St Peter’s Church, Liverpool Grove, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-64
Liverpool Grove was designated as a conservation area in 1982 as the Octavia Hill (Liverpool Grove) Conservation Area. The street runs east from Walworth Road with this vista of St Peter’s Church, then goes south of the church, continuing to the east as far as Portland Street (named after an earlier Prime Minister, William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland.)
Churchyard, St Peter’s Walworth and Trafalgar House, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-65
The area to the east of the Walworth Road was first developed around the end of the wars against Napoleon, and Liverpool Grove gets its name from Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool who was the Tory Prime minister from 1812 to 1827. So far as I’m aware he had no particular connection with the area. His almost 15 years as prime minister makes him the third longest serving after Sir Robert Walpole and William Pitt the Younger. A rather odder claim to fame is that he was the first of our prime ministers to wear long trousers.
Rear, St Peter’s Church, Liverpool Grove, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1c-66
The development of the area created a need for a new church, and Sir John Soane (1753-1837) was appointed as architect with St Peter’s Church being consecrated in 1826. It is now Grade I listed. It was the first church designed by Sir John Soane and badly damaged during WW2, then rebuilt in 1953.
Octavia Hill Housing, Liverpool Grove, Walworth, Southwark, 1979 89-1c-53
There are some remains of the first early Georgian and later Victorian housing in the area but the largest area around St Peter’s Church belonged to the Church of England and by the end of the 19th century had become one of LOndon’s most densely populated slums – or ‘rookeries’ as they were known.
Octavia Hill Housing, Liverpool Grove, Walworth, Southwark, 1979 89-1c-54
In 1904 the Church asked Octavia Hill, (1838-1912) one of the leading housing reformers since the 1860s to oversee the redevelopment of the area. She set new standards for working class housing and the estate includes cottage style terrace houses and three-storey tenement flats, some reflecting a Regency Style and others Arts and Crafts, in Liverpool Grove and side-streets from it including Saltwood Grove, Worth Grove, Portland St, Wooler St,
Worth Grove, Liverpool Grove, Walworth, Southwark, 1979 89-1c-55
Although the estate has a fairly high population density, Hill was also inspired by the Garden City Movement and the Arts and Craft village style development included the planting of many street trees; they or possibly their later replacements are very clear in my photographs.
Worth Grove, Liverpool Grove, Walworth, Southwark, 1979 89-1c-43
Her development from 1904-1914 remains largely intact and at least externally little altered, with only a very small area of Second World War bomb damage being rebuilt to a similar design. There was rather more redevelopment of the surrounding area in the 1950s.
Merrow St, Walworth, Southwark, 1979 89-1c-46
The area is an incredibly well preserved example of early twentieth century social housing, with a very different scale to much of the large blocks of the era by housing associations such as Peabody.
Health Centre, Borough of Southwark, Larcom St, Southwark, 1989 89-1b-34
This building on the corner of Larcom Street and Walworth Road is now Larcom House and has a blue plaque for “Michael Faraday – 1791-1867 – Scientific genius and discoverer of electromagnetism’ put there by the London Borough of Southwark. It isn’t clear why they put it here as he was born in Newington Butts.
Built as a health centre in 1937 this Grade II listed art deco building is now office space and offers are invited for internal development behind the listed facades
Health Services Department, Metropolitan Borough of Southwark, Walworth Rd, Larcom St, Southwark, 1989 89-1b-36
This is the main frontage of the 1937 Grade II listed health centre, with statues of mother and children on the roof showing its association with family health, and the text ‘THE HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE IS THE HIGHEST LAW’. It appears to be still in use as the Walworth Clinic.
The building remained in use as a secondhand furniture business, Chapel Furniture, until it was demolished in 2016 and replaced by a new block. At 4 Downing St it was not actually a former chapel, but St Mark’s Church Hall, for St Mark’s Church in East Street, opened around 1874.
There was a much larger and well-known chapel a little further along Browning St, the York Street Chapel, an Independent or Congregational chapel built in 1790. It was renamed Browning Hall in 1895 after Robert Browning, the Victorian playwright and poet who was baptised here in 1812, and York Road was also renamed Browning St in the 1920s.
The church was very active in relief of poverty in the area and had a settlement on Walrworth Rd, opened in 1895 by Herbert Asquith. Charles Booth began a campaign here with a conference in 1898 and in 1899 Browning Hall became the headquarters of the National Committee of Organised Labour on Old Age Pensions, which eventually led to the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908. Browning Hall was demolished in 1978 when a council housing estate was built here.
King & Queen St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1b-24
Until the 1920s I think this street was simply one of many King Streets in London. Many London streets were renamed in the 1920s and 30s to try make their names unique in the city. There was at the time a Queen’s Head pub in the street, long gone.
Although my contact sheet suggests this was taken in King & Queen Street, there is nothing in the picture which allows me to confirm that. I’d walked some distance before I took my next pictures on the west of Walworth Road, and it could well have been another nearby street.
But this was certainly somewhere in Walworth and I think demonstrates the run-down nature of the area at that time. The rubbish on the grass here may have been in part because this was close to the busy East St Market which I avoided on this walk, though I did photograph there in later years.
The oldest houses in Sutherland Square date from the early 19th century and most of the houses and railings are Grade II listed. The square was built on part of the former Royal Surrey pleasure gardens, but not long after it was completed the London, Chatham and Dover Railway line was opened on a viaduct across the east end of the square. The gardens continued as a the Surrey Zoological Gardens and Surrey Music Hall until sold for housing development in 1877, and a small area of them became a public park, Pasley Park, in the 1980s.
Southwark designated the Sutherland Square Conservation Area in 1982.
The notice on the wall states ‘COMMUNITY GARDEN. PLEASE DO NOT STEAL PLANTS AND FLOWERS. THEY ARE PROVIDED FOR OUR ENJOYMENT by NO 12 the Sq’ . The notice has gone, but there is now a rather more healthy looking area of planting here on the corner just to the west of the railway viaduct.
Macleod Street leads from Sutherland Square east to Walworth Rd, and this building on the corner is now a gym, with the ground floor on this corner being an Iceland store.
The building has a long frontage on Walworth Road, which now houses several shops. It was built around 1960 as a Co-operative store. Previously the site had been occupied by Grose Bros department store. This had started as a drapery business in the area by John Wellington Grose who was born in Padstow, Cornwall around 1840. He had two daughters and four sons, some at least of whom continued the business.
A bridge from the Heygate Estate took mothers and children across the busy Rodney Road to Victory Place and the entrance here to the Primary School. It was demolished around 2011, and I think the ‘GIRLS & INFANTS’ entrance has gone but a similar ‘BOYS’ entrance remains.
This building was just off Rodney St; its modern replacement is on the corner of Rodney St with Wadding St and Stead St.
Many Irish Roman Catholics had move into the area and in 1890 the Catholic Bishop of Southwark set up the Walworth Mission with a combined school and chapel just off Flint St and a Presbytery in Rodney Road with apermanent church next-door to this completed in 1903.
I walked north up Balfour St to the junction with Henshaw St. These buildings are all still there, but like so many small shops have been converted into residential use. Much of the area behind me when I took this picture has since been redeveloped.
There are adverts on the shop windows for Lyons Cakes, Tizer the Appetizer, Brooke Bond Tea, New Zealand Butter, Players No 6, Ty-Phoo Tea and Crown Cup Instant Coffee, but thhe curtains and boarding show the shop had already closed down.
St John the Evangelist, Walworth, Charleston St, Southwark, 1989 89-1b-45
I walked back, probably along Victory Place, to Rodney Road and then down Larcom Street, making my way to Charleston St, taking a photograph (not on-line) along this from its Brandon Street end looking towards the church before walking down to take more pictures around the church.
The Anglican Church of St John the Evangelist was built here when the estate was being developed in 1859-60. District Surveyor Henry Jarvis was architect for this gothic church in Kentish Ragstone, and its vestry was added in 1912 by Greenaway and Newberry. Both were Grade II listed in 1998, nine years after I made this picture.
There are two alleys on each side of the church, that on the left in this picture leading to Walcorde Ave and on at the right in the picture below to Larcom St.
St John the Evangelist, Walworth, Charleston St, Southwark, 1989 89-1b-46
This picture is looking down the alley leading to Larcom St and the building at right is St Johns Vicarage at 18 Larcom St.
Post-war Pritchard House (left) has been demolished but the house at 66 Wansey St in the right half of the picture is still there. Everything to its left has now gone with only the steps of No 68 remaining for a small new block of two social housing flats.
The street now continues through where Pritchard House was to Brandon Street and it is now part of the Larcom Street Conservation Area. No 66 probably dates from around 1860 and it and other houses on the street are probably part of the earliest development of the area.
Wansey St, Southwark, 1989 89-1a-15
66 Wansey St comes at the end of a long terrace – longer when built as there is a gap between 46 and 54 with a post-war infill block almost certainly following war damage. The house is the grandest of those surviving and the only one with a carriage entrance. The street then ended here, with Gurney St at right angles.
The area suffered heavily in the Blitz, with houses in the area being damaged or destroyed, including one of the greatest disasters of the bombing. Bombs hit nearby 6 Gurney St, close to the New Kent Road, damaging it and other houses on the last night of the Blitz, 10/11 May 1941, but it was only over a year later than a huge unexploded bomb that had been buried deep under the rubble, totally destroying 6 Gurney St and the two houses on each side and severely damaging many others in the surrounding area. 18 people were killed and 62 severely injures. This house on Wansey St was at the limit of broken glazing, over 200 yards away.
Kingshill, Brandon St, Southwark, 1989 89-1a-16
This block was a part of the Heygate Estate, neglected and demonised by Southwark Council and eventually demolished to allow for development of the area largely as private housing mainly sold to overseas investors.
St Johns Institute, Larcom St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989
Built around 1900 thanks to the efforts of the then vicar of nearby St John’s Church, the Rev. A W Jephson, this remains in use as a community centre. There is now a block of flats to its left.
The Heygate Estate, one of the better planned council estates of its era was by designed by Tim Tinker and completed in 1974. Southwark Council saw an opportunity to profit from redeveloping the area and began a process of demonising the estate, which had been allowed to deteriorate. What had been social housing for around 3000 people provided only 82 socially rented homes in the new development, much of which was sold to overseas investors.
They ended up making a loss as having spent around £65 million on emptying it and scheming for its redevelopment against a strong campaign by residents they sold it to Lendlease for £50 million. However some councillors and officers are said to have done rather well out of it personally.
Another view of the Heygate from the outside. Like many developments of its time a central boiler provided heating efficiently to all or many of the properties, though often inadequate maintenance meant such systems broke down.
I’m unsure of the purpose of this large open area or of the strange markings on it.
The overhead walkway from which I took this picture was a part of the Heygate Estate and demolished with it. Morris Court, the Peabody flats it shows are still there on the corner with Larcom St. The Peabody Walworth Estate was built around 1915 replacing slum housing and modernised in the 1980s. There are a number of blocks around a large central courtyard along Rodney Road, Content St and Wadding St.
This is taken from another walkway on the estate. As a non-resident I found these rather easy to get lost on as they were not shown on my mpas, but although the estate had a bad reputation I never experienced any problems, and it was certainly pleasant to be away from cars which were often a hazard when taking pictures. But it would have possibly seemed more threatening late at night rather than on a Sunday morning.
Another picture from one of the walkways around this corner of the Heygate Estate, which perhaps shows some of my confusion. It also shows a few of the many trees which had been planted in the area, which had just about come to maturity when the estate was demolished.
This building commemorates Michael Faraday (1791-1867), the English chemist and physicist celebrated for his ground-breaking research into electricity and magnetism who was born a short distance away on 22 September 1791. He invented the electric motor, transformer and generator.
The architect was Rodney Gordon (1933 – 2008) and this was his first job in the London County Council Architects department which was completed in 1961. Inside is the sub-station which converts the power for the Northern and Bakerloo lines, both of which have stations nearby.
When I took this photograph, it was at the centre of a large roundabout, with subways taking pedestrians across to the shopping centre descending at its side. The subways have now been replace by routes at ground level and the road layout changed, making this more easily accessible. But now the whole area is being redeveloped, and England’s first purpose-built shopping centre has been demolished.
Metropolitan Tabernacle, Stairs to Shopping Centre, Newington Butts, Elephant & Castle, Southwark, 1989 89-1a-34
Baptists began meeting in Kennington in 1650, when Baptist meetings were still illegal, but moved to a chapel near Tower Bridge in 1688 when they were allowed. It thrived over the years moving to larger chapels and becoming the largest Baptist congregation in England. Under the ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon which began in 1853 numbers became so large the services had to be moved to hired halls. The church bought a site on Newington Butts, both because of its prominent location and because it was thought to be the site of the burning of the Southwark Martyrs. The church with seating for 6,000, architect William Willmer Pocock was completed in 1861.
The shopping centre where I was standing was built as one of the first US-style indoor shopping malls in Europe with more than a hundred shops on three levels. Still popular with many, particularly for its market stalls, the centre closed in 2020 in the face of considerable opposition from locals and has been demolished.
Walworth Rd, Southwark, 1989 89-1a-23
Immediately to the south of the Elephant at the start of Walworth Rd, just past the railway bridge you can see at extreme right is this fine row of late-Victorian buildings, still there, although I think all have changed hands and there have been some subtle changes to the frontages as well as new shopfronts, and doubtless rather more change behind some of the facades. But it remains an impressive start to the road, while the other side has been depressing for many years.
Beyond Hampton Street at the end of the row, everything is new and perhaps one of London’s dullest new blocks, while viewing from a different angle across the road the scene is dominated by the 43 storey 487ft Strata Tower, completed in 2010 and decorated at its top by three wind turbines which were such a feature of its advertisement as a ‘green building’ but cause too much noise and vibration to actually be used. Appropriately for their location they are a real ‘white elephant’, and a potent example of ‘greenwashing’. The building was awarded the 2010 Carbuncle Cup for bad architecture as one of the “ugliest buildings in the United Kingdom completed in the last 12 months”.
R R Boast, Walworth Rd, Southwark, 1989 89-1a-24
One of the buildings in the row at 86 had formerly been home to R R Boast, Electrical Contractors and Engineers and Heating Specialists, with two other company names in much smaller letters on the left. A liquidator was appointed for the company in 1975 and the premises were I think still boarded up, though posters on the windows advertised keep fit and dance classes I think these were held elsewhere. Fly-posting across the lower frontage seemed very neatly done.
The building now has an extra floor as The Castle Hotel.
Walworth Rd, Walworth, Southwark, 1989 89-1a-25
Murrays Solicitors at 94-96 Walworth Rd is now a dentists at ground floor level but I think otherwise looks much the same, though it has lost its street nameplate.
Walworth Rd, Southwark, 1989 89-1a-11
At right of this picture you can just make out the top of the Hampton St side of 96 Walworth Rd, and this yard with its heap of tyres was on Steedman Street, just a few yards from its junction with Walworth Rd.
Former Southwark Town Hall, Walworth Rd, Southwark, 1989 89-1a-12
The Italianate Grade II listed Newington Vestry Hall by Henry Jarvis at the left opened in 1865, with a library added to the south east in 1892 and the two buildings joined the following year. In 1900 it became Southwark Town Hall for the Metropolitan Borough of Southwark and was further extended. But in 1965 the larger London Borough of Southwark borough moved its town hall elsewhere and renamed this building Walworth Town Hall.
In 2006 the Cuming Museum moved in, but the building was badly damaged in a fire in 2013. It is currently being restored to provide a space for educational activities, studio spaces and creative workshops.
My walk will continue in a later post. As usual you can see larger versions of any of the pictures by clicking on them which will take you to the picture in one of my Flickr albums.
The previous post on this walk is Evelina, Sassoon, Queens Road, Montpelier and Mazawattee. The pictures here come from the final film on my walk on 18th December 1988. I only finished the film and developed in it January 1989 so they appear in my Flickr album for 1989.
Mural, Sanford Walk, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-61
‘Riders of the Apocalypse’ was painted by Brian Barnes on the end property of Sanford Housing Co-operative in 1983. Student Co-operative Dwellings (SCD) was founded in 1968 by John Hands and colleagues and campaigned for five years lobbying parliament and looking for land until the government and Lewisham Council agreed to allow them the build Sanford Co-operative Dwellings. This was the first purpose-designed co-op scheme for the young and mobile, and was completed in October 1974.
Cold Blow Lane, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-63
Cold Blow Lane in the 19th century led to Cold Blow Farm, now long gone. In the 1850s the Croydon Railway built several tracks over it, and one of these went on the bridge whose two piers can be seen in this picture though the bridge has gone. Railway tracks still go over the lane, and I took this picture close to the exit of the long tunnel that goes under them. At the end of the lane is Mercury Way, and Cold Blow Lane turns at 90 degrees to go south.
Straight ahead, under another railway line, was ‘The Den’, then the home of Millwall Football Club, and I think the top of a stand is just visible in the picture. On the wall at left, among other graffiti is the message ‘Home of the Lions’
Surrey Canal Road, New Cross, South Bermondsey, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-51
I think I made this and the next picture from a footpath just to the north of the Surrey Canal Road. The contact sheet gives a grid reference 356781 and this may show part of the area which is now Millwall’s ground in Senegal Fields.
Surrey Canal Road, New Cross, South Bermondsey, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-52
You can still see this long range of buildings on Stockholm Road, just south of The Den. and parallel with Surrey Canal Road, occupied by a range of commercial companies. I imagine they date from when the Surrey Canal bed was filled in and the road bulit by Lewisham Council in the early 1980s.
Footpath, Senegal Rd, New Cross, South Bermondsey, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-54
Since 1993, the Millwall football ground has been on Senegal Fields. The footpath now runs next to the new Millwall Stadium and then under the railway lines which have some very impressive Victorian brickwork.
These are most of the lines out of London Bridge Station which begin to diverge in this area. You can see all three bridges in this picture. This was a very run-down area and the abandoned parts of a moped at right seemed an appropriate way to express this.
Hill, Bridgehouse Meadows, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-56-Edit
I turned around here and walked back south across the Surrey Canal Road and to Bridgehouse Meadows.
This was the site of the former New Cross Stadium opened as an athletics stadium in the early 1900s but from the 1930s used for greyhound racing and speedway before its closure in 1969. For some years Millwall FC whose old ground was next to it used it for training. The stadium was demolished in 1975 and there were ambitious plans for it be part of the site of a new ground for the club – but these fell through and the new stadium was eventually built further north.
Factory, from Bridgehouse Meadows, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-42
This factory has been demolished and new housing built in its place. I think this site was also part of the over-ambitious plans for expansion by Millwall who wanted to take over a huge area.
Path, Bridgehouse Meadows, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 89-1a-43
The path through the meadows crosses the Surrey Canal Road on a bridge you can see in the distance, no longer present. Both sides of the park area now have new housing.
Ilderton Rd, South Bermondsey, Southwark, 1989 89-1a-44
This is part of a site for travellers on Ilderton Rd and this house is still there, though there were no Christmas window decorations when I last walked past – but that was on a housing protest march in March 2017, where we stopped briefly at the Bermondsey Travellers Site. Behind is the railway line from South Bermondsey Station next door to the site where my walk ended.
This was the last picture from my walk on December 18th and completed a series of walks around this part of South-East London. My walks in 1989 began around the Elephant.
GH Metals is I think still operating in Evelina Rd, although its premises are now covered by graffiti and there are no prices on the list of metals still above the shopfront. Their web site states the family have run successful scrap metal yards all over South London and in Peckham since 1968.
Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World was the title of a novel by Fanny Burney published in 1778 but I suspect the road like the Evelina London Children’s Hospital was named after the English wife of the wealthy Austrian Baron, Ferdinand de Rothschild – she died in 1866, probably around the time the street began to be built up.
R E Sassoon House, St Mary’s Rd, Peckham. Southwark, 1988 88-12e-44
From Evelina Road I went up St Mary’s Road, photographing the strangely squat St Mary Magdalene Church (not digitised) , described on the Twentieth Century Society’s web site as “a bold and innovative 1960s landmark” but sadly demolished by the Church of England and replaced by a building “of no architectural merit”. Designed by Potter and Hare it was built in 1961-2 and demolished in 2010.
Sassoon House designed in an International Modernist style by Maxwell Fry is Grade II listed and was built as a part of the Peckham project around the neighbouring Pioneer Health Centre in 1934 to provide high quality social housing. The Sassoon family were one of the wealthiest in the world, known as the “Rothschilds of the East“ amd when R E Sassoon, the amateur jockey son of the philanthropist Mozelle Sassoon, was killed steeplechasing in 1933 his mother commissioned this block in his memory.
Queens Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1988 88-12e-32
I’ve only digitised one of the six frames I exposed on Queens Road, where there are several listed buildings on the corner and just to the west of St Mary’s Rd. This is Grade II listed as ‘QUEEN’S ROAD (South side) Nos.156 and St Mary’s Court (No.158)’ and the houses date from around 1845.
Montpelier Rd, Peckham. Southwark, 1988 88-12e-21
Montpelier Road (single L) was apparently named in 1875 after Montpellier in France (2Ls) which was a fashionable resort at the time and is now the seventh or eighth largest city in France. As well as one of the oldest universities in the world with an historic centre and the famous the Promenade du Peyrou from which you can on a clear day see the Meditteranean, Montpellier was also well-known for its wine. Montpelier Road has none of these and previously the road had been called Wellington Villas. It may have taken the name from the nearby Montpelier Tavern in Choumert Road, which although in a more modern building probably dates back earlier.
This unusual terrace of houses is fairly typical of most of the west side of the street which ends at Meeting House Lane.Those further up the street are a little more decorated.
London Customs, Hart Lane, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12e-25
I walked back along Queen’s Road towards New Cross where there is now no trace of the building at No 3, though these is still a garage workshop, now 3a. But the name that had attracted my attention has gone. I imagine it offered the service of customising cars rather than any interest in the customs and traditions of the city. I thought it might make a good title picture.
Cold Blow Lane, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12e-13
I made a single exposure while walking north up Brocklehurst Street (not digitised) showing the window detailon this long street of identical houses, probably pressing the shutter out of boredom, and then turned into Cold Blow Lane, where there are the solid brick piers of a dismantled railway bridge leading to a narrow tunnel still takes the road under the railway, followed by a newer brodge under more lines with a slightly wider roadway underneath.
It was a rather scary walk underneath, though not as scary as it might be had it been a match day at the Millwall stadium nearby – still then at the Old Den in Cold Blow Lane.
Elizabeth Industrial Estate, Juno Way, Cold Blow Lane, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12e-15
Juno Way was between the railway bridges over Coldblow Lane, but is now closed off at this southern end by a continuous fence between the bridges and can only be entered from Surrey Canal Road.
The building with the tower carrying the estate name was once the Mazawatee Tea factory, purpose built for them in 1901 when they were the largest tea company in the world. As well as tea they also processed coffee, cocoa, cakes, sweets and chocolates here and doubtless some raw materials would have come here on the Surrey canal from the London docks. It employed up to 2000 people but was heavily damaged by wartime bombing. The name is from the Hindi ‘Maza’ – pleasure – and the Sinhalese ‘Wattee’ – garden – and thus reflects two of the areas from which they brought tea. It was the most advertised brand in the UK until the Second World War.
The tower building was renovated from a complete shell in 2011 and ‘Unit 13’ now houses 12 self-contained studios with high ceilings and good natural light, including the 2300 square foot Tea Room Studio and a number of smaller spaces on the top floor.
I still had a little way to go on my walk and a few more pictures – I’ll post the final instalment of this walk later.
Pepys Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12d-64_2400
Pepys Road and Nunhead Cemetery
Pepys Road is a part of the large Telegraph Hill conservation area designated a couple of years after I made this picture. It is a late Victorian planned residential estate in what was then known as Hatcham and mostly consists of rather similar houses built by two local builders on a fairly steep hillside owned by the Haberdashers’ Company between 1870 and 1899. I don’t think there is any particular connection between Samuel Pepys and Pepys Road, but certainly he was frequently in the area both for his work as Secretary to the Admiralty very much involved in Deptford’s Royal Dockyard and visiting John Evelyn at Sayes Court. The semaphore telegraph at the top of the hill which gives the area its name arrived later in 1795.
These two houses, Silverdale and Thornhill are on the west side of the street at 62 and 64, and are part of a long succession of more or less identical properties on both sides of the street. But these were the only pair with an ice-cream van outside when I made this picture.
Probably because of its uniformity I took few pictures on my long walk up the hill on Pepys Rd, just a couple of pictures at the top of the hill of Hatcham College, one of which (not digitised) includes the statue of Robert Aske, one of only five listed buildings in the conservation area, the others all being telephone kiosks!
I was on my way to Nunhead Cemetery, one of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ great cemeteries set up around the then outskirts of London as its population was growing rapidly and the small parish cemeteries in the city were becoming dangerously overcrowded.
Anglican Chapel and monuments, Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12d-16
Parliament passed an act promoting the establishment of private cemeteries outside central London in 1832 and in the following decade seven were established – in date order Kensal Green, West Norwood, Highgate (West), Abney Park, Brompton, Nunhead and Tower Hamlets.
Allen tomb, Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12d-22
Nunhead, originally known as All Saints’ Cemetery, was established by the London Cemetery Company in 1840 and is one of the least well known of the seven though it is the second largest at 52 acres.
Financial difficulties caused its closure in 1969 and it was bought for £1 by Southwark Borough in 1975. In 1981 the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery was formed and together with the council began the restoration of the cemetery which was reopened to the public in 2001.
I think my pictures were taken on a Sunday afternoon tour led by the Friends. The include some of the more notable monuments in the cemetery which you can find out much more about on the Friends web site and they offer regular guided tours, but you can wander freely on your own as the cemetery is open to the public daily and you can find a useful map on the web.
The Wikipedia entry on Nunhead Cemetery lists a number of notable people whose graves are in the cemetery, but few were familiar names to me. One who very much made an impact on London was Sir George Thomas Livesey (1834 – 1908), engineer, industrialist and philanthropist and chairman of the South Metropolitan Gas Company. Another was Thomas Tilling, who gave London its first double-decker buses and was for many years England’s major bus operator. Allegedly ‘Tom Tilling’ became Cockney rhyming slang for a shilling coin, though I never heard it used.
The Brockley footpath runs along the southwest edge of Nunhead Cemetery and I was able to leave the cemetery and walk down it back towards Nunhead. You can exit the cemetery on Limesford Road and walk along this to the path.
This post looks at the end of my walk south of the river on Sunday 13th November 1988 – the previous post was Flats, A Square, Bread & Funerals – Walworth – and finishes with a few pictures taken at night in the City of London.
Southwark Council built the Aylesbury Estate between 1963 and 1977. It was one of the larger if not the largest public housing developments in Europe, with around 2,700 homes. Wendover, designed by the boroughs architects, was completed in 1970. I think it’s two blocks contains around 471 flats as well as a learning centre and tenants hall.
Like many council estates it was poorly maintained over the years and parts of the estate were deliberately used by the council to house people and families with various social problems, something exacerbated by the Conservatives plans, particularly under Thatcher, to get rid of social housing, resulting in it increasingly becoming housing for the most deprived members of society.
The estate has a central boiler for heating and hot water, which has increasingly suffered from failures which residents say the council is very slow to take action over. The flats also have fallen behind more modern standards of insulation etc, and are in need of some refurbishment, though the council drastically overstated the costs of this when making their case for demolition.
I’ve in recent years been inside quite a few flats on the estate, often lovingly maintained and decorated by their residents who have been fighting a long battle against council plans to redevelop the area.
Although the council carried out a long PR campaign against this and the neighbouring Heygate Estate – including Tony Blair making his first speech as Prime Minister here and launching the party’s programme of regeneration of housing estates.
Its relatively open and fairly traffic-free nature along with convenient location made the estate a favourite for “grim backdrops to murder scenes, gun and drug storylines and gang-related crimes in soaps and gritty dramas” until pressure from local residents forced Southwark Council to ban filming in the area.
Channel4 took footage from the estate to use in their channel ident, adding to it, according to Ben Campkin of UCL quoted in Wikipedia, “washing lines, shopping trolley, rubbish bags and satellite dishes” to show it as “a desolate concrete dystopia [which] provides visual confirmation of tabloid journalists’ descriptions of a ‘ghost town’ estate.“
Residents wanted refurbishment rather than demolition – which will lead to many of them moving much further away from the centre of London. But councillors salivated at the thought of profits and handouts from the developers and never seriously considered anything other than demolition and replacement. Their decision lead to a series of occupations by housing activists of properties due for demolition. The complete destruction of the estate seems likely to take around another ten years with the final phase beginning next year. You can read much more about what has happened – and the duplicity of Southwark Council on the Southwark Notes site.
I walked on through both the Aylesbury and Heygate estates, both estates with a bad reputation for crime, but where I never suffered an uneasy moment despite having around £10,000 of equipment in my camera bag. I didn’t stop to take many pictures after those of Wendover, probably because I was getting tired. I did took a few frames on the New Kent Road and then walked on past the Elephant.
This entrance on Lambeth Road was one I’d photographed previously and probably I made a slight detour to do so again. I’d made an earlier picture using the tiny Minox that lived in my jacket pocket and it was severely underexposed. I had to send the camera for servicing. It was distributed by Leica, who told me it couldn’t be repaired, but offered me a replacement at considerably below the shop price. I had it in my pocket on 13th November taking my first test film, and took it out and made another exposure with it which was fine – and very similar to this, made on an Olympus SLR. Both are online on Flickr.
Frank Love, Lambeth Rd, Newington, Southwark, 1988 88-11e-63
The previous image was the trade entrance at No 47 for Frank Love at New XL House, No 45 Lambeth Rd. Its signs read PLUMBERS BRASSFOUNDRY COPPER TUBES AND FITTINGS but I think the works had closed when I made this image. You can view an earlier image of the whole frontage by Bedford Lemere & Co in the Lambeth borough archive, and see some of their advents on Grace’s Guide. I think these were the last pictures taken on my walk which ended at Waterloo Station.
Dagwoods, St Alphage Highwalk, City, 198888-11e-41
Dagwoods offered Quality Sandwiches to city workers in their lunch hour but the area was pretty empty at night, although there are still a few lights in the offices. The large area of pavement emphasises that emptiness.
I think I was probably coming back from an event at the Museum of London and had decided to take a little walk with my camera, though from some of the other pictures it seems clear I had come without a tripod.
Night, Bassishaw Highwalk, City, 1988 88-11e-42
Another deserted area of highwalk, and the sharpness and depth of field suggests I was able to steady myself well to produce this handheld – it will have been taken at a pretty slow shutter speed. This section of highwalk and the office building at right is still there though looking rather different.
Too much of the older London remained for the planners’ dreams of the separation of pedestrians from traffic to ever really be feasible except in a few small areas of the city – and there are very few escalators or lifts where the elderly and disabled can access them.
Night, Bassishaw Highwalk, City, 1988 88-11e-45
One of my favourite modern buildings in London, and one I’ve photographed several times in daylight. I suspect it was this building that really prompted me to make this short walk at night. After the four frames (only one digitised) I made here I did wander around an make a dozen or so more exposures, but nothing which really caught my interest when I was deciding which to put on-line.
65 Basinghall St is Grade II listed as “Former exhibition hall, magistrates court and offices, now converted to offices, 1966-69, by Richard Gilbert Scott of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, Son and Partner” and was built in 1966-9. There is a long essay in the listing text. But perhaps sufficient to say its roof is one of the finest uses of concrete at least in the UK.
Congreve St area, Walworth, Southwark, 1988 88-11c-42
Flats, A Square, Bread & Funerals – Walworth 1988 My walk continued on the other side of the Old Kent Road, in Walworth, where late Victorian housing was partly replaced by modern council estates in the 1930s and 1960s. I wandered through the Congreve/Barlow estate getting rather lost, as I often did in such places, where street maps like the miniature A-Z I always carried in a pocket were seldom of much use. The older houses here are in Tatum St, with those at the right further back in Halpin Place.
The passageway in which I was standing is between Ellery House on my right and the longer block of Povey House on my left, both dating from around 1964 and part of Southwark Council’s Barlow Estate.
Congreve St, Walworth, Southwark, 1988 88-11c-43
Thelow wall at the left in front of Comus House was obviously designed for children to walk on top, and I found a small group doing so. The building on the right at 5 Congreve St is also still there, and has been in use by the Redeemed Christian Church Of God (RCCG) since 1997. I am not sure whether it was still in use as a factory when I made this picture, or what was made there.
I think this was the rear of a site entered from a yard on the Old Kent Road, possibly Preston Close, the front part of which was redeveloped in around 2005. Excavations on that part of the site by the The Museum of London Archaeology Service after it was cleared suggested it might have been the site of a Roman mausoleum.
At the end of the street you can see Townsend Primary School, still very much in use.
The block is a part of the Barlow/Congreve Estate and was built in 1957 for Southwark Council. The picture is from the corner of Congreve St and Comus Place.
The blue plaque on 42 Surrey Squareclose to the centre of the picture records that artist Samuel Palmer (1805 – 1881) was born here, just a few years after this street was developed in 1793-4 by architect Michael Searles. His plan included houses around the other three sides of a square but these were never built.
My Surrey Square Park describes this as “the only remaining group of 18th century domestic buildings in Walworth with any pretension to architectural quality“.
A church, All Saints was built in 1864-65 to the designs of R. Parris and S. Field, but damaged by bombing in WW2 and replaced by a rather plain church designed by N F Cachemaille-Day in 1959. This became redundant when parished were merged in 1977 and is now in use as The Church of the Lord (Aladura) and is their Europe Diocese HQ.
I was standing in front of the church with it out of picture to my right as I made this picture which shows the church hall, an Arts and Crafts style building dating from around 1900. It was used for a variety of purposes after the church closed and is since 2019 the Walworth Living Room, a community space.
Dalwoods Quality Bakers and Quality Confectioners on the corner of Bagshot St and Smyrk’s Way was closed when I made this picture on a Sunday morning but still in business.
I was rather attracted to the display font used for DALWOODS and BAKERS although I couldn’t put a name to it, perhaps a 1930s Deco touch? Something very similar came free with the first Desk Top Publishing package I taught, and it was one of several of which students would make highly inappropriate use. It rather contrasted to the sold block serifs of ‘HOME MADE BREAD’ above the window, best seen in the previous image.
The shop has changed hands since then and now offers the rather less tasty selection of ‘Hair, Nails, Cosmetics & Fashion Wears’ (sic) as a unisex hair salon and boutique. The shopfront has also been redesigned with smaller windows and canopies over the windows.
Another business shopfront, for J W Simpson’s Funeral Service, with the word CREMATIONS over the coach entrance at left, suggesting to me an on-site service for anyone misguided enough to drive into it. The clock had suffered some damaged, with a blank black area above the face where one of the two texts partly visible below had once fitted.
I disliked the fussy little bricks that had been imposed on the front extension of the shop, but they perhaps look less annoying now as the concrete walls around the front garden have gone to make room for a parking space in front of what is still a funeral director. It’s one business that never runs out of clients.
