From Camberwell Road I hurried along Bowyer Place and New Church Road to take my next pictures along Southampton Way, going past The Brewers pub (since closed and converted to residential use) and then down Parkhouse Street and on to Wells Way. None of the nine pictures I made on this section of the walk seemed worth putting on-line, perhaps I was hurrying too much.
The view in this photograph has not changed radically, with the row of houses along Wells Way at right still much the same. You can still see the St George’s Tavern some way down Coleman St on the corner of Rainbow St, though it has lost the signage on the wall. It has apparently been there since at least 1851, though it was closed and boarded up, but re-opened in April 2021. But the estate towering above the end of the road is no longer there.
1JKC and St Georges Tavern, Coleman Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-32
I didn’t expect to see a Bentley with a personalised number plate on the street close to the ‘friendly neighbourhood pub’. I wondered who might own it, and there were certainly some very dubious characters in the area at the time. The registration plate 1KJC would have been expensive to buy – and now probably well into five figures if available, a serious vanity symbol.
The pub at that time was still owned by Taylor Walker whose Barley Mow Brewery in Limehouse and 1,360 pubs and off-licences and were bought by Ind Coope in 1959 – and brewing ceased the following year. The name was revived and used by another pub owning company for its London pubs from 2010 but then they were taken over by Greene King in 2015 and again re-branded.
Houses, Newent Close, Peckham Grove, Camberwell, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-35
6-22 Newent Close, Peckham, were Grade II listed in 1972 as in Peckham Grove, Peckham. The nine linked villas date from 1838. This is a remarkable Regency (or rather immediately post-Regency as Victoria came to the throne in 1837) enclave in the area. These houses are on the west side of the street.
Houses, Newent Close, Peckham Grove, Camberwell, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-36
The other end of this short row of houses with the blocks of the North Peckham Estate at the right. These houses were clearly rather run-down when I photographed them.
Houses, Newent Close, Peckham Grove, Camberwell, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-22
The houses on the east side of the street have these weighty porches. At right is a part of the Gloucester Grove Estate, one of the five estates often known collectively as the North Peckham Estate. Although this gained a terrible reputation, many former residents have fond memories of living there and the quality of their accomodation.
Houses, Newent Close, Peckham Grove, Camberwell, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-24
Another view of houses on the east side of Newent Close. The long block at right is I think part of the actual North Peckham Estate, completed around 1972. The five estates were all part of the largest regeneration scheme ever approved in 1994, and were demolished at a cost of £260m over the next ten years or so.
Houses, Newent Close, Peckham Grove, Camberwell, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-26
Another view of this remarkable street with the Gloucester Grove Estate in the background at left. I did take one picture of Nailsworth House on the North Peckham estate but haven’t digitised that.
Eventually I managed to drag myself away and stop taking pictures of the remarkable short section of street at the top of Peckham Grove – now surrounded by rather mediocre looking properties from the regeneration of the North Peckham estates. I walked back towards Wells Way and down to Cottage Green – where the next post on this walk will begin.
Benhill Road runs north from Camberwell Church St opposite St Gile’s Church and includes the site of the former vicarage and St Gile’s Parish Hall. These houses are I think mid-Victorian and I admired the slender decorative pillars at the doorways.
Opposite the Parish Hall just inside the property is a small building with a blue plaque which I photographed but have not put online as the lighting was rather poor. It now has a London Borough of Southwark blue plaque with the totally misleading message ‘The Parish Church of St Giles Porch and Doorway Relocated to its current site in the vicarage garden where it was used as a summer house after the church was accidentally burnt down on 7th February 1841.’
While the church was burnt down in 1841 this was never its porch and doorway, though it was largely built with material from the burnt out church and was probably not used as a summer house – and more recently has been used for rubbish bin storage. An article in the Camberley Quarterly by Donald Mason, Old St Giles: blue plaques and history, reveals its true nature and has some excellent illustrations.
British Lion, pub sign, Elmington Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-12
On the corner of Benhill Road and Elmington Road I photographed a bicycle and the British Lion pub sign. The pub itself at 112 Benhill Road was a rather boring 1960s building rebuilt at around the same time as the flats around it. But there had been a pub on the site since at least 1871, The Prince Of Prussia, a name that probably became rather unpopular in the First World War.
Edmund St, Elmington Estate, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-14
I think the’ London County Council’ built the first flats on the Elmington Estate shortly before WW2, but there were four of these large blocks desgned by the LCC Architects department and built around 1956. The winter sun produced a rather elegant repeated pattern of light and shade on the frontage.
Edmund St, Elmington Estate, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-15
I think this large eleven floor slab block and its neighbours on the Elmington Estate, dating from around 1960 were demolished in 1999-2000. The flats passed to Southwark Council, formed in 1965 who lacked the cash to maintain them properly and they were in poor condition by the time I photographed them, and many flats were squatted in the 1990s.
Edmund St, Elmington Estate, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1f-01
In 1999 Southwark Council decided to demolish the whole of the Elmington Estate and these blocks were a part of the first phase of the redevelopment. Southwark Notes gives a great deal of detail about how this progressed.
In the first phase, most of those who lived in the flats were rehoused in council housing built on the site, but not all were too happy with their new homes. The article quotes one: ‘You will never know what privacy is like again. You will hear your neighbours and everything they do. And they will hear you. Your rooms will be smaller. You’ll be paying more for it. One day you’ll wake up and realise that you’d give anything to be back in your old home’.
The council for Phase 2 adopted “a whole new regeneration model premised on partnership with either corporate developers” or housing associations. Their partner here was the large and aggressive Housing Association Notting Hill Housing Trust who would offer zero social rented homes in the scheme (social rent being the equivalent rent of a council home). Some flats were available at so-called “affordable” rents, roughly twice those of council properties in the area, and unaffordable for most previous tenants. It was a process of ‘social cleansing’, forcing most of the poorer residents out of the area.
I walked throught the Elmington Estate and on through Burgess Park to Camberwell Road, turning south where a few doors down on the east side I photographed the railings and doorways of 119 and 121. Numbers 117-129 and attached railings are Grade II listed.
From 1863 to 1887 photographer and portrait painter Henry Death (1820-1900), born in Moulton, Cambridgeshire, had his studio at 119 Camberwell Road, having moved there from nearby Addington Place where he set up a studio in 1856. He sold the house when he had to give up his business through ill health in 1887 and died in Camberwell thirteen years later. In !989 it was the offices of Bradleys Solicitors.
No 121 was the premises of the charity IAS, Independent Adoption Service, first registered in 1982 and voluntarily removed in 2009. I think both properties are now private residences.
No 147 Camberwell Road is a part of a terrace of around ten houses directly south of Cambridge House on the corner of Addington Square. These house look in rather better condition now and the tree here was removed a couple of years ago. Most of these houses are now divided into flats.
St Giles Camberwell, Camberwell Church St, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-42
I didn’t spend a lot of time photographing old churches, not least because most had already been photographed ad nauseam as I found when opening boxes of photographs in the library of the National Building Record. Vicars back in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century had plenty of time on their hands and many became keen amateur photographers, and seem to have spent much of their energy in photographing their churches.
But I made a slight exception for St Giles, largely because it appeared in some rather odd views such as this. Although there had been a church here in the middle of fields in Anglo-Saxon times, its wooden structure later replaced by stone, it burnt down in 1841. The replacement was the first major Gothic building by George Gilbert Scott, who later went on to build the monstrosity of the Albert Memorial. The top part of the spire had to be rebuilt in 2000.
The picture was taken on the usually busy street here and I rather liked the billboard – perhaps an advert for a lager – showing another busy street with a lorry apparently stuck in traffic.
Another image with a little flare from working into the sun, either just out of frame or hidden behind the tree trunks at the right of picture.
Thos Bourne, gravestone, St Giles Churchyard, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-32
Parts of the inscripton were difficult to read:
‘Ah Cruel Death could nothing move Thy Pity Awe thy Power To Spare the Object of my Love of all my Hopes the Flower Thos Bourne Defuncti Pater Poni Fecit Thos Bourne (1656- 1729)
The inscription was at some point re-inscribed as the two lines most visible the above picture, having previously been as four, a few words of which can still be made out. The tomb has been restored since I photographed this stone.
St Giles Churchyard, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-34
Long shadows from the trees from the low winter sun, and some remarkably wiggly branches on the central tree in the picture. Without any leaves the picture illustrates why I generally prefer trees in winter but meant I was unable to decide on the species.
The building along Wilson Road in the background was built for Wilson’s School in 1882, architect E R Robson. This is an ancient grammar school founded on another site in Camberwell by Edward Wilson, Vicar of Camberwell, in 1615. They left the building in 1975 and moved to Wallington in Sutton to escape becoming a comprehensive school under the Inner London Education Authority and continue there as a boys’ grammar school. The buildings are now a part of the University of the Arts London.
St Giles Churchyard, Churchyard Path, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-36
Another view of the churchyard and Churchyard Path between the railings at the right, looking directly towards the sun. My position in the shadow of some of the bare trunks enabled me to greatly reduce the amount of light flare in the picture. The grass was I think covered with drops of water from frost which had recently melted, giving it a slightly unnatural pale tone.
Camberwell College of Arts, Wilson Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-23
After taking a couple more frames of the remarkable tree shown above I walked on to Wilson Road to photograph the Grade II listed Wilson School building and the west-facing terrace along the street beyond. Above the school doorway is the Wilson coat of arms, which includes a wolf salient – leaping up – and above it a Fleur de Lys and two gold coins.
Camberwell College of Arts, whose main buildings are on Peckham Road later became a part of the University of the Arts London.
On Saturday 3rd Novemeber I got to London earlier than anticipate and had time for a little walk before photographing the first protest I had come to cover, over the cuts to public libraries. Later I went to photograph another protest about the plans to demolish many London council estates under so-called ‘regeneration’ plans which involve demolition and rebuilding by developers with little social housing.
Euston to Kings Cross Coal Drops – Sat 3 Nov 2018
Problems on my railway journeys into London are rather common, often involving considerable delays. Last weekend a replacement bus for part of the way meant that my usually slow journey scheduled to take 35 minutes to travel 20 miles instead took an hour and a half. But on Saturday 23rd November 2018, there was something of a miracle. When I arrived at the station a train which should have arrived half an hour earlier was just pulling in and an announcement told me it would be running non-stop to Waterloo.
Where possible I like to arrive at events perhaps 10 or 15 minutes before the advertised start time make sure I don’t miss anything. Travelling across London is often a little unpredictable, with odd holdups so I usually allow plenty of time. I’d arrived at my station a few minutes early, and with the non-stop service got me to Waterloo around 25 minutes before I expected. The normal timetable schedule gives a 5 or 10 minutes slack to make it less likely that train operating company has to pay fines for late running, and without stops the journey is significantly faster. Together with an Underground train that came as I walked onto the platform I arrived at Euston with around three quarters of an hour to spare.
This gave me time for a walk to the newly opened retail development in the former King’s Cross coal drops. I’d photographed the disused coal drops many years earlier, taking pictures of the demolished bridges across the Regents Canal and the still standing drops on the north side where coal brought from the North in railway goods waggons was transferred into carts for delivery across London. At first the waggons were lifted and tipped, later waggons had opening doors in their bottoms to dischage directly in the waiting carts and lorries.
My walk also took me through Somers Town, which has some of inner London’s more interesting social housing and past the new Francis Crick Institute before reaching the canal and a new walkway to Coal Drops Yard and Granary Square, and gave some views of the gasholders relocated across the canal from Kings Cross, some of which are now filled with flats. I made my way back with just enough time to visit the toilets in St Pancras Station before going to the meeting point for the Library protest at the rear of the British Library in Midland Road.
Save Our Libraries march – British Library, Sat 3 Nov 2018
The march and rally against cuts in library services, which are a vital part of our cultural services, especially for working class schoolchildren and young people was organised by Unison and supported by PCS and Unite, but they seem to have done very little publicity and the numbers were far fewer than expected.
Unfortunately the march clashed with another event I wanted to cover and I had to leave a few minutes before it was due to start. Perhaps more joined the protest for the rally at the end of the march outside Parliament.
No Demolitions Without Permission – City Hall, London. Sat 3 Nov 2018
‘Axe the Housing Act’ had called a protest to demand an end to the demolition of council estates unless these were approved by a ballot of all residents, and for public land to be used to build more council homes rather than being turned over to developers to make huge profits from high-priced flats.
Most of those who came were from London council estates under threat of demolition by Labour London councils and speaker after speaker from estate after estate got up and spoke about the lies, evasions and often illegal activities of London Labour councils bent on demolishing their council estates.
Green Party co-leader and London Assembly’s Housing Committee chair Sian Berry
Instead of looking after their working class populations Labour councils are time and time again forcing through demolition of council estates, enabling developers to make huge profits by building flats for sale largely at market rent, with a small proportion of high rent ‘affordable’ homes and a miserably small number of homes at social rent, promoting schemes which cut by thousands the number of council homes.
Tanya Murat, Chair of Southwark Defend Council Housing
Although a new policy was about to come in to insist their should be residents ballots, London Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan had responded to this by fast-tracking 34 demolition schemes by Labour councils before it was implemented. He allowed some schemes to go forward without a ballot, and had failed to insist that all residents were allowed to take part in such ballots.
Former Lambeth Council leader and veteran Labour politician Ted Knight
Among the groups taking part in the rally were Class War and the Revolutionary Communist Group, both very much involved in campaigns across the capital on housing, and among the most effective at raising the issues involved in London’s housing. For some reason the rally organisers would not allow representatives of either of these to speak at the event, which led to a loud confrontation when Labour supporter Ted Knight came to speak. More below on this.
At the end of the rally people marched around City Hall with their banners.
Class War protest Labour Housing record – City Hall, Sat 3 Nov 2018
Whitechapel anarchist Martin Wright
Although Class War supporters were one of the larger groups taking part in the ‘No Demolitions Without Permission’ rally at City Hall they and others were denied any opportunity to speak as a part of the official rally.
Class War have been the most active group in supporting and raising the profile of campaigns in London against estate demolition mainly by London Labour councils who are responsible for the great bulk of estate sell-offs and demolition involving over 160 council estates – social cleansing on a massive scale. Among those protesting at the rally with Class War was Leigh Miller, recently illegally evicted from Gallions Point Marina under orders from the Labour Mayor of London.
Leigh Miller, recently illegally evicted from Gallions Point Marina and Lisa McKenzie hold the banner high
It was no surprise that when a prominent Labour politician got up to speak, Class War erupted, shouting him down to make clear that it was Labour who was responsible for estate demolitions. It was perhaps unfair on Ted Knight, a former Lambeth Labour leader who together with other councillors defied Thatcher and was surcharged and banned from holding public office for 5 years.
Ted Knight (right) and Martin Wright (left) shout at each other
Knight has supported Central Hill Estate residents in their fight against Lambeth Council’s plans for demolition, singing from much the same hymn sheet as Class War on housing issues. As Lambeth council’s leader he was clear that “Nothing is too good for the working classes” and estates such as Central Hill reflect this. And there was a little of old scores in the verbal attack on him by Whitechapel anarchist Martin Wright.
Finally at the end of the rally, Leigh Miller did get a chance to speak.
As a number of those estate residents allowed to speak at the rally pointed out, homes will only be saved if people become more militant and engage in the kind of direct actions which Class War advocates – and not by rallies like today’s outside a closed City Hall.
Class War stood to one side at the end of the rally when most of the rest taking part marched around the empty offices, they were calling for a rather different revolution.
I walked back down from Addington Square towards Camberwell GGreen stopping to photograph this view of the back of the Camberwell Green Magistrate’s Court, hiding the sun behing a large tree on the corner of the path and the road, though some of its bright winter light has caused some flare which I find rahter atmospherice.
Camberwell Green Magistrate’s Court, D’Eynsford Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-62
Moving forwards and into some shade enabled me to eliminate any flare but still to take advantage of the light and shade to clearly show the three-dimensional nature of the building. Little has yet changed, though there may well be some differences as the building is redeveloped.
Camberwell Public Wash-Houses, Harvey Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-63
Camberwell Public Wash-Houses in Harvey Rd are at the back of the Camberwell Public Baths, an early public baths, designed by Henry Spalding and Alfred WS Cross and completed in 1891. Although much around them has changed they remain much the same and are now in use as part of Arco Academy, a sports specialist alternative provision school.
Camberwell Public Baths, Artichoke Place, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-64
I walked around the block down Kimpton Rd into Camberwell Church St and then went up the delightfully named Artichoke Place to photograph the front of the Camberwell Public Baths, designed by Henry Spalding and Alfred WS Cross in a Flemish Renaissance style and completed in 1891. Now called Camberwell Leisure Centre the Grade II listed baths were saved from closure by a local campaign, refurbished and reopened in 2011.
Camberwell Green Magistrate’s Court, D’Eynsford Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-65
The lighting with low winter sun was very different to when I had photographed the Magistrates Court earlier in the day, so I decided to go back and take another picture from D’Eynsford Rd.
7-11, Camberwell Grove, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-52
I walked back to Camberwell Church St and along it to Camberwell Grove where these well-proportioned nineteenth century houses were also in a good light. Something that particularly caught my eye was a blind window. It was not just the bricked up window often found in properties built before window tax was abolished, but had rudimentary columns and a keystone of a doorway. The recessed doors and window of the property to the right were also of interest. The street was originally called Walnut Tree Grove but the name was soon changed.
Chamberlain Cottages, Camberwell Grove, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1e-55
Chamberlain Cottages off the east side of Camberwell Grove between Nos 15 and 17 is described by estate agents as peaceful gated mews and a beautifully kept enclave of enchanting period cottages.
Joseph Chamberlain (1796–1874) was a successful manufacturer who lived 188 Camberwell Grove. His son, also Joseph, was born there and at 18 moved to Birmingham to work at the screw factory owned by his father and uncle John Nettlefold, helping the business to become England’s most successful screw makers, producing two-thirds of those made in this country. Later he became one of the country’s best known politicians and a radical social reformer.
St Giles Camberwell is a little further to the east and can just be glimpsed over one of the cottages where the alley turns to the right. Another picture of it in the next post.
My posts on this walk on 27th January 1989 began at http://re-photo.co.uk/?p=14008 St George’s, Camberwell, Absolutely Board & Alberto. This walk will continue in a later post.
Camberwell Green Magistrate’s Court, D’Eynsford Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1d-34
Walking across Camberwell Green I came to the Magistrates Court, built from 1965 and opened in 1971. It was closed in 2019 and has been sold to Criterion Capital for £13.5m – they plan to turn it into around 160 1,2 and 3 bedroom flats “Ideal for young professionals who want to live as well as work in Central London” with leisure and coworking space on the ground floor. So far it still looks fairly similar from the outside although the ground floor has been boarded up and the boards covered with graffiti.
But in front of it on what was previously a community orchard on council land, a new Camberwell Library was opened in November 2015. There had been considerable local opposition to the destruction of the orchard in 2013, but Camberwell had not had a permanent library since a V1 flying bomdb destroyed the Victorian Camberwell Central Library on Peckham Road in 1944.
Camberwell Green Magistrate’s Court, D’Eynsford Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1d-35
In front of the Magistrate’s Court is this large ventilation tower, presumably for the two floors of underground parking below, though there may well be other underground facilities.
Camberwell Business Centre, Lomond Grove, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1d-36
This Grade II listed early 19th century industrial building was, according to English Heritage a former Perfume Factory, though other sources suggest it was a former bakery. Quite likely both are correct. Jusst a few yards north from the Magistrates Court and is now a business centre with offices and light industry.
Beyond it is the also Grade II listed Bryanston House, an early 19th century large residence in the area, also now I think offices. Together the two buildings are Camberwell Business Centre.
Flats, Drayton House, Lomond Grove, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1d-21
Drayton House, a maisonette block at 30-72 Lomond Grove was the last part of the Elmington Estate when it was built around 1960 and was around the last to be demolished in 2016-7, replaced by ‘Elmington Green’ development of largely market price flats in 2018.
The redevelopment of the estate began in 2002, and under this first phase almost 90% of those displaced from the estate were rehoused in the new flats, though many complained that the new buildings had smaller rooms and thinner walls that gave them little privacy. But in the next phase, “redevelopment became’regeneration'” and Southwark Council began a policy of social cleansing, with only a relatively small proportion of social housing in the new buildings. Things became even worse later, as Southwark Notes detail on their web site.
Faces, ferns, foliage on the capitals and worms – vermiculation – on the keyston of these doorways in Kitson Road, an attractive street parts of which face the south-west tip of Burgess Park, was described by Booth’s associates ten years after his orginal 1889 survey of London poverty in 1899 as “good working class”. These houses possibly date from around the 1880s.
I wrote more about Addington Square in a post about my previous walk. Almost all the houses in this square developed between 1810 and 1850 are Grade II listed. These houses are at the north-west of the square and the road going off between the houses here is also called Addington Square.
This view across the grassed area in the centre of the square shows the same houses in the distance with a few more at the right of picture. The fine trees are still growing.
This post completes my walk on 8th January 1989 which began in at he Elephant and took me through Walworth to end in neighbouring Camberwell – the first post on this walk was Elephant, Faraday, Spurgeon & Walworth Road.
It was almost two weeks before I was able to come out and take pictures again and my next walk began at Camberwell on Friday 27th January 1989. I’d been teaching all morning but had managed to arrange my college timetable so I was free from around noon and could rush out to catch a train into London. In return for this I was teaching an evening class on Tuesdays.
St George’s Church, Wells Way, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1d-56
One of the ‘Waterloo’ churches, built 1824, architect Francis Octavius Bedford with seating for 1,734, enlarged in 1893 with an apse by Basil Champneys. Bedford, a distinguished church architect was the father of the notable photographer Francis Bedford (the two are sometimes confused.) It was Grade II listed in 1954 but in1972 was declared redundant, closed for worship and was deconsecrated.
A new St George’s Church was built as a part of the Trinity College Centre, a community centre in nearby Coleman Road which was dedicated in 1982. The old church was sold in very poor condition to the Celestial Church of Christ in 1977 and was broken into and vandalised on several occasions, before large parts were destroyed by fire in 1980 leaving an empty shell behind its fine portico. In 1993-4 the church was restored by St George’s Housing Co-operative as 30 one-bed flats.
This war memorial statue by Danish artist Rosenkrantz was stolen in August 1991, but after a newspaper appeal by a local curate was discovered in a Brixton scrapyard two weeks later and returned to the site.
This block at 305-315 Camberwell Rd on the corner of Bullace Row looks very similar now except in better condition, though possibly significantly different behind the facade. Even some of the old shop fronts have survived though not with the same businesses. Bullace Row was at some time before 1912 known as Little Orchard Row, and almost certainly the name comes from the Bullace plum, similar to a damson. The shops with flats above are I think late-Victorian.
My walk on 8th January ended here on Camberwell Road from where I caught a bus to Waterloo.
Camberwell Green, Camberwell Church St, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1d-44
I jumped on my bike shortly after my morning’s teaching ended on Friday 27th January, pedalled the two miles home as fast as I could, dropped my bike, grabbed my camera bag and rushed to the station for a train to Vauxhall, where thanks to a 36 bus was in Camberwell by around 1.30pm. Days in January are short but I still had a couple of hours to take pictures before the light went. I got down to business straight away with this picture taken more or less from the bus stop, look east along Church Street.
Gate, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1d-45
I walked west, cross the junction with Camberwell Road and into Camberwell New Road along which my bus had come. This gate, with its wrought iron work matching the spirals at the top of both gate posts is still there immediately to the west of The Old Dispensary, the pub almost at the end of this road at Camberwell Green. The rather attractive building with the curved side is still present, as well as the pair of gate posts, only one of which is in my picture.
The timber merchant with the signs that caught my attention, particularly the bored looking man sitting on a branch next to a bird’s nest and projecting out from the building has gone long ago.
This business at 348A Camberwell New Road (street numbers here seem a little random) was replaced by a modern infill which for some years was the home of Southwark Reach. The property immediately to its west, a Tripe Dresser has the number 344 on the shopfront and has since had various identities including a property business and Merric Barbers, but now appears to be selling bikes ans scooters.
I decided to leave Camberwell New Road for later and returned to the crossroads, going north up Camberwell Road, (here called Camberwell Green), where Alberto is still offering Gents and Ladies Hairdressing just few yards up the road at 14 Camberwell Green. The hairdressers is now only in the right hand part of the shop, with a money transfer business in the left part. There is still a single-storey small café next door, though now under a different name. At the left you can see the rather odd lighthouse of the The Old Dispensary public house. The sign on the front of the building above the hairdresser’s shop has gone and that on its side is now illegible.
From John Ruskin Street I walked back to Camberwell Road and turned south to walk the short distance to the next turning on the west side, Grosvenor Terrace
Clubland, designed by Sir Edward Maufe was opened in 1939 as “the most celebrated and controversial venture in church youth work of the 20th Century“, launched by the Reverend James Butterworth (1897-1977) as ‘a house for friendship for boys and girls outside any church’. The old Wesleyan Methodist Church on the site whose small congregation mainly drove in from the suburbs was pulled down and replaced by this ‘Temple of Youth’. After bombing in the war, the building was rebuilt and reopened by the Queen Mother in 1964. It now has the message ‘METHODIST CHURCH’ above the door as well as the CLUBLAND’ sign.
Although the Clubland entrance remains the same, there is now a new Methodist Church here and this part of with its mission statement ‘CLUBLAND – LOYALTY & SERVICE’ as well as the dove dive-bombing the illuminated METHODIST CHURCH sign have gone. The boards showing the activities offered by the church include the Freddie Mills Club and Wesley Guild as well as services and youth club meetings. Both the sign in Japanese and the Bethel Apostolic Church and Calvary Healing Temple reflect the multicultural nature of the area.
Camberwell Rd, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-15
These well-proportioned large Georgian terrace houses are still there on Camberwell Rd, most now divided into a large number of flats. The terrace of 15 houses is on the west side of the road south of Urlwin St opposite the end of Burgess Park. Most are now residential and one has been restored with the ground and basement floors and “a new rear extension to become an enterprise workspace for architecture and planning”.
Range Electrical Supplies, Camberwell Rd, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-16
This large property at 86 Camberwell Road is now at least 19 flats. According to the Survey of London, “No. 86 Camberwell Road and the buildings forming the entrance to the yard next to it were erected in 1814–15 (as No. 16 Grosvenor Place) for Messrs. Garland and Fieldwick, masons and builders. The firm continued to occupy the premises until 1869.” A plate shows a 1951 photograph when the buildings were occupied by a number of businesses, including one with ‘Branches Over South London ‘ selling ‘Gold Medal Poultry, Dog, Pigeon & Bird Food’ with the decorated building selling what appears to be ‘Feather Flake Flour’.
Range Electrical Supplies, Camberwell Rd, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1d-66
Although these finely decorated buildings are still there on the Camberwell Rd they have been smartened up and altered. The carriage entrance in the central section has disappeared and the smaller window above it replaced and this section of the building made symmetrical. There are also now two windows in the right hand section making this also symmetrical; both windows are new, but a reasonable match with the previous window. A discretely set back floor has been added on the right two-thirds of the building. There is no longer the large sign on the left wall of the front yard of the property which rather attracted me – and the wall has been replaced by a fence. It’s a decent conversion but I preferred the rather more quirky version in my pictures.
Since 2014 the ground floor of 3 Addington Square has been Fowlds Cafe, on the corner of Addington Square and Kitson Road but the upholstery business, a family business since 1926, apparently continues upstairs.
The rather curiously shaped Addington Square was developed between 1810 and 1850, and I think this at 13-16 was probably one of the fairly early groups of houses. The railings in front were only added around 1960 but are also included in the Grade II listing. Possibly they were a replacement for some removed for wartime metal appeal. I think all the houses in the central part of the square are listed.
At the north side of the square was the Camberwell Basin of the Royal Surrey Canal, completed in 1810, and the first houses to be built in the square, now 47 and 48, were for its engineer Nathaniel Simmonds. In 1820 one of south London’s first swimming baths opened beside the canal and a second came later. There were ambitious plans for the canal to continue, at first to Mitcham and further afield, but it never crossed the Camberwell Road. There were wharves for stone on the canal bank, with a small dock.
At the right of the picture where the baths and canal once were is now park. The baths had become very much out of date towards the end of the nineteenth century and had been converted into a laundry, but were demolished by Camberwell Council in 1901 for the site to become a refuse depot. In 1938 this became one of many parks created across the country as a memorial to King George V, and in the 1970s became a part of the Burgess Park. The square was in such a dilapidated state in 1970 that it needed a public campaign to stop the GLC demolishing it to become part of the new park that now surrounds it.
Thursday 6th October 2016 was another of those varied days I love. I began with a lunchtime protest against victimisation and nepotism by cleaners, then went for a walk by Bow Creek before finally photographing a protest outside RIBA where the annual Stirling Prize presentation was taking place.
Cleaners demand ‘End Nepotism’ – 155 Moorgate
The Independent Workers Union CAIWU occupied the lobby of Mace’s headquarters building in Moorgate at lunchtime protesting noisily against cleaning contractor Dall Cleaning Services. I met the cleaners and supporters outside Moorgate station where they got out posters and a banner before marching quietly to pay an unannounced visit to Mace’s headquarters building where they walked into the lobby and started making a lot of noise.
They called for the reinstatement of two cleaners who they say were dismissed illegally without proper notice or other procedures being followed. They say that the cleaners have been dismissed simply to give jobs to members of the family of a Dall Cleaning Services supervisor.
After around 15 minutes a police officer arrived, but it was too noisy to hear what he was saying and the protest continued. He stood a little to the side and called for reinforcements, and as these arrived the protesters walked out to join those who had stayed outside and the protest continued on the pavement for another 20 minutes.
Police came to tell the protesters they were making a lot of noise, and were told that was the idea – they came here to do so and shame Mace and Dall Cleaning Services.
Eventually another officer who had been present at several previous CAIWU protests arrived and was told they would soon be stopping.
And after a couple more minutes, Alberto ended the protest with the usual warning “We’ll be back – and that’s a fact”.
I had the afternoon to fill before the next protest and it was a fine day so I decided it was time to take another trip to Bow Creek. I took the DLR from Bank to West India Dock to start my walk, and took the opportunity and a fairly clean train window to take a few pictures on my way there.
City Island is not quite an island
I walked over the Lower Lea Crossing, which provided a view of work which was now rapidly going ahead on ‘City Island’, where a loop in Bow Creek goes around what was previously the site of Pura Foods. This development had stalled with the financial crash in 2008 but was now in full swing.
From there I walked on along the elevated Silvertown Way, giving views of the surrounding area, before taking the DLR back to Canning Town, again taking advantage of a fairly clean train window on the ride.
Rather to my surprise, at Canning Town I found that the exist to the riverside walk was finally open. I think the walk here beside Bow Creek was constructed in the 1990s and I’d been waiting for around 20 years for this exit from the station to open and give access to it. I didn’t have as much time left as I would have liked but did make a few pictures.
For years there have been plans to create a walk from the path beside the Lea Navigation at Bromley-by-Bow to the Thames at Trinity Buoy Wharf, and the section as far as Cody Dock had opened a few years earlier – with the ridiculous name of ‘The Fatwalk’. It hasn’t really got any further yet, though at least it has been renamed as the ‘Leaway’.
Many of the protesters wore masks showing RIBA President Elect Ben Derbyshire
Architects for Social Housing (ASH) led a protest outside the Stirling Prize awards ceremony pointing out that one of the short-listed projects, Trafalgar Place, was built on the demolished Heygate Estate, which was ‘stolen from the people’ with hundreds of social housing tenants and leaseholders being evicted and the site sold at one tenth of its value to the developers.
‘Architecture is Always Political!’, a quote from Richard Rogers
Together with other housing protesters than held their own awards ceremony on the pavement in front of the RIBA building, awarding the ‘O J Simpson Award for getting away with murder’ to drMM Architects for this project, the first phase of Lendlease’s £1.5 billion Elephant & Castle redevelopment. This will replace 1214 social housing homes with few or no affordable homes.
There were no other contestants for the Ben Derbyshire Foot In Mouth Award than RIBA President Elect Ben Derbyshire but there was a vote to select which of five of his totally ridiculous statements by him about social housing should be the winner.
Among those at the protest were residents opposing the demolition of the Aylesbury estate, close to the Heygate, where Southwark Council are also demolishing social housing properties rather than carry out relatively low cost Aylesbury estate,that was voted for by the residents and could continue the useful life of these properties for many years.
Simon Elmer of ASH holds up the award for the ‘O J Simpson Award for getting away with murder’ awarded to drMM Architects and developers Lend Lease for Trafalgar Place
Estate demolition has a huge social and environmental cost and schemes like these in the borough of Southwark result in huge losses of social housing. But they provide expensive properties often sold largely to investors who will never live in them and large profits to the developers. Councils hope to share in these profits, but on the Heygate made huge losses, though some individuals involved have gained highly lucrative jobs.
The domestic scale of the long terrace built around 1900 contrasts with the huge slab block of Wendover on the Aylesbury Esate, built between 1963 and 1977 to provided good quality social housing. Poor maintenance by the council allowed the estate to deteriorate and it became demonised as a problem estate.
Although a majority of residents wanted to remain and voted for refurbishment, Southwark Council decided to demolish the estate. They were met with considerable local resistance with some blocks being occupied by activists. Although parts of the estate have been demolished the fight to retain the rest continues.
The council’s policy seems driven by the hope of large profits for themselves as well as the developers from replacing much of the estate by properties which can be sold at market prices. Similar hopes led to the demolition of the Heygate estate but this resulted in a massive loss for the council, details of which were accidentally disclosed, although some of those from the council involved in the scheme moved to highly lucrative jobs as a result of it.
Heygate’s demolition also resulted in a huge loss of social housing in the area, and the displacement of former residents to outlying areas of London and beyond. Many of the relatively low quality high price flats on the site were sold overseas as investment properties, their value increasing as London house prices soar.
Wooler Street was on the edge of the Octavia Hill planned estate and contains a number of terraced maisonettes and houses of a more conventional late Victorian/Edwardian design. The Octavia Hill (Liverpool Grove) Conservation Area appraisal suggests they “are most likely part of the same development“. Possibly they come from a development by the Church Commissioners before Hill became involved.
Merrow Street is one of the older streets in the area and this picture shows its junction with Walworth Road. The buildings here are still much the same but their uses have changed. Panache Exclusive Footwear is now a pawnbrokers and The Rock pub which was at 374 Walworth Rd since at least the 1860s became an Irish pub, Liam Og’s around 2005. Liam Og’s apparently featured male strippers at Sunday Lunchtimes, though this perhaps put customers off and in 2009 it became Banana’s Bar which closed a few years later.
There were plans to demolish this building approved in 2018 but then further plans to reopen it as a Beer and Burger Bar with Dance Hall’ in 2020 which failed. In 2021 it became Homeland Furniture.
Fielding St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-36
Fielding Street is on the west side of Walworth Road and according to the Walworth Road Historic Area Assessment was laid out (then as Olney St) “after the sale of Montpelier Tea Gardens and Walworth Gardens, post 1844“. These terraced houses with basements have rather impressive doorways are shown on the earliest large-scale maps of the area I can find surveyed around 1870. The skip shows that extensive work was being undertaken on at least one of them.
There is still a café here, though it had become the Continental Cafe rather than remaining Irish until 2012. It then became the ‘University of Suya’ which I think was a Nigerian restaurant, and later the frontage added the words ‘African Bar & Grill’ to make its offerings clearer.
The doorway at left was the entrance to flats above the shops at 403 Walworth Road.
Horsley Street is a short street running from Arnside Street south to Westmoreland Road.
Harkers Studios was purpose built for Joseph Harker’s theatrical scenery painting business in 1904 and was grade II listed in 1989. The large doors at left have the number 43 and ‘MOSS EMPIRES LTD’, the owners of many UK theatres named on them.
More recently the works became ‘The Furniture Union’ or TFU, an upmarket supplier of furniture, bathroom ware, kitchens, lighting, furnishings and accessories. It has recently been converted into “stunning apartments, which manage to preserve the special architectural and historic interest of the building.“
Flats, Arnside St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989
Wellington House is part of a small estate with four blocks including the rather similar Arnside House now managed by the Keniston Housing Association, “providing low cost rented accommodation to people who find it difficult to compete in the private rented sector. We charge rents at below market rates. Most people who live in our properties have been referred to us through choice based lettings schemes run by local councils.”
Venus Fish Bar, John Ruskin St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-25
Until 1937 this street was called Beresford Street and like many other streets was renamed when the LCC finally decided to rid London of duplicated street names. They had begun the job when they were formed in 1889, but only really got down to it seriously in the mid 1930s. The name John Ruskin Street was chosen to remember the prominent Victorian writer, philosopher and art critic who died in 1900.
Ruskin grew up in nearby Herne Hill and was mainly educated at home (as were many children of wealthy families.) But at the age of 15 he spent a year attending the school in Camberwell run by Thomas Dale, who earlier had been the first professor of English at any English university. But Dale left London University after only a couple of years, finding it too “godless” and set up his own school.
Probably what most people now remember about Ruskin was his failure to consummate his marriage with Effie Gray, allegedly because of his discovery on his wedding night that unlike the classical statues with which he was familiar, real women had pubic hair. Their marriage was eventually annulled 6 years later. Perhaps the name of the Venus Fish Bar had some connection with this story.
BRAC is something of a mystery, but I think it may simply be from bric-à-brac as I think this was a business selling secondhand furniture and small objects such as we might now find at car boot sales. But there could be a quite different explanation, and suggestions for what BRAC here could stand for as an acronym are welcome. The BRAC building has been demolished and replaced by a block of flats but the building on the left remains, now residential.
West End Hair Styling, John Ruskin St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-26
West End Hair Styling at 13 John Ruskin St where pensioners could get a trim for £1.50 is now I think a travel agent, having been for some years a bar and restaurant.
