Re-photo

This is another post on my walk on 18th December 1988; the previous post was Pepys Road and Nunhead Cemetery.

GH Metals is I think still operating in Evelina Rd, although its premises are now covered by graffiti and there are no prices on the list of metals still above the shopfront. Their web site states the family have run successful scrap metal yards all over South London and in Peckham since 1968.

Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World was the title of a novel by Fanny Burney published in 1778 but I suspect the road like the Evelina London Children’s Hospital was named after the English wife of the wealthy Austrian Baron, Ferdinand de Rothschild – she died in 1866, probably around the time the street began to be built up.

From Evelina Road I went up St Mary’s Road, photographing the strangely squat St Mary Magdalene Church (not digitised) , described on the Twentieth Century Society’s web site as “a bold and innovative 1960s landmark” but sadly demolished by the Church of England and replaced by a building “of no architectural merit”. Designed by Potter and Hare it was built in 1961-2 and demolished in 2010.

Sassoon House designed in an International Modernist style by Maxwell Fry is Grade II listed and was built as a part of the Peckham project around the neighbouring Pioneer Health Centre in 1934 to provide high quality social housing. The Sassoon family were one of the wealthiest in the world, known as the “Rothschilds of the East“ amd when R E Sassoon, the amateur jockey son of the philanthropist Mozelle Sassoon, was killed steeplechasing in 1933 his mother commissioned this block in his memory.

I’ve only digitised one of the six frames I exposed on Queens Road, where there are several listed buildings on the corner and just to the west of St Mary’s Rd. This is Grade II listed as ‘QUEEN’S ROAD (South side) Nos.156 and St Mary’s Court (No.158)’ and the houses date from around 1845.

Montpelier Road (single L) was apparently named in 1875 after Montpellier in France (2Ls) which was a fashionable resort at the time and is now the seventh or eighth largest city in France. As well as one of the oldest universities in the world with an historic centre and the famous the Promenade du Peyrou from which you can on a clear day see the Meditteranean, Montpellier was also well-known for its wine. Montpelier Road has none of these and previously the road had been called Wellington Villas. It may have taken the name from the nearby Montpelier Tavern in Choumert Road, which although in a more modern building probably dates back earlier.

This unusual terrace of houses is fairly typical of most of the west side of the street which ends at Meeting House Lane.Those further up the street are a little more decorated.

I walked back along Queen’s Road towards New Cross where there is now no trace of the building at No 3, though these is still a garage workshop, now 3a. But the name that had attracted my attention has gone. I imagine it offered the service of customising cars rather than any interest in the customs and traditions of the city. I thought it might make a good title picture.

I made a single exposure while walking north up Brocklehurst Street (not digitised) showing the window detailon this long street of identical houses, probably pressing the shutter out of boredom, and then turned into Cold Blow Lane, where there are the solid brick piers of a dismantled railway bridge leading to a narrow tunnel still takes the road under the railway, followed by a newer brodge under more lines with a slightly wider roadway underneath.

It was a rather scary walk underneath, though not as scary as it might be had it been a match day at the Millwall stadium nearby – still then at the Old Den in Cold Blow Lane.

Juno Way was between the railway bridges over Coldblow Lane, but is now closed off at this southern end by a continuous fence between the bridges and can only be entered from Surrey Canal Road.

The building with the tower carrying the estate name was once the Mazawatee Tea factory, purpose built for them in 1901 when they were the largest tea company in the world. As well as tea they also processed coffee, cocoa, cakes, sweets and chocolates here and doubtless some raw materials would have come here on the Surrey canal from the London docks. It employed up to 2000 people but was heavily damaged by wartime bombing. The name is from the Hindi ‘Maza’ – pleasure – and the Sinhalese ‘Wattee’ – garden – and thus reflects two of the areas from which they brought tea. It was the most advertised brand in the UK until the Second World War.

The tower building was renovated from a complete shell in 2011 and ‘Unit 13’ now houses 12 self-contained studios with high ceilings and good natural light, including the 2300 square foot Tea Room Studio and a number of smaller spaces on the top floor.

I still had a little way to go on my walk and a few more pictures – I’ll post the final instalment of this walk later.