Carbuncle Cup | >Re-PHOTO

Liverpool Road, Highbury Corner & Caledonian Rd continues my walk in Islington on Sunday 15th October 1989 which began with the post Memorials, Eros and More. The previous post was Shops, a Poly, Electricity, Church & Library.

*Samuel Lewis buildings, Samuel Lewis Housing Trust, Liverpool Rd, Islington, 1989 89-10h-63*

Samuel Lewis was born in Birmingham in 1837, started work at 13 selling steel pens, then opened a jewellers shop before becoming the most fashionable money-lender of his day. When he died in 1901 he left £2.6 million to his wife, with over £1 million going to charity on her death.

£670,000 of this – equivalent to around £30 million today – went to a charitable trust to provide housing for the poor, and these flats are on the first of eight large estates they built.

This estate was built in 1909-10 for the Samuel Lewis Trust, architects Charles Sampson Joseph, (1872-1948), Charles James Smithem and Ernest Martin Joseph (1877-1960) who worked as Joseph & Smithem until 1916. The two Joseph brothers were sons of Nathan Solomon Joseph (1834-1909) who as well as building many synagogues was the leading designer of social housing as architect for the Guiness Trust and the Four per Cent Industrial Dwellings Company and worked also for the LCC and other London councils and he may also have contributed to the designs for these buildings.

*Hampton Court, Upper St, Islington, 1989 89-10h-41*

I was amused by the contrast between this street and its namesake palace on the River Thames. This Hampton Court is a short street leading west from Upper Street at Highbury Corner, leading to Swan Yard, which is at the end of the street in my picture.

On the left wall is a sign for J Barrett & Sons, but I can’t make out what their business was at 250 Upper St, now a Starbucks. The posters on the wall at right are for a Socialist Party Public Meeting and I think we have four pictures of Maggie Thatcher; I can’t quite read the text but I’m sure it wasn’t complimentary.

The tall building on the right at the end of the street is now a printers and I think probably was when I made this picture. Those to the right of it have been replaced and I think those on the left considerably refurbished. Those in Swan Yard at the end of the street are still there but have lost their white paint.

I think Highbury Studios, at 15 Swan Yard and most other workshops on the street have been converted to residential or office use and there is now a new building at the southern end of the street, recently converted into coworking office space with a communal roof terrace overlooking Laycock Green, an urban green open space.

Swan Yard and the southern side of Hampton Court are included in the Upper Street (North) conservation area.

*Mallett, Porter & Dowd, North London Engineering Works, 465, Caledonian Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10h-33*

This warehouse and works was built in 1874. Its conversion to student housing for University College London was awarded the Carbuncle Cup for the ugliest building of 2013 from Building Design magazine. The red brick building was demolished with its frontage retained a short distance in front of a a new multicoloured building. The judges commented “The original frontage has been retained in a cynical gesture towards preservation. But its failings go deeper,” and said “This is a building that the jury struggled to see as remotely fit for human occupation.” The rooms lack adequate daylight, give little privacy and those behind the facade have no view outside. Islington council had refused planning permission for the treatment of this locally listed building but were overruled.

*Hubbards for Cupboards, 453, Caledonian Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10h-35*

Those musical among you can sing “We’re Hub-bords Cup-boards, We’re Hub-bords Cup-boards, We’re go-ing to fight, fight, fight – to get your of-fice right” to the tune shown on this shop, Hubbards for Cupboards Tables & Chairs, at Hubbards Corner on Caledonian Rd. 453 Caledonian Rd on the north corner with Market Road is now a large block of flats with a natural food shop at ground level.

*Caledonian Road Methodist Church, Caledonian Rd, Market Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10h-36*

Built in an Italianate style in 1870 as a Primitive Methodist Chapel, architects T & W Stone, it became Caledonian Road Methodist church in 1932 and is still in use. It was restored in 1953 and the exterior cleaned in 1980. Grade II listed.

*Market Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10h-24*

This building, at 18 Market Road opposite the bus stop at Market Road Gardens and the adventure playground was demolished between 2008 and 2012. Peter Darley in The Journal of the Islington Archaeology & History Society says it was a tripe factory when Czech refugge Otto Fischel bought it in the 1950s and made it Otaco Ltd, plastic injection moulders. His wife, artist Käthe Strenitz was fascinated with industrial London and produced many fine pictures.

You can read more in Jane’s London about J. L. Henson tripe dealer whose name was originally on the panel where E.Zee is in my picture. But the elephants and E. Zee remain unaccounted for, but were perhaps linked in some way with the playground opposite. Though I have a nagging feeling that somewhere in the past I have written more about them.

A private limited company EZEE Ltd, Company number 02564140, was incorporated in 1990, had its registered office for a year in 1992-3 at 14-18 Market Rd. Its business was given as Artistic & literary creation etc. It last filed annual returns in 1991 and was finally dissolved in 2015.

My walk continued and there will be another post shortly.

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Wednesday 24th September 2014 saw one of the more interesting protests in the long-running series by Class War at the tower block of One Commercial Street which has a plush foyer with a 24hr concierge for the residents of the expensive private flats in the block on Aldgate High St, but social housing tenants in the same block are denied entry here and have to use a small door into an empty passage from an alley at the side of the building.

Developers of new housing in London are generally required to provide a small proportion of social housing in their schemes, though they often find legal ways to reduce or even eliminate this, either by building separate social housing blocks or paying others to do so, or simply by pleading (often misleadingly) they cannot make high enough profits.

Boris Johnson when London Mayor said he would discourage the use of separate entrances for social housing tenants and Sadiq Khan made clear that there should be a “tenure blind” approach with affordable homes and private homes having entrances that were not distinguishable by quality, type, or location with the goal of “social equality and dignity“.

But despite these words, new developments continue to feature separate doors in what activists describe as “social apartheid”. And in July 2014, Class War began a series of weekly pickets outside the ‘Rich Door’ in a campaign to publicise and hopefully end the practice.

Over the following months I followed their campaign, photographing around 30 of their protests, missing only two when I was out of London. As well as putting pictures on My London Diary and elsewhere on the web I also in 2015 published a ‘zine’ ‘Class War – Rich Door, Poor Door‘ (ISBN 978-1-909363-14-4) packed with pictures from the pickets(still available.)

*Jane Nicholl enters with the Class War Women’s Death Brigade Banner rolled up*

The protests certainly added to the debate about the practice and exposed some of the lies of the developers, but I think there are still separate and very different doors for rich and poor at this and many other of London’s new developments. The protests may also have speeded the decision of the developer Redrow to sell the building to new owners Hondo Enterprises. There were also some minor victories, with the alley getting cleaned up and new lighting installed.

*Ian Bone holds up a framed notice from the reception desk as he speaks*

Since then the building, which in 2014 was nominated for the ‘Carbuncle Cup’, has changed its name to ‘The Relay Building’ and there has been considerable remodelling of the ‘rich door’ which now has the separate name of the Crawford Building. The flats served by the ‘poor door’ are called the Houblon Appartments. Despite claims by Redrow that the two groups of flats were internally quite separate I was taken from the rich part and out of the poor door by one of the residents who told me she often took her dog out for a walk that way.

*Residents walk in to the flats past the protesters*

There were no police in evidence as Class War arrived on 24th September and began their picket. When the building manager opened the door to let a resident out protesters held the door open and the manager was unable to close it. He made the mistake of walking away, and several people then walked in with a Class War banner. Others from Class War followed them and made themselves at home in the large foyer.

*Ian Bone stands next to the desk with its vase of flowers*

Ian Bone picked up Redrow’s Gold Award certificate from the concierge desk and began talking about it and the separate doors to the building, and about the notice describing the concierge service, comparing this foyer to the bare entrance to the social housing flats, and others too spoke.

*I turned after hearing a crash and saw the flowers had gone*

Ian was waving his walking stick around as I took pictures and I was turned away from him when I heard a crash, and I’d sensed a movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned around and saw that the vase of flowers which had been at the corner of the desk was no longer there. I couldn’t be sure whether Ian had knocked them off deliberately or by accident, though I thought the latter unlikely.

*Two officers came, and one went to talk to the building manager*

Eventually the police arrived and walked in talking with the protesters and the building manager and asking the protesters to leave. I went out when the building manager requested the protesters to go outside and joined the others who had stayed protesting and watching from outside. More police came and eventually those inside came out and the protest continued there, with several more speeches including a former local resident who was complaining he could no longer live in the area as it had become too expensive.

After continuing their protest outside for a while, Class War decided it was time to leave and rolled up their banners and began to move away. A woman police officer then stood in Ian Bone’s way and stopped him leaving. More officers came to surround him and he was led away to a waiting police van which then drove away.

*A police officer stops Ian Bone as he was leaving*

The following week Class War were back again at the Rich Door and I learnt that Ian Bone had been told by police that his breaking the vase had been recorded on CCTV and had then agreed to pay £70 in compensation. No charges had been brought, probably because Redrow wanted to avoid publicity. But Class War had brought with them two very tacky looking vases with flowers to try to give to the building manager.

*Ian Bone is briefly searched before being put in the van and driven away*

More at Class War Occupy Rich Door

Tag: Carbuncle Cup

Liverpool Road, Highbury Corner & Caledonian Rd – 1989