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Reparations, North Woolwich & LouLou’s

Reparations, North Woolwich & LouLou’s: Thursday 1st August 2019 was a long and busy day for me with an Afrikan Emancipation Day protest, finishing a walk in North Woolwich I’d begun six months earlier and photographing an evening protest outside the exclusive Mayfair club LouLou’s.

Afrikans demand reparations – Brixton, London.

Afrikans demand Reparations, North Woolwich & LouLou's

People of African origin met in Windrush Square in the morning to demand an end of the Maangamizi, the continuing genocide and ecocide of African peoples and Africa on Afrikan Emancipation Day.

After speeches & libations they marched from Brixton to Westminster with a petition calling for an end to acts of violence by Britain, the misuse of taxes and the stolen legacy plundered from Afrika under the British Empire and European Imperialism and demanding reparations.

The protest was supported by Extinction Rebellion XR Connecting Communities who marched in an Ubuntu Non-Afrikan Allies bloc.

I left the march as it went past Brixton Police Station on its way to protest outside the Houses of Parliament so I could have some lunch before going to take pictures elsewhere.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Afrikans demand reparations.

DLR – Bank to North Woolwich

I’d taken the tube back into central London to have a quick lunch before taking the DLR from Bank to London City to King George V Dock station for the final section of the walk I had begun in February but had run out of time to finish because I’d had to take a roundabout route to get there as the direct DLR services were suspended following an accident.

This time the trains were running properly. They start from Bank and so come into the station empty and I was able to chose my seat and for once I found myself sitting next to a clean window on my way to North Woolwich and took a number of pictures.

Later on my way back to Canary Wharf from King George V I was less lucky and the windows were rather grimy, but I still made a few images.

More at DLR – Bank to London City Airport.

North Woolwich, Royal Docks & the Thames

*The footpath goes across these gates of the entrance lock to Albert Dock Basin*

I took a few pictures as I walked from the elevated King George V station at North Woolwich to the King George V Dock entrance and joined the path by the river.

The lock here is huge, 243.8m long and 30.48m wide. I’d first photographed the area back in the 1980s as a part of a wider project on the Docklands following their closure, both in colour but mainly in black and white – in the album 1984 London Photographs. Although the docks themselves remain, much around them has changed, although there are still some derelict areas.

The riverside path here is part of the Capital Ring, and continues north and over lock at the Albert Dock entrance to the curiously desolate Armada Green Recreation Area.

Here the path ends, with beyond it the former site of the Beckton Gas Works, used as a location for at least 17 films and TV series since its closure, though best known as a stand-in for Vietnam in the 1987 Full Metal Jacket. Past that is the Beckton Sewage Treatment Works, set up in 1864 as part of Joseph Bazalgette’s scheme to treat London’s sewage and still receiving it from all of London north of the Thames.

I had to turn inland, through more recent development and the refurbished Gallions Hotel around Alber Dock Basin. I went briefly under the new bridge to see again the East London University student residences, then went back and across it, taking more pictures from the bridge and the road on my way back to King George V station.

Many more pictures at North Woolwich Royal Docks & Thames.

LouLou’s stop exploiting your workers – Mayfair

Finally I joined the IWGB Cleaners and Facilities Branch outside the exclusive Mayfair private club LouLou’s where they were picketing and protesting for kitchen porters to be paid a living wage, be treated with dignity, respect and given decent terms and conditions including proper sick pay, holidays and pension contributions. Recently outsourced to ACT, porters want to be returned to direct employment.

Among those supporting them were Class War, and in the picture above Ian Bone confronts a police office asking why they protect and support the rich. Needless to say the officer had no answer to the question. In general the protesters were reasonably behaved and acting within the law, but police and security hired by the club worked together to try and prevent their protest being effective.

There were angry scenes as staff escorted wealthy clients of the £1800 a year club past the picket, particularly when some roughly pushed the protesters. Police repeatedly warned the protesters but not the security men or customers who had assaulted them. The security also tried to prevent the picket from handing their flier to the customers.

As at previous protests outside of the club, none of the security staff were wearing the visible SIA door supervisor licences required under the Private Security Industry Act 2001, but the police refused to take any action over this.

More pictures at LouLou’s stop exploiting your workers.

Citroen & More Clapham

Citroen & More Clapham continues my walk on Sunday 28th May 1989. The previous post was North St, Rectory Gardens & Rectory Grove and the walk began with Lavender Hill & Wandsworth Rd – 1989.

*Car, Rectory Grove, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-52*

Although cars in my pictures now often attract attention when I post the on Flickr, I seldom deliberately photographed them, but this is one exception. I think even I might have identified this as a Citroen, but it was only after I posted it that one of my regular commenters identified it as dating from 1938. So it was 51 years old when I took its picture, and apparently is still around and still taxed for road use.

The house it is parked in front of is 12 Rectory Grove, at the end of a short Grade II listed terrace at 12-18, which dates it only as “Early-mid C19”.

*Rectory Grove, Rectory Gardens, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-56*

I walked back south down Rectory Grove, again passing the entrance to Rectory Gardens which I wrote about in my previous post on this walk. As you can see there are shops on Rectory Grove, one still open in 1989 and I think selling pottery. These buildings were rather grander than those in Rectory Gardens, with three storeys. Between the two shops was I think the entrance to flats above. There was another shop beyond this corner building and may once have been a couple more, although these were I think residential in 1989.

*Shops, Rose & Crown, Old Town, The Polygon, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-46*

Continuing south I came to Old Town and The Polygon with this Grade II listed corner shop with its row of seven large oilmen’s jars above its mid-19th century shop fronts. The building itself is perhaps a little over a hundred years earlier.

Oilmen sold oil to the public, mainly for use in lighting before the introduction of gas and electric lighting, and often used ancient pots and their pictures in advertising. Large jars of this shape were used for the transport of oil by ship, often containing around 20 gallons, and when full these thick earthenware vessels must have weighed 70 kilograms or more. They were protected in transit with rope cases, but moving them must have been heavy work.

But I think these may well have been ‘single-use’ rather than being returned to source for refilling. Jars were often sawn in half as in Clapham as shop signs in the 19th century and were always then painted red, and often fixed like these above the shop windows. Many came from the Mediterranean filled with olive oil, though whale oil was more commonly used for lighting until the supply fell off and it was replaced by mineral oils.

The People's Church, Grafton Square, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-35 — *The People’s Church, Grafton Square, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-35*

Designed by William Nevin as a Baptist Church in 1889, the building was renovated and opened as the People’s Church in 1959. Sold after the roof collapsed, it is now the Grafton Square Surgery and The Grafton apartment building, where a loft flat sold recently for around £2m.

*Pyramid, Old Town, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-36*

I’d photographed this decoration above the shop Pyramid only a few weeks earlier, but the lighting was right and I couldn’t resist making another picture – and I was also keen to get a better image of the crest. Here’s what I wrote about it earlier:

Walking down the street took me the Old Town, where the light was showing the device on the house at No 12 here with its proverb ‘CONTENTEMENT PASSE RICHESSE‘, the motto of the Atkins-Bowyer family. Richard Bowyer (d1820) had taken on the name when he inherited the Manor of Clapham from Sir Richard Atkins of Clapham. I’ve never quite worked out what the relief which is thought to have come from the old Manor House is meant to depict.

*Pyramid, Old Town, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-21*

Back in 1989 I didn’t own a decent long telephoto lens – the longest I owned were a 90mm for the Leica and a 105mm for the Olympus. I think this was probably taken with the 105mm and the device on the wall is certainly clearer, but no easier for me to interpret. At the top there appear to be three animals with a bird, perhaps an ostrich standing on top of what could be a crocodile or dragon or hound with perhaps a snake on the bird’s back, its head going down to the croc.

Below that with the motto spread over it is what could be cloth hanging from spars or perhaps flames or who knows what, and at the bottom a shield with stripes and what looks like two chickens with their wings up above and one below a row of stars. Perhaps others will know more and comment.

The old manor house was only finally demolished in 1837, though its octagonal tower had been taken down around 1810, perhaps because it was unsafe. It was probably this tower that led to the street laid out on the site, near St Paul’s Clapham being named Turret Grove.

*Trinity Close, Flats, The Pavement, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-22*

Continuing south along The Pavement took me to this large 1936 development of flats on five storeys with some little interesting At Deco features of which this gate post and porch are perhaps the best. I think that the post (and its partner on the other side of the entrance) may have been built to support an entrance light, but there was no sign of it. The building, which extends back some distance in a roughly H-shape replaced three existing buildings on The Pavement.

It was designed by J J de Segrais and three of its top floor flats on this side have balconies with views over Clapham Common. At the centre just below roof level is a small sculptural decoration which I didn’t try to photograph. Trinity Close is is joined at its north side to another large 1930s block of flats, Windsor Court (which for some reason I didn’t photograph.) It has the date A. D, 1935 on its ‘moderne’ frontage and shops along its ground floor. A tunnel through a wide entrance at the right of this block leads to the rear of both blocks.

Save Legal Aid – 2013

Save Legal Aid – 2013: On Tuesday 30th July 2013, ten years ago today, the Save Legal Aid Campaign held a rally outside the Old Bailey in protest against proposed cuts in legal aid which they say would severely damage the UK justice system, removing legal aid completely for many and providing a poor quality cut-price service for others.

The proposals would bring in compulsory tendering on price, with legal aid services being provided by the lowest bidder and remove any choice by defendants of who should represent them. They say this would replace all the current specialist solicitors by groups such as Tesco and Eddie Stobart employing less qualified and experienced people and providing an inferior service for those unable to pay – and so choose – their solicitors.

The rally also celebrated the successes of the UK’s legal aid system, which speakers said had been the envy of the world since it was brought in on 30th July 1949, exactly 64 years earlier, an event celebrated with the singing of ‘Happy Birthday’ and the cutting of a cake by MP Diane Abbott.

For many of us those celebrations rang hollow. The legal aid system by 2013 was but a pale shadow of that brought in by the Legal Aid and Assistance Act on 30th July 1949. It was a skeleton that was being celebrated, although one that as several speakers who had benefited from it showed still had some effect. In the unlikely event we ever get a reforming Labour government it could perhaps still be revived, but more likely any future government will destroy it still more as New Labour did.

Legal cases in the UK are incredibly expensive in part because of the nature of our legal system which is an adversarial one, but also because of some traditional practices which render it less efficient and protect the interests of some of those who are a part of the system.

Probably the only sound legal advice is to stay away from the law unless you are very rich. Although its often said that the same law governs both rich and poor, in practice that is not really the case, and in particular those in the middle of society get screwed.

Legal Aid was first introduced in the UK in 1949 when the welfare state was attempting to make justice fair for all. It could be claimed for almost all criminal or civil matters except libel and defamation and around 80% of the UK population were eligible for some support, with those more able to pay receiving support on a sliding scale depending on their income.

It wasn’t then a great cost to the economy as then only a small fraction of the population gad access the the legal advice that might have led them to take action in the courts. If you were poor you seldom came to court except when arrested – and most cases were dealt with by magistrates with legal aid seldom being involved.

In the 1970s Law Centres were set up in many of the poorer areas of the country, giving free advice and explaining and aiding their clients to take matters of social welfare, housing and criminality to the courts. And in 1973 a ‘Green Form Scheme’ was set up to allow those of low incomes to get legal advice from solicitors. Both led to increases in cases and a corresponding increase in the overall cost of legal aid.

The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968, the The Immigration Act 1971 and the the British Nationality Act 1981 each led to a predictable and dramatic increase in the number of cases requiring legal aid to resolve disputes.

Various actions were taken to reduce the cost to the country of legal aid, with eligibility being drastically reduced both by income limits and by reducing the areas of work for which it was available.

New Labour reformed the system when they came to power, but their reforms proved a disaster and they piled a second disaster on top by privatising the system. By the time the coalition government came to power there wasn’t really a great deal left, but their Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) saw off most of what remained.

Since then, to get legal aid you have to have a disposable income of less than £733 a month and less than £8000 of disposable capital. Those receiving universal credit and some other benefits also qualify. There are different income and asset qualification levels for criminal proceedings in Crown Court cases.

As well as these tests legal aid is only available if your case passes a “merits” test as defined by The Civil Legal Aid (Merits Criteria) Regulations 2013. It has to be assessed by the Director as being in the public interest and having at least a 50% chance of success.

Speakers at the protest included Raphael Rowe, wrongly imprisoned as one of the M25 three, Anne Hall the mother of Daniel Roque Hall, a man suffering from a rare condition who would have died in prison without legal aid which got him released to receive care, and Sally, the mother of a rape victim who police failed, as well as Sadiq Khan MP Labour’s Shadow Justice Secretary, Ian Lawrence of NAPO, activist, poet, co-founder and co-chair of BARAC Zita Holbourne, Shauneen Lambe of Just for Kids Law and criminal defence solicitor and Justice Alliance member Matt Foot, but the loudest applause was for a rousing speech by Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty. You can see pictures of all of them and more about the protest on My London at Save Legal Aid.

Justice for Rashan Charles & The Met

Justice for Rashan Charles: On Saturday 29th July 2017 I photographed a protest outside Stoke Newington Police Station over the death of Rashan Charles, who had died after being handcuffed by two police and held on the floor of a shop on Kingsland Road in Dalston in the early morning of Saturday 22nd July.

The pictures on this post come from that protest, which was attended by members of his his family as well of those of Edson da Costa who died after being arrested in Beckton the previous month.

An inquest into the death of Charles returned a verdict of that a package he had swallowed when being chased into the shop by an officer had blocked his airway causing the death. But it also found that the officers had failed to call for an ambulance when they should, but more controversially argued that this would not have saved his life.

The inquest into Da Costa’s death revealed a number of errors by police but the jury was told by the coroner that “there is no legal or factual basis for reaching a factual conclusion which is critical of the police” and reached a verdict of death by misadventure primarily due to his swallowing a plastic bag of illegal drugs.

In March 2023, Baroness Louise Casey who had been charged with investigating the Metropolitan Police following the murder of Sarah Everard in 2021, issued her official report with the conclusions that they were guilty of institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia.

It came as no surprise to those of us who had read the many under-reported stories over the years of people – black and white, men and women – who had been picked on and brutally treated and some killed by police over the years on social media and in minority publications. Nor those of us who had attended protests against their behaviour or watched them in action at times against protesters.

Our mass media have always ignored many of these cases and underplayed others, almost always taking the side of the police and acting more as a PR agency for them, always keen to spread the rumours, lies and misleading press statements the police rush out to excuse their mistakes and misbehaviour.

We saw this at its most blatant over Hillsborough, again with the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and the killing of Ian Tomlinson while trying to walk back to his hostel through a protest at the Bank of England.

We’ve also seen the deliberate actions by the police to pervert the course of justice in high profile cases including the racist killing of Stephen Lawrence, where they investigated his family and friends while treating one of his killers as a witness. Daniel Morgan’s family have just received an apology and compensation over their failure to properly investigate his axing to death in a Sydenham pub car park in 1987 – a panel concluded that the Met’s “first objective was to protect itself” against the allegations of corruption against some of its officers.

Many other campaigners have exposed deliberate obstruction by police to inquiries into deaths, particularly those in police custody, such as Sean Rigg, which I’ve written about here before.

In the last few days, 25 years after his racist murder in Kingston, Lakhvinder Ricky Reel was awarded an honorary degree by Brunel University, part of a long campaign to get justice by his mother Sukhdev Reel.

*Sukhdev Reel at Downing Street in 2000*

Ricky and his friends had been victims of a racial attack in the town centre and six days later his body was recovered from the Thames. His family had been urging the police to search the river since he disappeared – and his body was found after only 7 minutes of searching. The Met refused to treat his death as a racist attack and made many failures in their investigation, devoting more resources to spying on his family by the undercover Special Demonstration Squad for their campaigning.

North St, Rectory Gardens & Rectory Grove

North St, Rectory Gardens & Rectory Grove: Continuing with my walk on Sunday 28th May 1989. The first and previous post about this was Lavender Hill & Wandsworth Rd – 1989 which ended with a picture of the Hibbert Almshouses still on Wandsworth Road in Clapham.

*M S Automobiles, 97-9 North St, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5i-24*

From Wandsworth Road I turned down North Street and took this picture just a few yards down the street. This rather elegant group of three of houses at 97-1010 have been altered somewhat since my picture and the entrance to the rear yard of M S Automobiles Ltd now leads to North Street Mews workshops and studios, the the two properties on the street now residential.

The doorway for West One Carriers is now a bay window (and was probably originally built as one) and the flower pots and ventilators have disappeared. 99 now has a small plain painted brick wall joining to the post at the right of my picture.

Unfortunately I can’t make out the sign at the left of the door to 99, though it looks rather like a pigeon. Scooter geeks would doubtless be able to tell me more about that parked underneath.

*Doorway, 28 North St, Rozel Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5i-11*

A small terrace two storey houses with shopfronts on North Street has its north end on Rozel Road, and just behind the shop front – here with a metal shutter at right – is this doorway which is now to 28a North Street which has been considerably extended to the rear.

There were some similar decorations above the doors of most of the houses on Rozel Road, and some with similar brickwork which I imagine were all built around the same time in the late nineteenth century, probably in the 1880s. I’m not sure what the mirrored objects in the relief are meant to represent, possibly a coornucopia or horn of plenty. But for many the bubblegum machine at right of the door will have been of more interest.

*NECO, Electric Motors, North St, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5i-13*

Normand Electrical Company were manufacturers and suppliers of ‘NECO’ electric motors and gearboxes here in Clapham from around 1938. The company was bought by P C Henderson in 1982, and later they sold it to FKI Electricals. The NECO brand is still used. The factory was demolished and replaced by gated housing, Floris Place, its entrance in Fitzwilliam Road.

*Rectory Gardens, Rectory Grove, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5i-14*

Rectory Gardens was built around 1870-80 as philanthropic housing for low paid workers. Many of the 28 houses were in very poor repair after war damage and had been squatted in the late 60s and 70s to form a unique community. In 1969 Lambeth Council planned to redevelop this area and acquired Rectory Gardens in 1970.

*Rectory Gardens, Rectory Grove, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5i-16*

The redevelopment was opposed by the Rectory Gardens Squatters’ Association (RAGS) and Clapham Action Rectory Grove (CARG) and at a public inquiry the council lost an appeal over the compulsory purchase of adjoining properties needed for the redevelopment. The council refused to formalise the occupation by residents who had formed a housing cooperative, but continued to try to evict the squatters who had turned the area into a flourishing artistic community.

*Rectory Gardens, Rectory Grove, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-63*

Eventually Lambeth Labour Council under Cabinet Member for Housing Matthew Bennett began evictions and put in ‘security guardians’ and in 2016-7 sold off the properties. The very active Clapham Society lobbied for the retention of these houses as a group run by a housing association but developer Lexadon is rebuilding them and marketing them as luxury properties, “a triangular mews-style development” as a private close in an expensive area.

You can read more about Rectory Gardens in posts on The Spectacle Blog.

*49, Rectory Grove, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-65*

49 Rectory Grove is Grade II listed as an early 19th century two storey house with attic and basement. When I made this picture there were new houses being built on both sides of it behind the tall corrugated iron fences topped with barbed wire.

The area behind the house had been the printing works of Clark & Fenn Ltd and was redevelped as the Charles Barry Estate, taking its name from Sir Charles Barry, the designer of the Houses of Parliament and Trafalgar Square who lived not far away at 29-32 Clapham Common North Side.

20-28,Rectory Grove, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-66 — *20-28, Rectory Grove, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-66*

This fine terrace on Rectory Grove, ending at Turret Grove has the name above it Cromwell Cottages is unlisted, unlike many other properties along the street. Rectory Grove leads to the churchyard of St Paul’s Church which was the original parish church of Clapham around which the village from the 12th century, although the current church dates from 1815.

The tiny village began to grow when people fled London during the plague and the Great Fire and it became a fashionable place to live in the l8th century. By then the area further south and around the common was becoming the centre of the village which expanded greatly in the early nineteenth century.

More from Rectory Grove and Clapham in the next instalment of pictures from this walk shortly.

Al Quds Day march for Jerusalem 2014

Al Quds Day march for Jerusalem: In 2014 the annual Al Quds Day march was held on Friday 25th July and came the day before a major protest close to the Israeli Embassy over attacks by Israeli forces on Gaza which had killed over a thousand Palestinians, mainly civilians.

I’ve written many times before about these marches which began in Iran in 1979 and is a anti-Zionist protest in solidarity with the Palestinian people and in support of their rights and specifically concerned with the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem (Al Quds) and the West Bank which followed the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel celebrates this with a national holiday on Jerusalem Day.

Public events take place across the Arab world, particularly in countries with large Shia Muslim communities and also in London and some cities in Europe and America. Many of these events are organised by groups funded by Iran.

Critics have often accused the event of being anti-Semitic, but on the various occasions I’ve photographed them there has been little evidence of this. I have seenboyco a few people who have turned up with anti-Semitic slogans on placards being forced to discard them or leave the march by the stewards.

Although the vast majority of marchers are Muslims there is also a significant number of Jews on the march, most obviously with the ultra-orthodox Neturei Karta Jews carried their usual placards and banners against the Zionist state and condemning the atrocities carried out in its name. They say that Judaism is not a nationalist religion and reject any idea of a Jewish State. But many of the the non-Muslims from various left groups that support the march are also Jewish.

The march in London was fairly large with perhaps 5-10,000 people, including many who had come in coaches from mosques around the country. Many had come with families and some marched together, but mostly men and women marched in separate groups as you can see from my pictures. The women were considerably more colourfully dressed and along with the Neturei Karta – all male – are over-represented in my coverage of the event.

The march calls for Freedom for Palestine and for all oppressed people across the world, and it also calls for a boycott of Israel and an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and Israeli apartheid. And clearly this is an anti-Zionist event, but not anti-Jewish, as one of the chants used by the marchers made clear: ‘Judaism Yes, Zionism No!’.

I left the march as it turned off of Regent Street to make its way to a rally at the US Embassy. By that point there had been no sign of the opposition to the march I had seen in some previous years from Zionist, Iranian freedom, communist and royalist movements and UK right wing fringe groups, but I think there many have been some Zionists waiting to protest against it at the US Embassy.

Many more pictures at Al Quds Day march for Jerusalem.

Lavender Hill & Wandsworth Rd – 1989

Lavender Hill & Wandsworth Rd: On Sunday 28th May 1989 I again took the train to Clapham Junction, with time for a rather longer walk than I had made the previous day.

*Battersea Reference Library, Altenburg Gardens, Battersea, 1989 89-5i-54*

A short walk up Lavender Hill from the station brought me to Altenburg Gardens and this remarkable Grade II listed ‘Arts and Crafts’ Reference Library. Initial designs by Borough Surveyor 1924 T W A Hayward were treated to considerable improvements by his architectural assistant Henry Hyams who was appointed in January 1924 and was responsible for the unusual building we see today.

Hyams was – as the Survey of London at UCL Bartlett suggests “an obscure but intriguing figure, who had spent time in central Europe in the Edwardian decade before settling in Devon. He had advanced views – Esperanto, theosophy – perhaps atypical of a Hackney publican’s son, and had spent time in Wandsworth jail during the First World War for his trenchant pacifism”. His rather eclectic “Arts and Crafts” design came well after the style had gone out of fashion and included some unusual decoration as well as the Council’s motto ‘ NON MIHI, NON TIBI, SED NOBIS’ (Not for Me, Not for You, But for Us) over the main doorway.

Altenberg Gardens had been developed in the late 1880s, and has some substantial late Victorian housing but I didn’t continue along it to photograph these but returned to Lavender Hill.

*Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-5i-56*

The reference library was an extension linked to the main Battersea Central Library on Lavender Hill which had been built in 1889-90, shortly after Battersea had managed to gain its status as a separate vestry from Wandsworth.

Battersea Vestry held a competition for the building of the central Library and the winner was local architect Edward Mountford who had submitted the only design of ten submissions that was within the Vestry’s budget of £6,000.

Edward Mountford went on to win a further competition against designs by another 11 architects to design a new town hall for the Vestry of St Mary Battersea which was erected in 1891-3 and continued to serve the local authority until 1965. Here the budget was considerably larger and it shows in this Grade II* building, which according to the listing text has “Relief sculpture by Paul R Montford. Decorative plasterwork by Gilbert Seale of Camberwell. Mosaic floors by the Vitreous Mosaic Co, Battersea.“

*Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-5i-44*

This is the Grand Hall Entrance on Town Hall Road, of which I made several pictures. The design was described by Mountford as ‘essentially English Renaissance, though perhaps treated somewhat freely’. And it had included this separate entrance on the east side to the large public hall at the rear of the building. There are detailed descriptions of the building in the Survey of London on the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture site.

*Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-5i-46*

When Battersea became again united with Wandsworth in the London Borough of Wandsworth in 1965, this building was made redundant. Wandworth’s plans to demolish much of it were defeated by a public campaign by the Victorian Society and Battersea Society and it was Grade II* listed in 1970. It became a community arts centre in 1974 and despite a major fire in 2015 which required extensive rebuilding continues in use as Battersea Arts Centre. I appeared briefly on stage there in 2017 in a after-performance panel discussion ‘Art & Accidental Activism’ after a Lung Theatre performance of ‘E15’.

*Scrap Metal Merchants, Lavender Hill, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-5i-34*

This whole section of Lavender Hill including the scrap metal merchants Chase Metals at 92 has been demolished. There is a building dating from 2015 at 100 Lavender Hill but nothing on the street between this an No 66 except a hedge in front of the five storey housing blocks on Wandsworth’s Gideon Road Estate.

*Houses, Lambourn Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5i-35*

I walked to the end of Lavender Hill and continued along Wandsworth Road, walking a short distance down Lambourn Road to photograph these houses before returning to Wandsworth Road. This road was laid out at the start of large scale development of the area in the 1860s by Eken and Williams and the houses this terrace are larger than most with three storeys and a basement.

I liked the steps up in the roofline, partly with an extra storey but also as the houses go up the hill, as well as the repeated decoration abouve the windows and doors.

Hibbert Almshouses, 715-729 Wandsworth Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5i-22 — *Hibbert Almshouses, 715-729, Wandsworth Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5i-22*

The Hibbert Almshouses were built in 1859 to provide accommodation for older women from the Ancient Parish of Clapham, commissioned by Sarah and Mary Ann Hibbert, in memory of their father William Hibbert, a long-term resident of Clapham.

The Hibbert Almshouse Charity was established in 1864 to take over the running from the sisters and still manages the buildings for their orginal purpose, although married couples and single men of the appropriate age are now also accepted as residents – though preference is given to women if there is more than one applicant when a house falls vacant.

The architect of these Grade II listed almshouses was Edward I’Anson and the building is largely unchanged although bathrooms were added in the 1960s. The charity is currently raising funds for a manor renovation and donations are welcome.

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

Clapham and The Grand

Clapham and The Grand: It was not until near the end of May 1989 that I found time to return and take pictures in south London. On Saturday 27th May I took the train to Clapham Junction and a bus up Lavender Hill to begin my walk in Clapham.

*Shops, Spiritualist Church entrance, North St, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5h-21*

I took a couple of pictures at the east end of Lavender Hill and the start of Wandsworth Road, not on-line, and then walked down North Street to make a couple of pictures of the entrance to the Spiritualist Church and the shops on each side.

Shops, Old Town, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5h-22 — *Shops, Old Town, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5h-2*2

Walking down the street took me the Old Town, where the light was showing the device on the house at No 12 here with its proverb ‘CONTENTEMENT PASSE RICHESSE’, the motto of the Atkins-Bowyer family. Richard Bowyer (d1820) had taken on the name when he inherited the Manor of Clapham from Sir Richard Atkins of Clapham. I’ve never quite worked out what the relief which is thought to have come from the old Manor House is meant to depict.

My walk continued along Clapham Common Northside, but it was some distance before I made my next picture.

*60 Clapham Common Northside, Lambeth, 1989 89-5h-23*

Maitland House at 60 Clapham Common Northside dates from 1790-1792 and is Grade II listed. According to the Survey of London it was one of a pair and “was built originally for one John Bleaden, but took its name from its next occupant, Ebenezer Maitland, a Coleman Street merchant, who lived here from 1796 until his death in 1834“. Maitland House’s “distinctive entrance porch of Tuscan columns supporting a bowed first-floor window” in my pictures appears not to have been a part of the original design but to have been added a few years after the pair was built. The other half of the once matching pair, Bell House, was demolished in the 1890s for the building of Taybridge Road and replaced by the current house at No 61, built along with No 59 in 1894-5.

*Forthbridge Rd, Clapham, Wandsworth, 1989 89-5h-25*

I continued along Clapham Common Northside but made no more pictures there. My next stop came after I turned up Forthbridge Road, one of streets built here between 1890 and 1895 by developers John Cathles Hill and Charles J Bentley who bought and demolished some of the earlier large detached houses.

These streets are not without detail of architectural interest but are relatively standard late-Victorian two-storey houses. However this particular house at No 20 stood out for its later added embellishments, perhaps not entirely appropriate or consonant with the Victorian doorways with the leaf motif concrete blocks and rather kitsch sculpture which occupied my next three near-identical frames – only one of which I’ve put on line.

*Sisters Avenue, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-5h-16*

I continued walking north, going up Nansen Road and Stormont Road to Lavender Hill and then walking west, looking down the various turnings but not finding much to excite my interest until
I came to Sisters Ave.

I made a picture of this row of three-story houses, but it was the incredibly solid gate posts that held my interest – and which I have put this picture online. I think I saw them as some giant row of pawns on the chessboard of Clapham, or perhaps some Maginot Line of soliders defending against marauders from Battersea, where I was now heading.

The Grand Theatre, St John's Hill, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-5i-51 — *The Grand Theatre, St John’s Hill, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-5i-51*

I continued walking down Lavender Hill and across the junction at The Falcon to St John’s Hill to photograph this building while the light was right. Designed by Ernest Woodrow and built for a group led by well-known music hall stars including Dan Leno it opened in 1900 as The New Grand Theatre of Varieties with a huge stage and room for an audience of 3,000.

It was a highly successful venue for many years and in 1927 began to show films as well as live variety shows as The Grand Theater. From 1950 to 1963 it was only a cinema, and after it was bought by Essoldo became Essoldo Cinema. Essoldo opened it as a Bingo club after closing it as a cinema and it continued under others as a bingo club until 1979. It was Grade II listed in 1983.

In 1989 when I took this picture it was still closed, but that year it was bought to be converted to a live music venue, opening in 1991 and closing in 1997. Wetherspoons then wanted to open it as a pub but were refused a licence. Eventually it was reopened as “an independently run venue which functions as a nightclub, live music venue, theatre and event space.”

Conveniently the entrance to Clapham Junction was now opposite and it was time for me to take the train home. This was a rather shorter walk than most of my wanderings and I had made relatively few pictures, but I was to return the following day to continue my photography of the area on my next walk.

King’s Cross, St Pancras & Derbyshire

*Regents Canal, Granary, Kings Cross Goods Yard, Goods Way, Kings Cross, Camden, 1989 89-5g-61*

I left London for a weekend in the middle of May 1989, going up to a conference in Derbyshire, taking the train from St Pancras to Chesterfield and then a bus journey with my family. We had come up to London by train and taken the Underground from Vauxhall to Kings Cross/St Pancras, arriving far too early for the train we had tickets reserved on.

I’m not sure if this was accidental or part of a plan by me to take a short walk and made some pictures before catching the train, but that is what I did, walking up York Road and then down to the Regent’s Canal on Goods Way to make this view across the canal.

*Bridge, Granary, Kings Cross Goods Yard, Goods Way, Kings Cross, Camden, 1989 89-5g-63*

A little further west on Goods Way I stopped at the bridge over the canal leading to the Granary. As you can see the view of the Granary then was restricted by a number of rather utilitarian buildings on the yard in front of it.

*Gasholders, Goods Way, Kings Cross, Camden, 1989 89-5g-64*

Further still along Goods Way, the road itself was between tall brick walls but gave a splendid view of the magnificent gas holders, including the fine triplet. I think some of the brick wall at right may remain, covered now in creeper, but on the left side are now new office buildings and no gasholders are in sight, with St Pancras International in their place. It’s a change I still find depressing, though at least the gas holders have been preserved in a new site.

*Shops, Pancras Rd, Kings Cross, Camden, 1989 89-5g-65*

I turned left into Pancras Road to take another picture of the block of shops containing the entrance to the Turnhalle (the German Gymnasium) with on one side the St Pancras Cafe and on the corner G Franchi & Sons, Locksmiths and Tools, with two ladders for sale leaning on its frontage.

I think photographers since W H Fox Talbot had always had a bit of a thing about ladders which perhaps made me take another picture of this scene, and I chose also to include the London taxi at left. I will have waited too for the man walking along the street to clear the shop, but as always there were also some elements outside my control.

*Intercity train, gasholders, St Pancras Station, Somers Town, Camden, 1989 89-5g-66*

Finally it was time to board my train and we were allowed onto the platform where it was waiting. I just had time to walk almost to the end of the platform and made this picture before we left the station.

King's Cross, St Pancras & Derbyshire — Baslow Edge, Derbyshire,1989

We did eventually get to Derbyshire and there was time while we were they for some short walks and I took just a few pictures. The first is I think on Baslow Edge.

And this well is in Curbar.

Rail Strikes, Tickets & Right to Ride

Some of my thoughts about the UK railway system and my experiences of it with pictures from a protest on Thursday 20th July 2017 about the real problems faced by disabled rail users.

I’ve spent quite a lot of my life on trains. Not many very long journeys, though I did once go to Marseilles from Victoria long before the age of Eurostar and TGVs and I’ve always taken the train on my visits to Paris, Brussels and Scotland as well as most trips around England as I don’t drive. But the great bulk of my rail journeys have shorter commutes to photograph in and around London.

It was really the advent of the Travelcard in 1983 and its later extensions that made much of my photography of London practicable. Before that going Waterloo (or Vauxhall) had been easy for me, but getting around in London was a nightmare of buying tickets for individual journeys on trains, underground and buses. Well paid photographers could use taxis, but I was making little for most of the time and used them only rarely – mainly when others were paying or we could share.

The Travelcard also significantly reduced the costs of journeys involving several forms or transport or even several buses, and for those of us coming from outside London gave us freedom to travel within all six zones of Greater London. So news that it is to be ended for those living outside the boundary is not at all welcome.

More recently, engineering works at weekends and rail strikes have also affected my photography. There have been days when I’ve decided not to try to get into London as the though of perhaps an extra couple of hours or even more sitting on trains and buses have just made it not seem worthwhile.

Of course I support the rail workers. The government’s approach to the disputes, forcing the various rail companies into confrontation rather than trying to find solutions is totally ridiculous and unsupportable. At the root of the problem is the fragmentation of privatisation and the opportunities it gave and continues to give the companies – many owned by foreign state railways – opportunities to profit at the expense of the tax payer. Radical reforms are needed, almost certainly involving some bringing back of rail into public ownership and undoing at least some elements of splitting up the essentially indivisible.

And engineering work is essential, though I do wonder why it seems to happen now far more frequently than it used to. It does seem to be handled more efficiently in some continental countries and involve less disruption of weekend services.

The government and rail companies are now proposing to get rid of most of the rail ticket offices. We have a hugely complex ticketing system with many anomalies and which ticket machines and online ticketing are unable to process. Even the workers in ticket offices can’t always get things right. But before cutting back on their services which many – particularly the old, disabled and less frequent travellers – find essential, we need first to unify and simplify rail ticketing.

We have seen some improvements of our rail system since I first began using it back in the 1960s. There have been considerable improvements in rolling stock, begun under British Rail as did our faster services and Inter City lines, some electrified at that from London to Manchester. Design improvements have also changed our commuter trains (though in some areas these are still sadly out of date) making my journeys into London much less noisy and smoother.

I do miss not being able to open windows and doors, but can see the reasons for this. But though we no longer have to wait at stations while the guard or station staff rush along the platform to close doors thoughtlessly left open by exiting passengers making the stops at stations a minute or so shorter, and though the newer trains have better acceleration and faster maximum speeds and are running on smoother rails, travel times have actually increased.

The reason for the slacker timetables is clear. Train companies have to pay for trains that run late. So they add a minute here and a minute there to the schedules. They also close train doors before the time the train is due to leave, sometimes 30s, sometimes a minute. So my 9.59 train is now a 9.58:30 train, often leaving passengers who should have just caught it fuming on the platform. And instead of the journey taking 28 minutes it now takes 34 – or even 38 at weekends.

DPAC/RMT ‘Right to Ride’ protest – Dept of Transport

But my problems and moans about trains are trivial compared to those faced by those in wheelchairs or otherwise requiring support. On Thursday 20th July 2017 I was with DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) and RMT members outside the Dept of Transport, calling for disabled people to have the same right to use rail services as others.

DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) had called this protest during their week of action while the London World Para Athletics Championships was taking place. DPAC say the government uses this and similar events to try to show it is highly supportive of the disabled while actually they are highly discriminatory against all those who are not high-performing para-athletes.

Many of the changes which the government is trying to impose on our railways, including Driver Only Operated trains, the removal of guards from trains and rail staff from stations all threaten the freedom of disable people to travel. DPAC have joined with RMT staff on picket lines for industrial action against these changes which discriminate against the disabled and threaten rail safety.

Disabled people requiring support to travel – such as a ramp to board a train – have to give a day’s notice, and even then are sometimes stranded when staff fail to turn up – often being left on the platform or taken to the next station. London buses now have driver-operated ramps, but no trains have these fitted.

After speeches and delivering a petition demanding the right to ride on trains without having to give a day’s notice they blocked the road outside the ministry in protest for ten minutes. DPAC are now protesting with rail workers against the proposed ticket office closures.

More pictures at DPAC/RMT ‘Right to Ride’ protest