Battersea Power Station

Battersea, Jesus, Bonkers & Peckham – 2008

Battersea, Jesus, Bonkers & Peckham: On Saturday 19 July 2008 I began my day at an open day at Battersea Power Station by developers proposing a comprehensive redevelopment before photographing the Jesus Army marching along Piccadilly and, going on to Camberwell Green for Bonkersfest and a brief visit to I Love Peckham.

Battersea Power Station

Battersea, Jesus, Bonkers & Peckham - 2008

Developers Real Estate Opportunities had bought the site for around £400 million and were showing the latest development of their plans for it to the public. These then involved re-building the chimneys and filling the space around with various buildings including an eco-dome and a 980ft eco-tower which dwarfed the power station – and which London Mayor Boris Johnson described as an “inverted toilet-roll holder”. You can see it in my photograph of their model on My London Diary, and to be fair I think it perhaps looks more like some high-tech lavatory brush.

This tower was soon dropped from the scheme which was approved in 2010 but building never started. The only aspect of the scheme which did eventually get built was the Northern Line extension from Kennington, partly because of a £100 million contribution from the sale of the site to a Malaysian consortium in 2012 – who ten years later opened the power station building to the public.

The central turbine hall had been open to the elements since the late 1980s when the roof was removed to lift out the machinery.

Local organisations had been formed in the 1980s to oppose unsuitable development and were then still active and asking questions about the proposals. They were concerned both about the loss of the power station as an iconic landmark and also the lack of affordable housing and facilities of any use to local people in the plans. The web site I linked to in 2008 is no longer active and the domain is for sale.

More on My London Diary at Battersea Power Station.

Jesus Army Marches on London – Piccadilly

The Jesus Army describes itself as “an evangelical Christian Church with a charismatic emphasis” while others have labelled it as a sect or a cult. There are certainly ex-members who talk openly about it, and particularly about leaving it as a traumatic experience, while others simply feel that they could not personally give the level of commitment it requires of them.

I found their march through London a dispiriting event, too uniform in many ways and I soon found it depressing to photograph. But as I told the woman who came out of the crowd passing by to hug me, “Jesus loves you too, sister” although I’m sure the guy I’ve read about in the gospels would have had no truck with this organisation. London Transport might have a problem with their logo [on some t-shirts] too!

Jesus Army Marches on London

Bonkersfest – Camberwell Green

Creative Routes, an interdisciplinary arts organisation run by and for those who have survived the mental health system and mental distress, organise the annual Bonkersfest as “a showcase of mad creativity.”

I wasn’t greatly impressed by what I saw happening this year, and left after taking a few pictures, including those of “some enterprising women were making the most of the occasion by organising a yard sale” in front of Brighton House on the edge of the green and a small memorial which had been unveiled in 2007 to the Wright family and four others killed by a direct bomb hit on the shelter here on the afternoon of 17th September 1940.

They had taken shelter while celebrating the wedding of Sidney and Patricia Wright. Bride and groom, Sidney’s parents and five sisters were among the 13 who were killed.

Bonkersfest

I Love Peckham – Peckham Square

There is an energy about Peckham that I really do like, and some of it was on display here, watched by a small crowd including the Mayor of Southwark, Councillor Eliza Mann – in pink.

There were a few things going on for me to photograph, and clearly there had been various other mainly art-related activities by local people, particularly children in the week of the festival, but it seemed to have attracted rather less interest than the previous year when I had photographer the march of the human rights jukebox.

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

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*

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*

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*

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*

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*

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*

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*

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.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Kirtling Street to Battersea Power Station & the Dogs – 1989

Kirtling Street to Battersea Power Station & the Dogs continues my walk which began at Vauxhall on Friday 28th July 1989 with Nine Elms Riverside. The previous post was More from Nine Elms Riverside.

*Works, Kirtling St, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-36*

The riverside path still ends at Kirtling Street but Greenham’s aggregate wharf has now been replaced by the central site of the Tideway 25km London super sewer project underneath the River Thames due for completion in 2025, when it should prevent 95% of sewage spills in London entering the river. It was here that the two tunnel boring machines were lowered 50 metres below ground to make their way east and west to produce the central section of the tunnel between Fulham and Bermondsey.

*T & W Farmiloe, paint factory, Cringle St, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-21*

This bricked up entry in a tall brick wall on the corner of Cringle Street was for many years all that remained of the 50-year-old glass, lead, paint and sanitary ware manufacturing company which had opened a large 4-storey factory here in 1884 with a frontage on Nine Elms Lane. The Farmiloe brothers had set up in business in Westminster in the 1840s as glass cutters and taken over the Island Lead Mills in Limehouse in 1885, and expanded with a brass foundry on Horseferry Road, a varnish works in Mitcham and this large warehouse in Nine Elms, producing everything a plumber could need. In the twentieth century their main business moved to sanitary ware and paint, including ‘Nine Elms’ white lead paint which was made at this white-lead factory built around 1910. I think the company which had trademarked ‘Nine Elms’ had long vacated the site before it was dissolved in 1988. The trademark passed to Akzo Nobel and expired in 2005.

*Works, Sleaford St, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-23*

Sleaford Street was on the eastern side of one of the earliest developments in the area, Battersea New Town, begun in the 1790s and was first developed on its west side the by Southwark butcher William Sleford. Apparently later “One side of Sleaford Street was formerly derided as Ginbottle Row, while the other was called Soapsuds Bay, presumably because it accommodated laundresses.”

I can find no signs of the building in this picture and most of the west side of Sleaford Street is now occupied by a large block of flats extending back from the corner with Nine Elms Lane completed around 2008. John Oswald and Sons had a foundry in the street from 1871 and this may be their building.

At the left of the picture you can see the Battersea gasholder, demolished 2014-7 and at right Battersea Power Station.

*Battersea Power Station, Battersea Park Rd, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-24*

A slightly unusual view of the power station six years after its final closure. Planning permission was obtained for it conversion to a theme park, but the scheme was halted when money ran out in March 1989. By this time the roof had been removed, presumably by McAlpine whose name adorns the building, which led to considerable subsequent deterioration of the steelwork and foundations.

After various failed redevelopment plans the power station was eventually refurbished as an expensive tourist destination surrounded by new homes, a hotel, shops and restaurants and a new London Underground station. McAlpine was the construction manager for the final phase three of the development.

*Battersea Power Station, Battersea Park Rd, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-25*

Another view of the wrecked power station, along with a rather unconvincing double at the right with a view of the abandoned scheme.

*Battersea Dogs Home, Battersea Park Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-11*

Then there was no way back to the riverside before reaching Chelsea Bridge at the north end of Queenstown Road. A long detour away from the river around the power station and gas works site took me past Battersea Dogs Home where I took this picture with one dog begging on the top of the wall and another emerging from the Exit to the building. There is now a rather larger building on the site and it has added ‘and Cats’ to its remit.

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

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Nine Elms Riverside – July 1989

Nine Elms Riverside – July 1989: One of the benefits of working as a teacher as I still was in 1989 was certainly the long Summer holiday and I spent quite a lot of these taking photographs as well as going away for several weeks with my family – though some years this was also a photographic opportunity. And most years we also spent a week or so in Hull where I was able to add a few pictures to the work that had resulted in my exhibition Still Occupied in the Ferens Art Gallery there in 1983.

But our travels around the country in the Summer of 1989 – which as well as Hull included a week with a group of friends in a large holiday cottage in Scotland – only began in August, and the day after my visit to Hackney on Friday 28th July 1989 I returned to take up my work where I had left off earlier in Nine Elms.

*Brunswick House, Market Towers, Wandsworth Rd, Vauxhall, Lambeth, 1989 89-7k-13*

Tuuning west out of Vauxhall Station took me to the junction of Wandsworth Road and Nine Elms Lane. Brunswick House at right appeared in an earlier post on my walks in 1989. This mid 17th century house, extended in 1758, bought by in 1869 by “the London and South West Railway Company who used it as offices and a Scientific and Literary Institute. In 1994 it was sold to the railway staff association who again sold it in 2002. It is now a restaurant and the yard around it is used by an architectural salvage and supply company.“

Market Towers was clearly a very much later building, or rather pair of buildings, the taller 290ft high with 23 floors, completed in 1975, with offices a pub, the Market Tavern, on the first floor. The pub was built to serve workers at the adjoining New Covent Garden Market completed in 1974 and its licence allowed it to open in the early hours. By the 1980s this had made it into “South London’s first gay pub with a 2am licence“.

According to Wikipedia, the buildings were bought by the misleadingly named property developer Green Property in 2008 and four years later they were given planning permission to redevelop. Instead they sold it to Chinese developer Dalian Wanda. It was demolished in 2014-5 who gained revised planning permission for two buildings containing 436 flats and a hotel, City Tower with 58 floors and 654ft tall and River Tower 42 floors and 525ft. The project was sold on to another Chinese company, and there were various problems over building contracts which delayed completion. The Park Hyatt London River Thames hotel is now predicted to open in mid-2024.

*Nine Elms Cold Store, Nine Elms Lane, Nine Elms, Lambeth, 1989 89-7k-14*

This tall, windowless monolith states across its top ‘NINE ELMS COLD STORE‘ and was built in 1964 on a former gas works site to store meat and other frozen goods brought by ship into the London Docks and transferred here by lighters. At its side was a large railway goods yard, from which these goods could be taken by rail as well as lorries from the site. But only a few years after its completion, London’s docks began to close and by 1979 it was redundant.

This gas works had closed in 1956 and the site was in use as a coach park when the cold store was built, and also included a small creek, Vauxhall Creek, which once had been the mouth of the River Effra, long culverted and diverted which was then filled in. After it ceased to be used as a cold store it stood for 20 years with various schemes for redevelopment coming to nothing. Part of the delay was caused by the huge cost of demolition, part by Lambeth Council not then wanting the kind of luxury riverside flats than now occupy the site, the 50 storey 594 ft St George Wharf Tower completed in 2014, as well as by some dodgy business dealings.

The cold store was used for various films as a dystopian urban location, was a dangerous gay cruising handily placed for the Market Tavern, as well as allegedly for “black magic, devil worship, sacrifices, and orgies” but was finally demolished in 1999.

*River Thames, Riverside Walk, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7k-15*

I had crossed the border from Lambeth to Wandsworth and beyond the cold store the Riverside Walk had been opened up by the council as far as the Thames Water pumping station at Heathwall and after a short diversion past that to Kirtling Street, some years later in 1996 becoming a part of the new Thames Path.

This view from the path across the river past a moored lighter is from its start and there are now new buildings on the riverbank at the left, but the rest remain. These buildings are on Grosvenor Road, Pimlico. You can see the tower of Westminster Cathedral in the distance and I think to its left is the rather ugly block which contains Pimlico station.

A large brick arch on the riverbank is the ancient mouth of the River Tyburn, long since culverted. Plans for the resurfacing of the river by the Tyburn Angling Society seem limited to Mayfair and not to extend to the Thames, though the chances of it happening are as close to zero as can be imagined.

*Battersea Power Station, River Thames, Riverside Walk, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-02*

The bend of the river here makes it look as if I was walking on water to take this picture, but my feet were firmly on dry land. Battersea Power Station has since then been given something of a facelift, with the removal of some of the more interesting features of the riverfront, as well as now being surrounded on several sides by large blocks of flats and being turned into a wasteful luxury shopping centre.

The pair of distant chimneys just to its right are Lots Road Power Station. The nearer bridge is Grosvenor Railway Bridge taking trains into Victoria Station, but Chelsea Bridge just upriver can also be seen clearly.

*Battersea Power Station, River Thames, Riverside Walk, Nine Elms, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-64*

Another view upstream from the riverside path, which shows all four chimneys of Battersea Power Station as well as the riverside path and some of the earlier flats built beside the river here, Elm Quay Court. This luxury flat development built in 1976-8 includes secure underground parking and a 47ft swimming pool, gym and sauna.

*Elm Quay Court, 30 Nine Elms Lane, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7l-54*

A view of the Elm Quay Court flats from the road. The new US Embassy was built opposite them. Neither building seems attractive to me. The best feature of the US Embassy is the moat which runs along only its north side, and the best feature of Elm Quay Court is the riverside walk, which enables the public to walk past it almost without seeing the building.

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

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

Palestine, Nine Elms and London – Feb 1st 2020

Three years ago on Saturday 1st February 2020 I went to London to photograph a protest against Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’ plans which, according to the BBC, “gives Mr Netanyahu all he wants – and offers Palestinians very little; a sort-of state that will be truncated, without proper sovereignty, surrounded by Israel’s territory and threaded between Jewish settlements.” When that finished I took a short walk along the Thames Path towards Battersea Power station before catching a bus back to Vauxhall for the train home.

Later in February I did quite a lot of walking and riding in buses and trains around London, and as in quite a few other months, gathered together some of the pictures I took on these journeys together with a link from the bottom of the page on My London Diary for the month.

Palestinians against Trump’s Deal – US Embassy, Nine Elms

Palestine, Nine Elms and London - Feb 1st 2020

Supporters of Palestine came to the US Embassy in Nine Elms in protest against Trump’s so-called peace plan, which they say aims to liquidate the Palestinian cause and minimise sovereignty for the Palestinian people across Palestine, marginalising them in isolated ghettos in a rigid implementation of the current apartheid regime.

The protest was supported by a wide range of organisations including the Palestinian Forum in Britain (PFB), the Palestinian Community Association in London, the General Union for Palestinian Students/British Branch, The Palestinian Youth Foundation in Britain “Olive” and Stop the war and supported by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Friends of Al-Aqsa (FoA) and the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB).

There were quite a few protesters of Palestinian heritage living in the UK, as well as many supporters from the wider British left at the protest.

A handful of some of the usual anti-Palestinian Zionists came to oppose the protest, shouting at the protesters. Police moved in to protect them when the protesters began shouting back and kept the two groups apart. There were also Jews present protesting on behalf of Palestine.

Among the protesters was one dressed as Saudi Prince Mohammad bin Salman,holding a bone saw, like that used to dismember Saudi dissident and journalist for The Washington Post Jamal Kashoggi by the team he sent to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on 2 October 2018. He posed with a man in a Trump mask who was handing him fistfuls of dollars to support the plan. There was also a giant inflatable of the Saudi prince, with large black horns.

There were a number of speeches supporting the Palestinian cause as well as a great deal of chanting against the Trump plan, which had no chance of being implemented but was largely a propaganda exercise to enhance Trump’s support among the Jewish population of the USA.

More pictures at Palestinians against Trump’s Deal.

Nine Elms

Nine Elms is one of the largest developments in Europe. The bank of the River Thames here was once crammed with wharves and full of varied industrial sites, but by the 1970s these had either closed or were about to close. At the end of the protest I took another short walk around the area.

In this area much of the land was taken up by railway yards and depots, but the area closer to the River Thames also had a jam factory and some paint and engineering works. and at the Vauxhall end, a giant cold store.

In 1971 the New Covent Garden Market began to move here from central London on Land that had formerly been a railway goods depots and an engine shed, and two markets, one for flowers and the larger for fruit and vegetables, south of the railway, opened for business in 1974. Both markets have been redeveloped since and are planned to move out to a site in Dagenham in the next few years.

The largest area north of the railway was occupied by Battersea Power Station, a relatively late-comer to the area. It occupied a site which had previously been a waterworks, taking water from the Thames. At its south end was a large Great Western Railway Goods Depot, and to the east a gas works. Another gas works occupied the site roughly where the US Embassy now stands.

In the nineteen-seventies there were a few new blocks of riverside flats but development of the area only really got into gear in this century and is still continuing. The power station, which finally closed in 1983 and lay derelict for some years, particularly after its roof was removed by an early development which failed, was only finally re-opened as an up-market shopping centretourist attraction with luxury flats at the end of 2022.

More pictures Nine Elms

London Images – February 2020

Most of these pictures come from several bus journeys from or to the station, from Waterloo Bridge, in Holborn and some in the City of London. Also a few from closer to my home in Staines and Laleham.

Some of you may like to try to identify these locations before you go to look at more in London Images on My London Diary, where captions reveal them.

Brandt and Battersea – 2023

Last Tuesday – 10th January 2023 – I went for a walk with a couple of friends, both photographers. The pictures here were all taken by me on our walk. We met at Tate Britain where the exhibition on Bill Brandt was entering its last few days – it finishes tomorrow, 15th January. We hadn’t bothered to go before as all three of us were very familiar with Brandt’s work – and had seen previous and larger and better exhibitions. I think both the others had heard him talking about his work, we had all watched him on film and all owned several of his books, had in various ways studied his work and taught about it. I’d also published some short pieces about him when I wrote about photography for a living. We didn’t really feel a need to go to another show, but it was free and it fitted in with a couple of other things we wanted to do.

While its good that the Tate was honouring one of Britain’s finest photographers, we all found the show disappointing, both for the rather odd selection of works and prints and for some of the writing on the wall. Much of Brandt’s best work was missing, and it was hard to see why some images were included, and some prints also seemed to be of rather poor quality. Possibly this show reflects the failure of almost all British museums in the past to take collecting photography seriously – or perhaps a lack of real appreciation of photography by the Tate.

Brandt began his work in an era when photographs were seldom put on walls for anything other than illustrative purposes – there was no art market in photography. His work was largely produced for book projects and for magazine commissions, and he made prints largely for the platemakers who would prepare the plates for printing. To see the real object of his work you have to look not at the ‘original prints’ but at their reproduction in books and magazines. The strongest point in this show was the glass cases in which some of these were situated. But while we were there few of the other visitors to the show paid them more than a passing glance, instead filing reverently around the spaced out prints on the wall, pausing to pay homage at each of them before moving to the next.

I found it a disappointing show, and if you missed it you didn’t miss much. Far better to spend your time on his 1977 book, Shadow of Light for an overall view of his work, still available second-hand at reasonable prices. And should you want to know more about the man and his influences (neither of which the Tate show concerned itself with) Paul Delany’s Bill Brandt – A Life provides more information than anyone could ever want.

We left the gallery, crossing Atterbury Road to examine Henry Moore’s Two Piece Reclining Figure No. 1 in a small courtyard of Chelsea College Of Art and Design before proceeding to pay a courtesy visit to the Morpeth Arms which proved more to our taste than the Tate Show.

Refreshed we made our way across the river to Vauxhall to meet the Thames Path, following this upriver to Battersea Power Station. Much building work is still going on, including the construction of the Thames ‘Super Sewer’ and there is a lack of signs to show the way in the area close to the power station, but soon we found a side entrance to the recently opened interior.

I’d visited and photographed the interior years ago when it was derelict and was interested to see what the architects had done with it. Basically it is now an upmarket shopping mall full of shops selling goods and services that might appeal to the idle rich and wealthy tourists. It also has a cinema, an expensive lift up one chimney to a viewing platform from which we have already seen countless similar views, and, perhaps the only useful thing so far as I was concerned, toilets.

The architects have retained the huge scale of the two turbine halls, but the higher areas of them are now cluttered with huge hanging mock strings of giant fairy lamps and baubles, which failed to appeal to me. It was only at one that an uncluttered wall of windows really took me back to the atmosphere of the original.

The earlier of the two turbine halls was remarkable for its art deco decorative details – the later hall plain and utilitarian. Although at least some of the deco detail has been retained (or recreated) it no longer seems to have the impact it had formerly, perhaps because do the much higher lighting levels, perhaps because of the hanging distractors. But it remains an impressive building.

I’d left my two younger but less active companions to rush around and see the whole building, going up as high as I could while they stayed lower down. By the time we found each other again they had seen enough and were fed up with the place, and we left to the riverside terrace, walking along to catch a bus on Queenstown Road. It was dusk on a dull and damp day and we made our way to a cheap meal at a rather cosy pub in Battersea for a glass or two of wine and a remarkably cheap meal before walking to Clapham Junction for our three different trains home.

July 19 Pictures

Most mornings when I sit down to write a post for >Re:PHOTO I start by searching on My London Diary for events I photographed on that particular day (or rather the day two or three ahead when I will schedule the post to appear.)

Occasionally there may be something else I feel moved to write about – some new development in photography, discovery about the history of photography, ethical debate or cataclysmic event – but these seem to come up less frequently than they used to, though I’m not entirely sure why this should be.

Perhaps it’s because I spend more time now looking at my own old work, digitising images I made on film in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and worrying about what will happen to all this work after my death and rather less on going out, taking new work and meeting other photographers. Covid meant that for a long period there were few exhibitions to go to, and I haven’t yet got back into the habit.

My bookshelves have long all been full and overcrowded and I seldom buy new books unless they are by personal friends, and have cancelled my subscription to most of those expensive magazines I could never bring myself to throw away – the shelves once allocated to them are also full. I’m beginning also to wonder about the future of this large library – whether to try and set up an on-line bookshop to sell it, or to try to find some worthy institution to gift it to.

Fortunately almost all of the posts in My London Diary give their date somewhere making it easy to locate the pictures I took on July 19 from around 1999 until 2021 using the Freefind search box on many of the site’s pages. Though in the early years of this period when I was still using film there were many events that didn’t make the site as I hadn’t digitised them, and the search somehow misses the occasional thing.

But searching for ’19 Jul’ and ’19th July turns up events in 2008, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2019 and I open the pages from those years and look through them to see what I photographed on those days. This gives me a choice of things to write about, either picking one or two of the twelve events, or about all those I did on a particular day.

So how do I choose? Perhaps I eliminate some topics I know I’ve already written about too often or too recently. I don’t want to rant yet another time – at least for a while – on Israel’s attacks on Gaza and seasonal events like the Swan Upping which happen on a particular day of the week perhaps don’t merit more than one post through the 7 dates on which they can occur.

*Ecuadorians support ‘Citizen Revolution’ 2015*

Then there are some events I have very little to say about and others where I think the photographs are rather run-of-the-mill. Very occasionally some where what I would like to say might be legally unwise.

10 years since Iran hanged gay teenagers 2015

Today I can’t make up my mind, so here I’ve decided to post a single picture from each of the twelve, together with a caption that links to the post.

*Festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel 2015*

*Grenfell survivors tell Council “Resign now!” 2017*

So you can choose if you want to read more about any of them – there are more pictures and text about them which I wrote at the time I took them on My London Diary.

Pimlico & Battersea 1988

Railway Bridge, River Thames, Battersea Power Station, Grosvenor Rd, Pimlico, Westminster, 1988 88-5f-62-positive_2400 — *Railway Bridge, River Thames, Battersea Power Station, Grosvenor Rd, Pimlico, Westminster, 1988 88-5f-62*

These seven pictures all come from the same film I took at the end of a fairly long day’s walk around Chelsea on Sunday 8th May 1988 which had taken me down to the Thames on Grosvenor Road. I spent some time wandering around on the road and also where it was possible to get onto the riverbank, though most was fenced off.

Railway Bridge, River Thames, Battersea Power Station, Grosvenor Rd, Pimlico, Westminster, 198888-5f-64-positive_2400 — *Railway Bridge, River Thames, Battersea Power Station, Grosvenor Rd, Pimlico, Westminster, 19888 8-5f-64*

The views today are rather different, although the railway bridge carrying the main line to and from Victoria is still much the same. In the pictures you can see some work being carried on in Battersea Power Station, but now new flats hide most of the building apart from the chimneys from here, and the gas works have completely gone.

Railway Bridge, River Thames, Battersea Power Station, Grosvenor Rd, Pimlico, Westminster, 1988 88-5f-51-positive_2400 — *Railway Bridge, River Thames, Battersea Power Station, Grosvenor Rd, Pimlico, Westminster, 1988 88-5f-51*

You may still see lighters moored in the river here, but I think this rather odd structure close to the mouth of the vestigial Grosvenor Canal here has gone. I wasn’t absolutely sure why there was this wooden platform with what looked to me like small dog-kennels on it, but perhaps as the rope shows they were simply for mooring barges waiting to use the canal. Technically I think this is a dolphin, as the picture below shows.

Chelsea Bridge, River Thames,Grosvenor Rd, Westminster, 198888-5f-52-positive_2400 — *Chelsea Bridge, River Thames,Grosvenor Rd, Westminster, 1988 88-5f-52*

The first bridge here was built in 1858 when Chelsea Embankment was being built and was a suspension bridge intended to give the large population of Pimlico access to the new Battersea Park – if they could afford the toll – though it was made free on Sundays. It was then called Victoria Bridge, named like the station after the Queen. It became even less popular after Albert Bridge was built at the other end of the park in 1873. It was bought by the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1877 and they abolished the tolls in 1979. It was a narrow bridge and found to be structurally unsound, so fearing it might embarass the Queen if it collapsed they renamed it Chelsea Bridge. It didn’t collapse and apparently took several years to demolish when they decided to replace it with the current bridge which opened in 1937.

As the picture shows, the main cables are attached to the end of the bridge rather than on solid ground on the banks, and it was the first such ‘self-anchored’ suspension bridge in Britain. The LCC couldn’t afford to fund the entire cost and the Ministry of Transport only agreed to stand 60% oof the cost on the condition that all the materials used came from the British Empire.

When Billy Strayhorn named his most famous composition ‘Chelsea Bridge’ it was not this structure that he had in mind, but something more ethereal, probably Whistler’s Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge.

Grosvenor Canal, entrance, River Thames, Pimlico, Westminster, 1988 88-5f-53-positive_2400 — Grosvenor Canal, entrance, River Thames, Pimlico, Westminster, 1988 88-5f-53

I wrote at some length in a previous post about the Grosvenor Canal, London’s last working canal, still in use when I took this picture. You can see part of one of the barges still in use to carry Westminster’s rubbish downriver through the bridge.

Chelsea Bridge, River Thames, Battersea Power Station, Chelsea Embankment, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5f-43-positive_2400 — *Chelsea Bridge, River Thames, Battersea Power Station, Chelsea Embankment, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5f-43*

The pictures here (and on Flickr) are from around 20 exposures I made on this small area of riverside, though many of the others are very similar. There were very few boats around moving on the river at the time.

Pagoda, Battersea Park, River Thames, Chelsea Embankment, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5f-34-positive_2400 — *Pagoda, Battersea Park, River Thames, Chelsea Embankment, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5f-34*

I walked upriver along Chelsea Embankment on my way to catch a bus across Battersea Bridge to take me to Clapham Junction for the train home. On my way I took a few pictures of the impressive late-Victorian houses – which haven’t made it to my Flickr album – and four pictures across the river of the Battersea Park Peace Pagoda, this one of which has. I’m not sure about the framing and I think it would perhaps be better in a square format but I felt it had a suitably Japanese feel to it.

*Reverend Gyoro Nagase at Hiroshima Day, Tavistock Square, 2019*

After the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by US atom bombs in August 1945, Nichidatsu Fuji who had in 1917 founded the Japanese Buddhist movement, Nipponzan Myohoji, in 1947 decided they would set up Peace Pagodas around the world to promote peace and non-violence. The first opened in Japan in 1954 and the London Peace Pagoda was built by Nipponzan Myohoji monks and opened in 1985, shortly after Nichidatsu Fuji died aged 100. Since 1978 it has been looked after by Reverend Gyoro Nagase who I have met and photographed at many events calling for peace. There are also Peace Pagodas in Milton Keynes and Birmingham among over 80 around the world.

Click on any of the black and white images to go to a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos from where you can browse to other images.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

Nine Elms from across the Thames

I sometimes wonder how many times I have photographed Battersea Power Station over the years. I still look out of the window of my train to see it in the distance, and when I’m sitting on the top deck of a bus going over Vauxhall Bridge, on my way to or from the station.

Battersea Power Station, from Pimlico, Westminster,1987 87-8a-11-positive_2400

Occasionally I’ll walk across Vauxhall Bridge too, perhaps on my way to the Tate Gallery or the Home Office, and see it in the distance, often taking a picture. The riverside walk from Vauxhall Bridge upstream on the Surrey bank is one I’ve walked along many times, open years before we had a Thames Path, which it now forms a short part of. Back in 1977 when I first began walking much beside the Thames, the proposed long-distance path – then called the Thames Walk – only began a few miles upstream at Putney.

Locking Piece, Henry Moore, sculpture, Vauxhall Bridge, Vauxhall, from Millbank, Westminster, 1987 87-8b-56-positive_2400 — Henry Moore’s ‘Locking Piece’, Vauxhall Bridge, Nine Elms Cold Store and Market Towers

Recently, with the US Embassy having moved to Nine Elms, I have another reason to walk beside the river here, on my way to photograph protests there, or, more often when the light is so good that I can’t stop myself from making a little detour on my way home from one. But at the moment, this is just wishful thinking, as I’m still staying home and away from London and Covid-19.

Nine Elms, River Thames, from Pimlico, Westminster, 1987 87-8a-16-positive_2400

But even in earlier days, my trips along the Middlesex bank here were rare. There was back in the 1980s relatively little riverside path, a little chance to get away from the busy Grosvenor Rd, though a short stretch of riverside path became available some time after the completion of Nick Lacey’s Crown Wharf in 1983.

Bolton & Fairhead Ltd, Rochester Wharf, Grosvenor Rd, Pimlico, Westminster, 1987 87-8b-02-positive_2400

River Thames, Nine Elms, Battersea, from Pimlico, Westminster, 1987 87-8b-01-positive_2400

William Huskisson, memorial, Pimlico Gardens, Grosvenor Rd, Pimlico, Westminster, 1987 87-8a-15-positive_2400

Further on the small Pimlico Garden opens on to the riverside and also has a memorial to William Huskisson, the first widely reported victim of a railway accident, who was killed when he got down from the special train carrying the the Duke of Wellington and his guests on the official opening of the Liverpool and Manchester railway which had stopped at Parkside station in the middle of the line. He got down from the train to speak with the duke, ignoring the warnings of the railway company, and was hit and fatally injured by George Stephenson’s famous engine ‘Rocket’ pulling a train in the opposite direction.

River Thames, Gravel Wharf, Nine Elms, from Pimlico, Westminster, 1987 87-8a-24-positive_2400

Closer to the power station on the opposite bank, Grosvenor Rd runs beside the riverside and gives good view of the power station. A little downstream from it was a small gravel wharf, where until some time in this century a small ship came daily on the tide with shingle from the estuary. On one walk a few years ago as I photographed the ship I had a talk with the captain who, with his mate brought the ship up the river; I regret I failed to make a portrait of him. He told me then that this would be one of his last trips as the wharf was to close.

River Thames, Gravel Wharf, Nine Elms, from Pimlico, Westminster, 1987 87-8a-21-positive_2400

Battersea Power Station, from Pimlico, Westminster,1987 87-8a-22-positive_2400

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.