River Thames, St Mary’s, Church Rd, Chelsea Harbour & A Bridge continues my walk on Friday 4th August 1989 in Battersea from the previous post, Battersea Park, Flour Mill and Somerset Estate. The walk began with Council flats, Piles of Bricks, A House Hospital and Brasserie.
The churchyard of St Mary’s Church is on the riverside and back in 1989 was the first place I could access the river in Battersea upstream of Battersea Bridge. The churchyard was closed for public burials in 1854.
The moorings here look rather crowded. At Spring Tides the river comes into the churchyard at high tide and I think people living on the houseboats here would need wellingtons, but the tide was low when I made this picture. On the west side of the churchyard is a slipway and past that was Church Wharf, part of Battersea Wharf. Immediately on the corner of the slipway until fairly recently was the Old Swan pub. Once a solid Victorian building it had been replaced in the 1960s by a strange building with much wooden planking and large windows which had become a punk venue in the 70s before closing, being squatted, and becoming derelict and then perhaps conveniently burning down. The block of expensive riverside flats which replaced the pub is named Old Swan Wharf.
St Mary’s Church is a real gem, Grade I listed, built in 1775-77, architect Joseph Discon, though the painted glass in its East Window is said to date from 1631, attributed to Bernard van Linge and transferred from the previous church building on this site. The stonework around this window is even older, dating from 1379 when the church was owned by Westminster Abbey and they sent one of their masons over for the job.
Bomb damage in the 1940s gave the then vicar the chance to smash some of the “very bad Victorian stained glass” which made the interior gloomy and there are now four modern stained glass windows. One commemorates William Blake who was married here in 1842 and another J M W Turner who was rowed across from his Chelsea house each day and sat at the vestry window to paint his riverscapes. The famous 18th century botanist William Curtis is commemorated in the third, while the fourth is for the US “archetypal traitor” General Benedict Arnold, given by an American donor.
At the extreme right of this picture is a sign pointing to the riverside walk which began next to the slipway beside the church and in the centre is the rather ugly riverside development of Valiant House, in 1971 one of the earlier blocks of luxury riverside flats. The Survey of London quotes it being described as ‘luxurious and dismal, a high security complex which afforded views of the river as well as the rubbish tips on Chelsea
Reach’. It took its name from the former concrete works on part of the site at Valiant Wharf, and perhaps the only mitigating grace of the development was that it provided a narrow riverside walkway, though a little narrow.
The houses at left, probably mainly Victorian with various alterations now look rather different but the facades along the street remain.
A few yards along the street with an attractive curve leading to Battersea Square the view here seems little changed now. You can see the Grade II listed Raven (no longer a Pub) just to the left of the traffic light.
The view across the river to Chelsea Harbour. Planning permission was granted for this huge riverside development in 1986 and building proceeded rapidly. By 1989 from across the river it seemed complete and very different to what Sands End would have looked like when Nell Gwyn lived here or when it was a coal dock for the gas works and railways. The old coal dock, became a somewhat shorter marina. The 18 storey tower was erected at a rapid pace, with at one point gaining a new floor every 4 days, and was topped out in six months.
The 310 luxury flats in the new development were marketed with prices starting at around £2 million per property and have 24 hour security patrols and porterage.
Being towed by a tug upriver are empty containers which have carried London’s rubbish away downstream and are now returning upstream to the refuse depot at Wandsworth for refilling with the barge sitting considerably higher in the water. I think this general waste now mainly goes for incineration at Crossness.
Battersea Railway Bridge was built in 1863 and has been strengthened and refurbished in 1969 and in 1992 after I made this picture.
It provides one of relatively few links between railways south of the Thames and those to the north and is used by Overground and mainline trains running between Kensington Olympia (and points north) and Clapham Junction. It is also used by goods traffic which could use Battersea’s extensive rail network to run almost anywhere in the South.
The stretch of walkway by the river leading here through the narrow Vicarage Gardens next to Vicarage Crescent had been opened up some years earlier. But there was still little access to the river beyond the railway bridge. Since then the riverside path now continues through one of the railway arches.
There are plans for a foot and cycle bridge across the Thames next to the railway bridge, but although a start has been made on this project and planning permission was given by both Wandsworth and Hammersmith & Fulham in 2013 I think funding remains a problem; but Wikipedia states ‘The forecast opening date is 2025, taking 18 months to build and audit.’
More on my walk in August 1989 in a later post.
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