Posts Tagged ‘Battersea Bridge’

The Raven, Villas, Mansion Flats & A Bridge

Wednesday, February 21st, 2024

The Raven, Villas, Mansion Flats & A Bridge continues my walk on Friday 4th August 1989 in Battersea which began with the previous post, Council flats, Piles of Bricks, A House Hospital and Brasserie.

The Raven, pub, Battersea Church St, Westbridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-56
The Raven, pub, Battersea Church St, Westbridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-56

Also at the edge of Battersea Square, on the corner of Battersea Church Street and Westbridge Road is The Raven pub, probably the most significant building in the area, built here in the mid seventeenth century and open as the Black Raven in 1701. Grade II listed it has had various alterations since then but is the only remaining pre-Victorian building in the area. Its value was recognised by a very early listing made in 1954, although it had been extenisvely rebuilt in 1891

Unfortunately this is no longer a pub, but Melanzana, a independent ‘bar-trattoria-deli‘ which according to Camra no longer serving any real beer. You can drink Peroni or wine with your pizza or pasta. I don’t think its interior retains anything of historic interest.

Skips, House, 26, Westbridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-41
Skips, House, 26, Westbridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-41

Another image about gentrification. I’d walked back east along Westbridge Road towards Battersea Bridge Road. I think this house was being converted into four flats. This was a significant area of early middle class development in the area in the 1840s with villas with long rear gardens in contrast to the much more downmarket development of what was rapidly becoming an industrial area.

House, 4, Westbridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-44
House, 4, Westbridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-44

This and its neighbour at 2 Westbridge Road are a pair of Grade II listed Gothic villas dating from 1845, just a few yards from the junction with Battersea Bridge Road. They are included in the Westbridge Road Conservation Area, much of which was developed by 1865. The appraisal describes them as “napped flint faced Gothic villas, quite unique in the district” and gives a further description of them along with a photograph from across the street taken in winter.

In August when I made my picture the houses were largely hidden by the leaves on the trees in their garden. But my view through the open gate does show the statue in the niche at the top of the building more clearly. The pair of houses also have an unusual front wall and gates.

Cranbourne Court, 113-115, Albert Bridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-45
Cranbourne Court, 113-115, Albert Bridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-45

A number of blocks of mansion flats were built in the 1890s on the edges of Battersea Park along Prince of Wales Drive and Albert Bridge Road, their position with views across of the park making them attractive to wealthier middle-class tenants who needed to live close to the West End. Chelsea was too expensive but this area was only just south of the river and not really in those dangerous areas where posher Londoners (and taxi drivers) feared to go. Apparently adverts for some of the new blocks gave their address as Chelsea Reach, Battersea – estate agents today are still often rather inventive in their descriptions of locations.

According to the Survey of London, almost 1,000 apartments were built here between 1892 and 1902.

The development here was suggested by architect and property speculator John Halley, who had moved south to London from Glasgow in the 1880s and had already put up blocks in Kensington. His plans were too dour for London, resembling Glasgow’s tenements, and he teamed up with another architect William Isaac Chambers who pimped them up for London tastes, though other architects made changes too as The Survey of London article recounts.

Cranbourne Court was one of the last blocks to be built, with Halley again involved along with one of his earlier co-developers, Captain Juba Page Kennerley, “a colourful character who had dabbled in a variety of dubious money-making schemes” and who was “indicted for theft and declared bankrupt” in the early 1890s. An undischarged bankrupt, he had set up a building company under an alias ‘Cranbourne & Cranbourne’ who built this block in 1895.

Albert Bridge, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-31
Albert Bridge, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-31

Albert Bridge is a curious mixture, built as a modified cable-stayed bridge using the system patented by Rowland Mason Ordish and William Henry Le Feuvre in 1858. This made use of a normal parabolic cable to support the central span of the bridge but used inclined stays attached to the bridge deck and connected to the octagonal support columns by wire ropes to support the two ends of the load. Ordish’s designs, made in 1864, were only built in 1870-3.

River Thames, Albert Bridge, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-35
River Thames, Albert Bridge, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-35

When the Chief Engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works Sir Joseph Bazalgette inspected in the bridge in 1884 he found corrosion of the staying rods had made the bridge unsafe and he added steel chains and a new timber deck.

In 1972 the bridge was again found to be unsafe, and the LCC added two concrete piers to support it in mid-river, turning the central section into a beam bridge, though the earlier cables and stays remain in place.

This was one of London’s earlier wobbly bridges (along with Battersea Bridge) and because of its closeness to Chelsea barracks a notice was attached to this “Albert Bridge Notice. All troops must break step when marching over this bridge.” It was feared that troops marching in unison could set up a resonance such as that which had been blamed for the collapse of the Broughton Suspension Bridge in Salford in 1831. The notices now on the tollboths date from 1965 but are said to be replacements of earlier notices on the bridge.

River Thames, Albert Bridge, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-34
River Thames, Albert Bridge, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-34

The view upstream from the bridge across the River Thames past Battersea Bridge to tower blocks on the 1970s World’s End Estate and the Lots Road Power Station.

I walked on into Battersea Park where the next post about my walk will continue.


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

Sunday, December 24th, 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More from my walk into Battersea in later posts.


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River Thames – Battersea Riverside 2012

Monday, August 14th, 2023

River Thames – Battersea Riverside: Tuesday 14th August 2012 was a nice day with blue sky and some interesting clouds in the sky and I had an hour or two to spare.

River Thames - Battersea Riverside

So I took a walk from Battersea Bridge to Wandsworth along the Thames Path.

River Thames - Battersea Riverside

Battersea Bridge crosses the river to Chelsea and I photographed the views over the river towards Lots Road Power Station and Chelsea Harbour.

River Thames - Battersea Riverside

This is a stretch of the river I’ve walked quite a few times over the years. It’s an easy journey for me to get there but it is also one of the more interesting and varied to walk.

River Thames - Battersea Riverside

When I first walked this way in the 1970s this was an industrial area, with factories and wharves and limited access to the river. Now the Thames Path takes you along the riverside with just some short diversions.

River Thames - Battersea Riverside

Most of the riverside is now lined with blocks of expensive flats rather than the flour mills, oil depots and a power station at Fulham I photographed back then.

Silver Belle Flour, mill, Battersea, from Chelsea Harbour, Sands End, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1991, 91-4c-66
Silver Belle Flour, mill, Battersea, 1991

There are still a few traces of that industrial past, though some were being demolished on both sides of the river back in 2012.

Demolition at Fulham Wharf

The sand and gravel works immediated upstream from Wandsworth Bridge was still there and still working when I last visited the area a few months ago, although I expect before long it will also be another luxury block of flats.

I think the best images I made that day before catching a train at Wandsworth Town were probably some panoramic images I’ve not included in this post as they don’t fit well in its format. You can see these and others from the walk on My London Diary at Battersea Riverside.


Climate Revolution Fracked Future Carnival 2014

Sunday, March 19th, 2023

The Climate Revolution is an organisation set up by the late fashion designer Vivienne Westwood (1941-2022) at the London Paralympics closing ceremony in 2012 and she spent the last years of her life campaigning to halt climate change, stop war and defend human rights and protesting against capitalism. Her work is now continued by the not-for-profit organisation she set up, the Vivienne Foundation.

Climate Revolution Fracked Future Carnival

I’m not a follower of fashion, as those who know me will have noticed. But Westwood’s activism reached a rather different and wider audience than the more usual campaigning groups, gaining publicity across the whole world of fashion and at times attracting the kind of mass media attention that follows celebrities, rather than issues, now attract.

Climate Revolution Fracked Future Carnival

Protests taking place in the UK seldom seem to be news – last Wednesday striking workers brought much of London to a standstill and possibly 100,000 people marched through the streets and protested in various places but when I came home and searched on the BBC news site in the early evening there was not a mention of it, though there may have been a little coverage later.

Climate Revolution Fracked Future Carnival

Others did rather better, but it needs something else for a protest to be news for our media. It can be that it happens abroad and particularly if it is against some regime unpopular with our (and the US) government. But it can also be if it is violent or particularly quirky or involves a major celebrity such as Dame Vivienne Westwood – and those protests she organised and her designs were always rather quirky too.

Although Westwood very much did her own thing, she was also great at cooperating with other groups working in the same area – such as the anti-fracking ‘Nanas from Nanashire’ who came down to London for this protest.

The protest was arranged to take place outside the Shale Gas Forum, where the CEOs of IGas, Cuadrilla and various government officials were plotting new ways to bring fracking to the UK, and to change our to allow this to happen. In particular they want to stop people being able to prevent dangerous mining beneath their properties which could cause dangerous and damaging subsidence. Their proposals would allowed companies to proceed without proper concern for safety and environmental consequences and give them some indemnity against damages and government would promise to pay a high price for the gas.

The Forum had been scheduled to take place at an expensive hotel in Belgravia, but after arrangements had been made for protest carnival to take place outside, it was moved to a ‘secret’ location elsewhere in London. Climate Revolution obviously had friends in high places who leaked the details to them.

It was Budget Day, but rather than going to take pictures around Westminster I decided it was more important to cover the protest against fracking. I met Westwood and her supporters, mainly fashion students, outside the Royal College of Arts Battersea location just south of Battersea Bridge and marched with them to the Jumeirah Carlton Tower hotel in Cadogan Place which had been the original venue for the frackers.

We knew the event had been relocated and their was some confusion at the end of the march as to whether it should entrain immediately at Knightsbridge station or go to the hotel. Eventually this was resolved and there was a rally outside the hotel with speakers including Vivienne Westwood and Vanessa Vine of BIFF (Britain & Ireland Frack Free).

The new location was still a secret as we followed the Rhythms of Resistance samba band to Knightsbridge station, where more protesters were waiting and took the underground to Old Street.

People were slow to arrive at Old Street, with some stopping off to buy coffee or sandwiches and others getting lost on the way, but eventually we were on the march again, on our way to the rear gates of the Territorial Army Centre on Bunhill Row, guarded by a few police.

Outside the event, people danced to Rhythms of Resistance, and there were speeches by Vivienne Westwood, Tina Louise from Residents Action on Fylde Fracking, Vanessa Vine, Frack Free Bristol, and others, some of whom had also spoken at Knightsbridge.

Some of us then walked through Bunhill Fields cemetery to City Road to protest on the other side of the military centre, and later most of the other protesters followed for a further rally at the main gates.

The protest was beginning to wind down and people were leaving and I left too, going to cover a protest by The African LGBTI Out & Proud Diamond Group and Peter Tatchell Foundation held a noisy protest at Uganda House calling for the repeal of Uganda’s draconian anti-gay laws.

And from there I went on to Downing St, where the People’s Assembly were holding their Budget Day Protest before finally I could go home.

More on all these stories on My London Diary:

Climate Revolution March to Fracked Future Carnival
Fracked Future Carnival in Knightsbridge
Fracked Future Carnival at Shale Gas Forum

Protest over Uganda Gay Hate Laws
People’s Assembly Budget Day Protest


Stratford, Woolwich & Chelsea

Monday, January 10th, 2022

Stratford, Woolwich & Chelsea
Perhaps the only thing these three parts of London really have in common was that I photographed in them in the last few days of July 1988. The first two were on a family visit to the railway museum then at North Woolwich station, largely for the benefit on my two sons, then aged 12 and 9, and both with a real interest in railways and had decide on this as a birthday outing for the elder. I think we probably had a few of their friends with us, some in the second picture below.

Stratford Station, Stratford, Newham, 1988 88-7m-34-positive_2400
Stratford Station, Stratford, Newham, 1988 88-7m-34

North London Line, Stratford Station, Stratford, Newham, 1988 88-7m-35-positive_2400
North London Line, Stratford Station, Stratford, Newham, 1988 88-7m-35

And once we were in North Woolwich it would have been a shame to miss the free ride across the River Thames on the Woolwich Ferry. One of their favourite books when younger had been Alfie and the Ferryboat, by Charles Keeping, published in 1968 Keeping, born close the the Thames in Lambeth tells the story of a small boy from Woolwich crossing the river on the ferryboat to ‘the other side of the world’ in search of his old sailor friend Bunty and his dog.

Woolwich Ferry, North Woolwich, Newham, 1988 88-7m-24-positive_2400
Woolwich Ferry, North Woolwich, Newham, 1988 88-7m-24

Keeping was a superb and innovative illustrator and the book is perhaps his best work. Copies of it are now hard to find and rather expensive.

Woolwich, Greenwich, 1988 88-7m-12-positive_2400
Woolwich, Greenwich, 1988 88-7m-12

The ferry that Alfie took was one of the same that we took, which were introduced in 1963 – the John Burns, Ernest Bevin and James Newman, double-ended ships with powerful diesel engines which were replaced in 2018 after 55 years on the run.

I only made twelve black and white pictures on this trip, along with three in colour, probably too occupied with herding 12 year-old boys than photography, and getting them all back to a birthday tea on the other side of London.

Moorings, River Thames,Cheyne Walk, Worlds End, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-7m-14-positive_2400
Moorings, River Thames, Cheyne Walk, Worlds End, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-7m-14

Days are long in July, and four days later I began taking pictures on Battersea Brdige and then a short walk in Chelsea.

Crosby Hall, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-7n-02-positive_2400
Crosby Hall, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-7n-02

Probably I had looked at pictures I had taken earlier in the year and decided there were some I would like to retake, or perhaps found some things I had missed. I spent a lot of time on researching the areas I was photographing, which was much harder before the days of the world wide web – and many of the books I had to rely on were years out of date, often pre-war or even older.

Sir Hans Sloane, memorial, Chelsea Old Church, Cheyne Walk , Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-7n-62-positive_2400
Sir Hans Sloane, memorial, Chelsea Old Church, Cheyne Walk , Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-7n-62

I think I may not have got a picture – or not one I liked of this memorial to Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753), an Anglo-Irish doctor and collector who travelled widely to France and the Caribbean, where he supposedly invented drinking chocolate as well as giving a harrowing account of the sadistic punishments inflicted on slaves and married the wealthy widow of one of the larger slave owners.

Her money from slavery and his income from a doctor and investments in property and slave trading companies enabled him to build up a collection of 71,000 items which he left to the British Nation. These provided the foundation of the British Museum, the British Library and the Natural History Museum.

Christchurch St, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-7n-55-positive_2400
Christchurch St, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-7n-55

But after taking around thirty pictures the next (not on-line) shows a view from the back of two women on a station escalator, with the next frame on the Commercial Road in Limehouse. I think I will have taken the Underground from Sloane Square to Tower Hill and walked to Tower Gateway for the DLR which had opened in 1987 to Limehouse. But pictures from my longer walk from there will be in a further post.


Click on any of the pictures to see a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos, from where you can browse the rest of the album.


Around Lots Road

Tuesday, October 12th, 2021

For various reasons the pictures in my albums online are not always in the order that they are taken, but it often makes more sense to write about them in the same order as I walked around taking them – which I can normally see from the contact sheets I made at the time. Usually too these contact sheets identify at least the rough locations of the images, though I often have to resort to maps and sometimes Google Streetview to find the precise spot. Chelsea hasn’t changed radically since I took these pictures but in some other areas this can be impossible. How I wish we had GPS on cameras back in 1986 – and I’m surprised so few cameras incorporate it now.

Westfield Park, Tetcott Rd, Lots Rd Power Station, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5j-16-positive_2400
Westfield Park, Tetcott Rd, Lots Rd Power Station, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5j-16

Most people know Lots Road because of the power station of the same name which was built to power the District Railway (now the District Line.) Completed in 1905, it enabled the line, most of which in central London is underground, to convert from steam to electric traction, which must have made it very much more pleasant to use.

Lots Rd, Chelsea,  Kensington & Chelsea, 1988  88-5k-62-positive_2400
Lots Rd, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-62

The power station, which has Chelsea Creek on one side and Lots Road on the other finally closed in 2002 and the area on both sides of the creek was developed as Chelsea Waterfront. The development only began in 2013, delayed both by having to get planning permission from both Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham and then by the financial crash and was finally due to be completed in 2021. The power station should by now be “193 highest quality luxury loft-style apartments together with high-class restaurants, bar, cafes, boutique shops and a health & fitness club.”

Lots Rd, Chelsea,  Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-63-positive_2400
Lots Rd, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-63

As the pictures show, I wandered a little around the area before returning east along Cremorne Road and Cheyne Walk to Battersea Bridge where I took a bus back to Clapham Junction.

Tadema Rd, Chelsea,  Kensington & Chelsea, 1988  88-5k-64-positive_2400
Tadema Rd, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-64

Tadema Road runs north from Lots Road and I doubt if I walked far up it. It’s hard now to see where this Cafe could have been.

Cremorne Rd, Chelsea,  Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-66-positive_2400
Cremorne Rd, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-66

I had wandered perhaps up Tadema Road to Cremorne Road some way west from its junction with Lots Road to get to Cornwall Mansions at left of this picture, which is looking east past the junction with Edith Grove with a small part of the World’s End Estate towering in the right half of the picture.

Ornamental gate, Cremorne Gardens, Chelsea,  Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-52-positive_2400
Ornamental gate, Cremorne Gardens, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-52

I walked back east on Cremorne Road to the junction with Lots Road and back down on to the riverside Cremorne Gardens. A house was built here around 1750 and later became home to the 1st Viscount Cremorne, an Irish peer from County Monaghan who gave it his name – which came from the Irish for ‘Mountains of Morne’. Charles Random De Berenger, Baron De Beaufain, (actually a fraud called Charles Random) bought the house and grounds here in 1831, turning into a sports club and adding some popular attractions including balloon ascents. The business failed in 1843 and was reopened in 1845 by James Ellis as the Cremorne Pleasure Gardens, with entertainment including concerts, fireworks, balloon ascents and galas. It closed in 1875, losing its licence with accusations that it was a “nursery of every kind of vice”. Much of the gardens were then built over then and later in the 20th century by the 1960s Cremorne Estate. A small riverside garden was re-established and opened in 1981, and the gate which had originally been at the King’s Road end of the Cremorne gardens was re-erected here, having spent the interim at Watney’s Brewery.

Chelsea Wharf, River Thames, Chelsea,  Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-53-positive_2400
Chelsea Wharf, River Thames, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-53

I think this view was taken looking upriver from one of the two landing stages at Cremorne Gardens.

Houseboats, River Thames, Chelsea Embankment, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988  88-5k-55-positive_2400
Houseboats, River Thames, Chelsea Embankment, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-55

I think this view is from Old Ferry Wharf, which is actually on Cheyne Walk. The bridge is Battersea Bridge.

Houseboats, River Thames, Chelsea Embankment, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988  88-5k-42-positive_2400
Houseboats, River Thames, Chelsea Embankment, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-42-positive_2400

Another view from a little further east.

Cheyne Walk, Chelsea,  Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-56-positive_2400
Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-56-positive_2400

These houses at left are on the corner with Blantyre St. The blue plaque at No 120 marks where Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-160) lived as an impoverished art student from 1906-09.

Whistler's House, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-31-positive_2400
Whistler’s House, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5k-31

James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s house at 98 Cheyne Walk. Some of his best-known pictures show the Thames at Cremorne Gardens. The house next door to the right, hardly visible from the road, was the home of both Sir Marc Isambard Brunel and his son  Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Click on any image to see a larger version in the album 1988 London Photos, from where you can browse the whole album.