Posts Tagged ‘Ash & Ash’

A Mission, More Bermondsey St & Guinness

Friday, August 12th, 2022

This post about my walk on Sunday 13th November continues from Fellmongers, Kennels, Snakes and Thomas A’Becket 1988.

Central Hall, South London Mission, Methodist Church, Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-53-Edit_2400
Central Hall, South London Mission, Methodist Church, Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-53

A Mission, More Bermondsey St & Guinness

Bermondsey Central Hall, BCH has been on the corner of Bermondsey Street and Decima Street since 1900 and still boasts a thriving congregation. The Methodist South London Mission has been in the area a little longer, beginning in 1889 and still providing vital services for the community, supporting mothers and children and runnning a 32 room hostel offering low cost accommodation to both working people and students.

Central Hall, South London Mission, Methodist Church, Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-54-Edit_2400
Central Hall, South London Mission, Methodist Church, Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-54

Back in 1988 it was offering ‘Free Beef and Butter’ to those in need and it now is a partner and distribution center for the Southwark Foodbank PECAN, a local charity, based in Peckham.

Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-46-Edit_2400
Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-46

I walked again up Bermondsey St. It was earlier in the day than my previous visit and the low sun was shining obliquely on the properties on its west side, among them George, a hairdressers at 126 and The Three Day Service Ltd, Printers and Stationers at 124. A stone higher up on these buildings has the initials PD and date 1828 and they are Grade II listed. The gate at the right of the picture led to Black Eagle Yard with several workshops, but the gap in the street was filled in 2015 with a passable imitation of the listed frontages and is now called Renaissance Court, though seven years later the wide gate area still looks unfinished.

Morocco St, Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-32-Edit_2400
Morocco St, Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-32

The corner of Morocco St, leading off to the left of the picture and Bermondsey St, with the Grocery shop of M & K Co Ltd, trading as R E Dawson. On the left you can just see one of the horses heads on the frontage of the garage on Morocco St. This is another place where a gap has been filled in with a new building in a very similar styl. The two brick-filled windows are now actual windows – Window Tax ended in 1851 and this building, now called Lantern House, may date from before this. The hoarding, then with a cigarette advert, has also of course gone.

Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-35-Edit_2400
Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-35

I couldn’t resist taking more pictures of these fine listed properties – my favourite building on the street which I’ve written more about on an earlier walk.

Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-22-Edit_2400
Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-22

Ash & Ash Ltd are still listed in trade directories on the web at this address, and appear to have been printers, later moving into the sale of computer peripherals. But other companies have their offices in these buildings.

Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11b-53-Edit_2400
Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11b-53

I turned off Bermondsey St just before the railway and went west along Snowsfields.

Guinness Trust Buildings, Snowsfields, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11b-63-Edit_2400
Guinness Trust Buildings, Snowsfields, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11b-63

A little way along are these fine tenement blocks. There is an extensive history of the Guiness Trust online. In 1889, philanthropist Sir Edward Cecil Guinness, the great grandson of the founder of the Guinness Brewery, gave £200,000 to set up The Guinness Trust in London as well as another trust in Dublin. This was a huge sum of money, the equivalent of around £20 million allowing for inflation.

The money enabled them to build eight tenement estates in the first 11 years, providing 2,597 homes for London’s working class, or at least those working men who were earning around 20 shillings a week, although they wanted to make homes that even the poorest families could afford.

Their Snows Fields estate opened in 1898, with 355 tenements including 830 rooms and by 1900 there were almost 1600 people living here. They had cost around £78,000 to build, including tht cost of the land. The South Eastern Railway provided £4,000 as presumably some of its workers were to live there. The flats were modernised in the 1950s and 1970s.

My walk will continue in a later post.


Bermondsey Street & Guideline Stores, 1988

Saturday, July 9th, 2022

The previous post on this walk, Alaska, The Grange and Leather, 1988 ended at the London Leather, Hide and Wool Exchange in Weston St, Bermondsey.

Leathermarket St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10n-22-Edit_2400
Leathermarket St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10n-22

I turned into Leathermarket St and a few yards down photographed this four storey building at No. 20-22 – this was the warehouse of leather factor, for once not a typo. Factors were agents who sold goods on commission, actually storing them in their properties, on behalf of the actual manufacturers of the goods. When I made this picture it was home to some studios and a couple of other businesses, each with a floor, though the basement was vacant, and you can see the lights are on through the second floor window.

The frontage can still be seen, looking a little tidier on Leathermarket St, and standing back you can also see the stepped back two-flor loft extension. The bricked up windons on the wall just visible at the left have now been covered with false black doors and at the centre of this wall is now an artwork by Joseph Kosuth, ‘A Last Parting Look (for C.D.)’ which consists of a quotation from Dicken’s Pickwick Papers, unveiled in 2006.

Morocco St, Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10n-23-Edit_2400
Morocco St, Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10n-23

Taken from Morocco Street and looking across to 103 and 105 Bermondsey St the overall view at first glance remains now much the same as in 1988. The Grocer’s shop is now a café. But the lower building to the right, No 105, has mysteriously grown to be a replica of its neighbour, complete with fake crane on its upper storey.

And the pub at 99-101, of which only a small sliver is visible, was then the Yorkshire Grey – and a pub of that name had been there since at least the 1820s, though the building dates from 1908. For a while it became The Honest Cabbage restuarant and since around 2003 a Michelin rated gastropub, The Garrison.

Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10n-24-Edit_2400
Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10n-24

78 Bermondsey Street with its jutting out first floor window and attic was one of the buildings in the area I photographed most, and was Grade II listed. It dates from the late 17th century though the shopfront is a twentieth century alteration. Just beyond are more offices of Ash & Ash, printers suppliers who occupied these premises and later became sellers of computer printers.

Although still listed at this address in web trade catalogues the offices their name is long gone from the shopfronts and there are other companies housed here including a dedicated Pilates studio. These buildings from the mid-18th century are also Grade II listed.

Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10n-26-Edit_2400
Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10n-26

A more frontal view of 78 Bermondsey St. There are two logos on the plates by the right-hand door, one of which appears to be for IBI and another which looks familiar but I can’t for the moment place.

Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10n-13-Edit_2400
Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10n-13

The notice states that these premises have been acquired for development. Thomson Bros Ltd, established in 1857 were packaging specialists and shared the gateway with Tempo Leather Co Ltd at 55 Bermondsey St. Thomsons had move to Bermondsey St in 1952. Their sign at right of the picture is still there and the fine Victorian facade has been restored, and this is now the entry to ‘The Tanneries’.

Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10n-16-Edit_2400
Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10n-16

This frontage with an ornamental frieze about its first floor at 63 Bermondsey St is now an estate agents, established in 1998. To its right, Bramah House at 65-71 was in my pictures. It is said to be a former tea warehouse but recently renovated as offices for a number of companies, including architects. In 1988 the building was occupied by Turner Whitehead Industries Ltd, polythene converters.

I’m not sure what connection the building has with Bramah, who were one of the most famous names in tea, and in 1992 a Bramah Tea & Coffee Museum was opened not far away on Butler’s Wharf, later moving to Southwark St and closing in 2008 after its founder, Edward Bramah, died. Various of his ancestors invented the modern lavatory, the tea caddy and the Bramah lock and also include Sir Joseph Banks, who in 1788 suggested that tea could be grown in North East India, not just in China – with obvious advantages to the British Empire. The building in Bermondsey St was bought by life assurance company Canada Life in 2016 for £14.25 million.

Morocco St, Leathermarket St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10o-54-Edit_2400
Morocco St, Leathermarket St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10o-54

Guideline Stores on the corner of Morocco St and Leathermarket St , just a few yards from Bermondsey Street is a rather strange building with its windowless rounded corner tower. A former spice warehouse said to date from the it was converted to luxury flats in 1997. No signage was visible on the white painted area but as a part of its gentrification, a painted sign ‘THE MOROCCO STORE’ was added by the developers, who also obliterated its previous name ‘Guideline Stores’. Its address is now 1 Leathermarket Street. The building is said to be Victorian, though some sources suggest it is older. Although several buildings around were listed this remained unlisted despite – or perhaps because of – its distinctive character.

My walk was now almost complete, but 2 days later on Sunday 30th October I returned to
Bermondsey for my next walk, and I will end this one and continue in Bermondsey in a later post.