park Hyatt London River Thames hotel is now predicted to open in mid-2024.

*Nine Elms Cold Store, Nine Elms Lane, Nine Elms, Lambeth, 1989 89-7k-14*

This tall, windowless monolith states across its top ‘NINE ELMS COLD STORE‘ and was built in 1964 on a former gas works site to store meat and other frozen goods brought by ship into the London Docks and transferred here by lighters. At its side was a large railway goods yard, from which these goods could be taken by rail as well as lorries from the site. But only a few years after its completion, London’s docks began to close and by 1979 it was redundant.

This gas works had closed in 1956 and the site was in use as a coach park when the cold store was built, and also included a small creek, Vauxhall Creek, which once had been the mouth of the River Effra, long culverted and diverted which was then filled in. After it ceased to be used as a cold store it stood for 20 years with various schemes for redevelopment coming to nothing. Part of the delay was caused by the huge cost of demolition, part by Lambeth Council not then wanting the kind of luxury riverside flats than now occupy the site, the 50 storey 594 ft St George Wharf Tower completed in 2014, as well as by some dodgy business dealings.

The cold store was used for various films as a dystopian urban location, was a dangerous gay cruising handily placed for the Market Tavern, as well as allegedly for “black magic, devil worship, sacrifices, and orgies” but was finally demolished in 1999.

*River Thames, Riverside Walk, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7k-15*

I had crossed the border from Lambeth to Wandsworth and beyond the cold store the Riverside Walk had been opened up by the council as far as the Thames Water pumping station at Heathwall and after a short diversion past that to Kirtling Street, some years later in 1996 becoming a part of the new Thames Path.

This view from the path across the river past a moored lighter is from its start and there are now new buildings on the riverbank at the left, but the rest remain. These buildings are on Grosvenor Road, Pimlico. You can see the tower of Westminster Cathedral in the distance and I think to its left is the rather ugly block which contains Pimlico station.

A large brick arch on the riverbank is the ancient mouth of the River Tyburn, long since culverted. Plans for the resurfacing of the river by the Tyburn Angling Society seem limited to Mayfair and not to extend to the Thames, though the chances of it happening are as close to zero as can be imagined.

*Battersea Power Station, River Thames, Riverside Walk, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-02*

The bend of the river here makes it look as if I was walking on water to take this picture, but my feet were firmly on dry land. Battersea Power Station has since then been given something of a facelift, with the removal of some of the more interesting features of the riverfront, as well as now being surrounded on several sides by large blocks of flats and being turned into a wasteful luxury shopping centre.

The pair of distant chimneys just to its right are Lots Road Power Station. The nearer bridge is Grosvenor Railway Bridge taking trains into Victoria Station, but Chelsea Bridge just upriver can also be seen clearly.

*Battersea Power Station, River Thames, Riverside Walk, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-64*

Another view upstream from the riverside path, which shows all four chimneys of Battersea Power Station as well as the riverside path and some of the earlier flats built beside the river here, Elm Quay Court. This luxury flat development built in 1976-8 includes secure underground parking and a 47ft swimming pool, gym and sauna.

*Elm Quay Court, 30 Nine Elms Lane, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-54*

A view of the Elm Quay Court flats from the road. The new US Embassy was built opposite them. Neither building seems attractive to me. The best feature of the US Embassy is the moat which runs along only its north side, and the best feature of Elm Quay Court is the riverside walk, which enables the public to walk past it almost without seeing the building.

My account of my walk will continue in a later post.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

Dalston, Shacklewell and Stoke Newington – 1989

This post is the second and final part on my walk in Hackney which began with Dalston Doorcases to Marie Lloyd.

*German Hospital, Chapel, Ritson Rd, Dalston, Hackney, 1989 89-7k-32*

Founded in 1845 with German staff to provide medical services to German-speaking immigrants who had settled in parts of North London. English staff took over when the German staff were interned in 1940. It became a part of the NHS in 1948, and only closed in 1987. The Grade II listed buildings survive and were converted into affordable flats.

*Man on van, Ridley Rd, Dalston, Hackney, 1989 89-7k-33*

I wandered up into Ridley Road where business was beginning to slack off in the market for the day. This man having a cigarette sitting on the bonnet of a van saw my camera and asked me why I was taking photographs. We had a short talk and he insisted I take his photograph, so here he is.

*Public Washing Baths, Shacklewell Lane, Shacklewell, Hackney, 1989 89-7k-34*

I continued north to Shacklewell Lane and took this picture of the Public Washing Baths, built by the Metropolitan Borough of Hackney in 1931 when many houses in the area were without bathrooms. Many poorer families and single people lived in one or two rooms sometimes without any running water or gas supply in their rooms and shared lavatories and kitchens with other tenants of the buildings.

This bath house provided 24 baths for men, 16 for women and they will have been well used in the early years before slum clearance provided better housing for many in the area. They were damaged by bombing in 1940 and reopened in 1942 and only closed some time in the 1960s. It is now occupied by the Bath House Children’s Community Centre who bought it from Hackney Council in 2002. This is now part of the St Mark’s Conservation Area, designated in 2008.

*Works, 124-128 Shacklewell Lane, Hackney Downs, Hackney, 1989 89-7k-36*

Built in 1932 as the Albert Works for the printers Henry Hildesley by architects Hobden & Porri, it later became the Rona Fashions House of George Gowns Ltd, but by 1989 their name had been removed from the facade leaving the marks you can see on the horizontals of the building. I think it was then still in use for the rag trade but my picture has the end of the names ‘RONA ROON… and Bab… hidden by the trees of Shacklewell Green.

Robert William Hobden who died in 1921 and Arthur George Porri (1877-1962) whose practice was based in Finsbury Square were responsible for many commercial and public buildings across London in first third of the twentieth century but seem suprisingly little known – perhaps a good subject for some academic research.

Henry Hildesley the printers are best known for the many posters they produced, including some for London Transport and HMSO, with many produced to help the war effort in the 1940s. The building, now called Cotton Lofts is in the Shacklewell Green conservation area designated in 2018 and is now flats.

*Houses, Perch St, Hackney Downs, Hackney, 1989 89-7k-22*

I can no longer remember the route I took to make the three final images in this post, but they were all made on 27th July 1989.

This terrace was built in 1882 and the conservation area statement calls it and other similar buildings in nearby streets “attractive and architecturally interesting”.

*Former synagogue, Montague Road Beth Hamedrash, 62a Montague Rd, Dalston, Hackney, 1989 89-7i-16*

Founded in 1910, this Strictly Orthodox Ashkenazi synagogue owned by the Federation of Synagogues was closed and the membership merged with the West Hackney Synagogue in 1981. Used for some years by Roots Pool Community Association and Dalston Community Centre it was eventually converted into flats as Montague Court.

*Shops, Cazenove Rd, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-7k-26*

Possibly I may have taken a bus to pay a visit to Abney Park Cemetery, close to where this final image was made though if so I took no pictures on this occasion, or perhaps just to make this picture.

Shops were added in the front gardens of these houses built in 1878, and that now housing the artist’s house Madame Lillie was initially a carpentry workshop owned by the Wright family. In 1917, when Mrs Wright was a widow, her daughter Lillie opened a corsetry shop, which continued in business until she retired in 1970. In 1973 she sold the shop and house to her young artist nephew Paul David Wright. He converted the premises into studios for artists and a gallery space.

You can read the first part of this walk at Dalston Doorcases to Marie Lloyd.

Dalston Doorcases to Marie Lloyd

Dalston Doorcases to Marie Lloyd – On Thursday 27th July 1989 I took the North London Line to Dalston Kingsland and crossed the road into Ridley Market and walked along Colvestone Crescent and on to Montague Rd. I can’t now remember what had brought me to North London for this brief interruption to my series of walks south of the river.

*Doorway, Montague Rd, Dalston, Hackney, 1989 89-7k-61*

Here there are four houses on both sides of the street with similar doorways to the pair in my photograph with these odd decorative figures supporting the lintel. Those further down the street have simpler largely geometrical designs.

I was unsure what to call these muscular male figures, hand on hips staring down at the ground with what appear to be victory wreaths of laurel leaves around their heads and a pair of rather fishy looking tails. A long and detailed study published by the Hackney Society, The Victorian Villas of Hackney by Michael Hunter tells me they are mermen, and provides other examples of ‘bizarre doorcases’ in the Victorian villas of the 1850s and 1860s in Dalston. These date from 1861-6.

*Shopfront, Cecilia Road, Dalston, Hackney, 1989 89-7k-63*

There are several houses close to Dalston Lane at the south end of Cecilia Road that have converted shopfronts with consoles matching that at the top right of this shop and this was one of these.

Although the advertising for the News of the World and Silk Cut suggests this was once a newsagent and tobacconist, it looks as if it was by 1989 a junk shop.

*Eagle Shipping Services, 168, Dalston Lane, Dalston, Hackney, 1989 89-7k-65*

This building on the corner of Stanford Mews is still there and has kept its decorative iron balcony railing though not the Eagle Shipping Services advertising and graphics. Its upper floor is now simply painted white while the ground floor has been converted into a ‘rustic health food cafe & shop‘, Healthy Stuff.

*Jas. Elves, marble mason, Carrara House, 164, Dalston Lane, Dalston, Hackney, 1989 89-7k-66*

James Elves was a marble mason and called his premises at 164 Dalston Lane Carrara House, after the area in Italy famous for its marble. Born in Shoreditch he lived and worked here with his family from around 1900 at least until 1930.

The house is still there and also its porch, but the tiles – presumably marble – of the front path have been replaced with duller slabs.

*Houses, 112-4, Greenwood Rd, Dalston, Hackney, 1989 89-7k-53*

A few yards south of Dalston Lane, these houses in Greenwood Road were looking a little the worse for wear in 1989 but are considerably smarter now. With three stories and a basement these houses are now largely converted into four flats.

*Doorways, 96-98, Graham Rd, Dalston, Hackney, 1989 89-7k-42*

I continued south to Graham Road where I found more of Hackney’s remarkable doorcases. The left hand door is 98B as I think there will he a separate door in the area below to the basement flat.

Michael Hunter has a picture of a similar pair a few doors down where he states that the Roman standards are based on pattern books of classical architecture, “but the extraordinary swags of solidified shells over the doors of… Graham Road defy analysis.“

The unfortunate door at right has since been replaced, but with another design that while preferable is still not in keeping with the building.

*Doorways, 96-98, Graham Rd, Dalston, Hackney, 1989 89-7k-45*

A closer view of one of the swags showing more clearly the shells and at the centre a lion’s head.

*Marie Lloyd, plaque, 55, Graham Rd, Dalston, Hackney, 1989 89-7k-46*

Finally for today, a rather simpler doorway in Graham Road with the GLC plaque recording that Marie Lloyd, Music Hall Artiste lived here. The dates are those of her life, 1870-1922.

Born in Hoxton in 1870 as Matilda Wood, she made her first appearances on stage when she was 14, taking the stage name Marie Lloyd the following year. So many of the old music hall songs we now know were made famous by here, not least for her remarkable use of nuance and double-entendre as well as displaying her undergarments in a way that respectable Victorians found deplorable but music hall audiences loved.

She moved into this house after her marriage in 1887 – but the marriage was not happy for long. After a disastrous bust-up she moved out from Graham Road in 1894.

As she sang ‘A little of what you fancy, does you good‘ but in her life she certainly became ‘one of the Ruins That Cromwell Knocked About a Bit‘ and at her funeral, thousands took the advice of ‘My Old Man‘ and followed the van to her burial from Woodstock Road in Golders Green to Hampstead Cemetery. Train journeys recently have often left me wondering ‘Oh Mr. Porter, what shall I do?