Deptford Creek | >Re-PHOTO

NHS at 65, Lewisham & the DLR – 2013

NHS at 65, Lewisham & the DLR: Friday 5th July 2013 was the 65th anniversary of the founding of our National Health Service and I photographed three events connected with this, two in Westminster and one opposite Lewisham Hospital where campaigners were fighting to keep services. And on the way back from Lewisham I took some pictures though the window of the DLR train, mainly as we went past Deptford Creek.

The National Health Action Party was a publicity stunt and single issue parties such as this are never likely to make much widespread impact on British politics. But given the strength of the recent Labour rebellion over Starmer’s attack on the disabled I wonder if a new left of centre political party might result in a radical change in our political system, with possibly a significant number of Labour MPs deserting the sinking ship in favour of a party which represents traditional Labour values. We could then have two different parties fighting out the next election.

NHS 65: GMB – Westminster

The GMB trade union came with three vintage ambulances to protest outside Parliament where trade unionists in vintage ambulance uniforms posed with MPs including Dennis Skinner and Sadiq Khan warning that the NHS is at risk.

I’m afraid I’ve forgotten who the other MPs were, but you can see a couple more in the pictures on My London Diary I took as the photographer for the GMB posed and photographed them. I have a personal antipathy to posing people, though I might occasionally deliberately attract their attention and even very occasionally ask them to keep still or look at me. But generally I see my role as recording what is happening rather than directing it. And here what was happening was that people were being photographed.

Later I went with them (and the ambulances) as they took 65th Birthday cards for the NHS, with the message inside “Do Not Pension Off Our NHS’ to the Ministry of Health, then still in Richmond House on Whitehall.

More at NHS 65: GMB.

NHS 65: Lewisham Hospital

In the memorial garden opposite the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign were holding a lunchtime party to celebrate the 65th Birthday of the NHS, and as a part of their campaign to keep this busy, successful and much needed hospital open.

The plans for its closure were not related to the hospital’s performance in any way but because the health authority needed to make drastic cuts to meet the disastrous PFI debts of a neighbouring hospital.

There had been a massive community campaign to save vital NHS services at the hospital, backed by “Patients, NHS staff, Lewisham Council, MPs, schools, pensioners, families, businesses, faith groups, charities, unions, students and health campaigners” – the whole community including the Millwall Football Club.

Later at the end of July 2013 the High Court ruled in favour of the Judicial Reviews by the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign and Lewisham Council and quashed the Government’s closure plans. And ten years later in July 2023 on the 75th anniversary of the founding of the NHS a newly engraved community bench was unveiled to celebrate the victory. I’m sorry I wasn’t present to record that occasion.

More at NHS 65: Lewisham Hospital.

DLR Views – Deptford-Canary Wharf

I decided to travel back from Lewisham into central London by taking the DLR to Canary Wharf where I could change to the Jubilee Line because I could try to take some pictures from the train, particularly on the section where the viaduct goes alongside and over Deptford Creek.

There are many problems in taking pictures from trains. Finding a reasonably clean window is the first, and avoiding reflections another. It was easier back in the 1970s when there were windows you could pull down and lean out! And now apparently AI can remove reflections, though I’ve yet to try it.

DLR Views

NHS 65: Rally & Camarathon – Westminster

On the 65th Birthday of the NHS, Dr Clive Peedell began a 65 mile ultramarathon to David Cameron’s Witney constituency to bury the NHS coffin and launch the National Health Action Party plan by doctors and health professionals to revive the NHS.

Dr Clive Peedell posed in a Cameron mask with the coffin and wreath and had come with a small group of supporters, including one wearing a mask of his coalition partner Nick Clegg. Campaigners accuse both of deliberately running down our NHS, with more and more NHS services being delivered by private healthcare companies.

After posing in front of the Ministry of Health, the campaigners crossed Whitehall to stand in front of the gates of Downing St before processing behind the coffin to Parliament for more pictures, ending with some street theatre involving severed hands and speeches by several distnguished health professions including the Chair of the Royal College of GPs in Old Palace Yard.

I left before Dr Peedell and two others set off on his long run – though I’m sure others would be carrying the wreath and coffin. The event had clearly been set up to attract the media, but received little publicity.

On My London Diary you can read a long statement by Dr Peedell about how the “2012 Health and Social Care Act, will result in the NHS being increasingly dismantled and privatised” with the Labour Party whose “previous pro-market, pro-privatisation reforms, actually set the platform for the current changes” had failed to sufficiently oppose. Health professionals had “formed the National Health Action Party to raise awareness and inform the public about what is happening to their NHS” and had today “set out our own 10 point plan to reinstate, protect and improve the NHS“.

Much more on My London Diary at NHS 65: Rally & Camarathon.

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Deptford & Greenwich – 2005

Deptford & Greenwich: Some pictures from two bike rides in April 2005, the second cut rather short by a puncture, around one of my favourite areas of London, mainly along the southern bank of the River Thames. The area has changed fairly dramatically in recent years with new blocks of riverside flats replacing riverside industry, much of which had already ceased work by 2005. I first photographed here around 1980 and it still now makes an interesting walk (or ride) and I’ve done most or all of it a few times since 2005.

As usual I’ll post a slightly amended version of what I wrote at the time on My London Diary together with links to that site which has some more pictures. But I didn’t write anything about the actual pictures except the captions.

It was a fine sunny day on Thursday 21 April 2005 and I put my Brompton folding bike on the train to Waterloo, then cycled east from there to Deptford and Geenwich, taking another trip along one of my favourite riverside paths around the Greenwich Peninsula.

North Greenwich is still interesting, although the area by the Dome is now rather bleak. Time went surprisingly quickly, and I had only got just past the Dome when it was time to make my way back.

Just over a week later I tried to take up the ride from where I left off, but only made it as far as the footbridge over Deptford Creek, when I heard a loud bang as my rear tyre punctured. I should have stopped, mended the puncture and gone on, but I couldn’t face it.

I wheeled the bike to Greenwich station, got on the train and came home. One of my few gripes about the Brompton is that mending punctures is a bit of a pain; the small tyres are hard to take off and even harder to replace, and if you want to take the rear wheel off, it is a rather tricky business that I’ve yet to master. I have tyres with kevlar inserts that are supposed to be puncture-resistant, but they don’t seem very effective.

*Canary Wharf and River Thames from North Greenwich, London*

After I’d arrived home and had a cup of coffee, the puncture turned out to be a straightforward job.

*Ship breaker’s yard, North Greenwich, London, April 2005*

*St Pauls, Deptford, London built by Thomas Archer in 1713*

More pictures on My London Diary
From April 21st 2005
From April 29th 2005

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A Day Out in Deptford – 2018

A Day Out in Deptford: On Saturday 29th September I had decided to go on the Deptford Art & Gentrification Walk, part of the Deptford X Festival, and Deptford Aint Avinnit, an art crawl organised by ART&CRITIQUE. This was the second such walk, following on from an earlier event in May 2018.

Over the afternoon we visited community spaces, galleries, studios, landmarks, waterways, green spaces and new developments on a guided walk through the street with a series of discussions on the relationship between art and gentrification and the huge changes that are currently sweeping through Deptford.

As I wrote in My London Diary in 2018, “The walk took place because of the continuing struggle with Lewisham Council over their plans to build on the 20-year old community run Old Tidemill Garden, the adjoining council flats, Reginald House, and Tidemill Primary School, which closed in 2012.”

“Local residents, including those whose homes in Reginald House are threatened with demolition have opposed the plans, and at the end of August a group of them had occupied the Old Tidemill Garden.”

The development would mean the loss of environmentally valuable green space but more importantly would be a part of the social cleansing of London which Lewisham, like other London Labour dominated councils are taking part in, demolishing council housing at social rents largely by private housing.

“The site was to be developed by Peabody with 209 housing units, 51 for sale at market prices, 41 in shared ownership schemes (which require relatively high incomes) and 109 to be let at London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s London Affordable Rent, something like 65% higher than current Lewisham council rents. As well as paying much higher rents, tenants under this scheme will have for less security of tenure.“

The residents group had put forward alternative plans which suggested retaining the Tidemill Garden and council flats and building at higher density on the redundant school site to create a similar number of housing units, but the council refused to consider these and terminated the community lease on the gardens on 29th August – when residents squatted them.

“The garden was established in 1997 with the aid of Groundwork, the London Development Agency, the Foundation for Sport & Arts, Mowlem plc, Lewisham College and Lewisham Council, and much of the work on it was carried out by parents and children from Tideway Primary. It now includes 74 well-established trees and has been shown to improve air quality in the local area.”

The garden was where we had the longest discussion on the tour, but there were plenty of other places where we stopped to discuss what was happening, making it an interesting afternoon.

It was a fine day and I decided to go to Deptford a couple of hours early to take a walk around some of the parts that were not included on the tour. I’d first photographed Deptford in 1979 and took with me a copy of my book Deptford to Woolwich 1979-85.

Back in the early 1980s much of Deptford was a very different place, with industry around the Creek and Deptford Power Station. Almost all of that has now gone, replaced by tall flats including much student housing and the Laban Dance Centre. On the tour we visited some of the former industrial buildings which are now artists studios and galleries. On part of the tour I was able to show pictures of what some parts of Deptford looked like before the changes.

The many pictures on My London Diary are in three posts, links below. Deptford Walk contains pictures from my own unaccompanied walk before the art crawl. Deptford Art & Gentrification Walk has my pictures taken during the walk. A third post, Deptford Panoramas, has extreme wide-angle views taken during both walks. These have the normal aspect ration of 1.5:1, but an extreme angle of both horizontal and vertical view.

The pictures show many aspects of Deptford, still a vibrant area of London, though rapidly changing. The Tidemill Garden is now built on, Deptford Cinema closed in 2020 but has a number of ongoing projects, the High Street market was still busy last time I was there, and the Dog and Bell serves a fine pint.

Deptford Panoramas
Deptford Art & Gentrification Walk
Deptford Walk

XR, Hong Kong, Animal Rights & London – 2019

XR, Hong Kong, Animal Rights & London – 2019 Three years ago today, on Saturday 17th August I made a few journeys around London to photograph protests in Greenwich by Extinction Rebellion and Animal Rights marchers in central London as well as protests supporting Hong Kong’s Freedom marches and Chinese students opposed to them in Westminster.

Royal College and Thames with sailing barge from Greenwich Park, Greenwich. 1982 31p-44: barge, college, palace, river, Thames

My day taking pictures ended in Greenwich Park, where I made the picture at the top of this post, a view looking down the Queen’s House and the Old Royal Naval College and on towards Canary Wharf. I’d made a photograph from a very similar position in 1992 and the pair make an interesting comparison.

XR Rebel Rising March to the Common – Greenwich

Supporters of South East London Extinction Rebellion met beside the Cutty Sark in Greenwich to march to a two-day festival on Blackheath Common, calling for urgent action on Global climate change.

Blackheath Common has a long history of involvement in protest. It was here that around 100,000 anti-poll tax rebels gathered under Wat Tyler in 1381, and in 1450 that Jack Cade’s 20,000 Kent and Essex yeomen camped in their revolt against Henry VI’s tax hikes. Neither of these events ended well, nor did the several thousand Cornishmen killed and buried on the common after they rose up against taxes levied to fight the Scots 1497. The Chartists who met here also largely failed, but the Suffragettes did better.

Ten years earlier, I’d come with Climate Camp to swoop to a secret destination which turned out to be Blackheath Common, and photographed the camp being setup and spent another day there as a part of the Climate Camp documentation team. But that too had failed to spur the UK into any really effective action, though perhaps more lip-service.

The situation by 2019 was clearly critical and Extinction Rebellion were calling on our and other governments to take the urgent actions needed to avoid the extinction of species including our own, and also for local councils to do everything within their powers.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to stay with the marchers all the way to the festival ground as the march started late, waiting for the samba band to arrive. I had to leave them halfway up the hill and rush back down to the station for a train to central London.

XR Rebel Rising March to the Common

Stand with Hong Kong & opposition – Trafalgar Square

My train took me into Charing Cross and I rushed the short distance to Trafalgar Square where I found a rather confusing situation. It took me a few moments to realise that the first group of Chinese protesters I met were supporters of the Chinese government, but the number of Chinese flags they were waving was an undeniable clue.

There are many Chinese students studying at UK universities, providing a very useful source of finance to these institutions. Most of that money comes from the Chinese government or from families that are very wealthy from their Chinese businesses which depend on that government, and as they intend to return to China have no choice but to come and be seen showing their support for China.

I spent a few minutes photographing their protests, then moved on a few yards to a protest with a very different colour, dominated by yellow posters, banners and umbrellas of the Hong Kong Freedom Movement.

Eventually they set off to march down Whitehall, stopping to protest opposite Downing
St. The Chinese students followed them, but police largely kept the two groups on opposite sides of the road, with the Chinese supporters shouting to try and drown out the speakers opposite.

After a rally at Downing St the Hong Kong freedom protesters moved off towards a final rally in Parliament Square – followed too by some of the Chinese who continued to shout and mock them. But I left to go elsewhere.

Stand with Hong Kong & opposition

Official Animal Rights March 2019

I’d missed the start of the vegan Animal Rights march in Hyde Park, but met them and took some pictures as they came to Trafalgar Square, where they halted, blocking all the roads leading in and out of the square.

This march was organised by the vegan activist collective Surge and non-violent civil disobedience movement Animal Rebellion, who say animal lives matter as much as ours and call for an end to speciesism, and the misuse of animals for food, clothing and sport.

Some of the marchers wore t-shirts with the number 269, the number of a calf on an Israeli diary farm whose number Israeli animal rights activists branded themselves with in a 2012 protest after which 269life became a worldwide movement.

Official Animal Rights March 2019

Charing Cross to Greenwich & Back

For once my trains to Blackheath and back from Greenwich after photographing the central London protests both had reasonably clean windows, and I took a number of photographs on the outward and return journeys. Also in this section I included the picture from Greenwich Park at the top of this post, along with a couple of others from much the same position.

Charing Cross to Greenwich

XR Rebel Rising Royal Observatory Die-In – Greenwich

From Blackheath Station I rushed to the Rebel Rising festival on Blackheath Common, arriving just in time for the start of a march from the festival to protest at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park.

The march proceeded behind a black banner with the text asking the question ARE WE THE LAST GENERATION? Unfortunately at least for the younger members of the marchers, some of whom were in push-chairs the answer could well be YES.

At the Royal Observatory there was a die-in on the area in front of the gates, the site chosen to symbolise we have zero time left and that we need to act now on climate change. Some taking part had clock faces drawn on their faces and the protest was just a few yards to the east of the markers for the Greenwich meridian, zero longitude.

Many of the tourists passing the protest including those going in and out of the Royal Observatory stopped at least for a few moments on the crowded paths to watch and listen, and many expressed their support for the need to take urgent actions to avoid global climate catastrophe.

Rebel Rising Royal Observatory Die-In

More Deptford And A Little Greenwich

My walk continued along Stowage where my previous post ended to St Nicholas, Deptord Green, and then south through Deptford.

Church Gate, Skull, St Nicholas, Deptord Green, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10f-54-Edit_2400 — *Church Gate, Skull, St Nicholas, Deptord Green, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10f-54*

Playwright and spy Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was apparently killed in a house in Deptford on 30th May 1593 and buried in an unmarked grave in this churchyard at St. Nicholas’s Church. A web page, Death In Deptord gives the known facts and also various conspiracy theories. He had been arrested a week earlier on a charge of atheism, then a serious crime for which those found guilty could be burnt at the stake. Surprisingly he was granted bail.

He came to Deptford to escape the plague which was raging through London and was at a meeting in a private house there which is thought to have been a safe house used by government agents, and was dining there with three other spies, all connected with the secret service set up by Marlowe’s patron, Sir Francis Walsingham, to protect Queen Elizabeth from Catholic assassination plots.,

Surprisingly the lengthy Coroners Report by the Queen’s Coroner kept secret at the time was only rediscovered and published in 1925. It describes the killing as a result of a dispute over the bill and names his murderer – who was given a royal pardon 28 days later. Many have thought the inquest was a cover-up and that either the death was a planned assassination by the security services or that Marlowe was not killed but smuggled out of the country to escape his prosecution and possible burning for heresy.

Deptford High St, Douglas Way, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-45-Edit_2400 — *Deptford High St, Douglas Way, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-45*

This shop on the corner of Douglas Way is still a Halal Butcher. There was a barbers until around 2016 in the shop on Douglas Way still with the perhaps unfortunate name of H Nicks, but that and the two further shops have changed hands and are now rather more colourful, with barbers Tuttii Fruitii, Divine Beauty Hair Salon and Good Friends Chinese Restaurant and Takeaway reflecting the vibrant multicultural mix of Deptford.

Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-34-Edit_2400 — Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-34

The shop on the left, closed in 1988 is now Omed Uk Ltd, African Textile & Novelty, and Richard Stone Mans Store is now DAGE, Deptford Action Group For The Elderly but that on the right, though with a new sign is still in much the same business as Deptford Cobbler. The buildings appear to have changed little. Most times when I’ve walked along here since the street has been busy with market stalls, but these pictures were made on a Sunday morning when there was then no market.

Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-35-Edit_2400 — Deptford High St, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-35

There was a pub here in 1788, though the street was then called Butt Lane. It was part rebuilt in the late 19th century with the frontage rebuilt at some time between 1868 and 1894. Originally called the Red Lion and Wheatsheaf it became The Distillery in the 1890s and at other times in the early twentieth century simply as the Red Lion. It reverted to its original name around 1930 and closed as a pub in 1961-2.

The Wenlock Brewery in Wenlock Road Hoxton owned a large number of pubs across London and was bought up by Worthington – part of Bass – in 1953 and closed in 1962.

Mumford's Mill, Greenwich High Rd, Greenwich, 1988 88-10f-22-Edit_2400 — Mumford’s Mill, Greenwich High Rd, Greenwich, 1988 88-10f-22

I walked across Deptford Bridge and a short distance up Greenwich High Road to photograph Mumford’s Mill which is on the east bank of Deptford Creek. The Grade II listed silo with the date 1790 was a later addition to the site, added in 1897 and built in an elaborate Italianate style by one of the leading architects of the day, Sir Aston Webb, along with his partner Edward Ingress Bell who got his unusual second name from being born in Ingress Park a few miles down the river at Greenhithe.

The 1790 mill was possibly a tide-mill – and there is a tidemill site here on the west side of the Creek, for some years a neighbourhood park but now after a fight by local residents failed to save it being redeveloped for housing. The early mill was soon replaced by two early 19th century three storey stone grinding flour mills.

But by 1897 this was a state of the art flour mill, with roller mills powered by steam. In the 1930s it was bought by the Rank Group, founded in Hull by Joseph Rank who had set up the first modern flour milling business in the UK there in 1875 and milling was soon ended. Parts of the premises were used by various companies, but much was apparently empty for several decades until converted to residential use early this century.

Greenwich High Rd, Greenwich, 1988 88-10f-23-Edit_2400 — Greenwich High Rd, Greenwich, 1988 88-10f-23

I continued up the Greenwich High Road to these two adjacent contrasting doorways just off the road in Burrgos Grove. Wellington House is 2 Burgos Grove while the property at right, in 1988 shared between Joule Electrical Ltd and the Inner London Probation Service is numbered as 34 Greenwich High Rd. Probably both properties date from the mid-19th century. No 34 was extensively rebuilt in 2012 but the doorway and facade were retained.

Deptford Broadway, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-24-Edit_2400 — Deptford Broadway, Deptford, Lewisham, 1988 88-10f-24

I walked back to Deptford Bridge and west to Deptford Broadway. Now this would mean going under the Lewisham extension of the Docklands Light Railway, opened in 1999. Should you be here it is worth going up to the platforms of Deptford Bridge Station which gives some of the better views of Mumford’s Mill and other parts of the area, and taking the train north to Greenwich to see more of Deptford Creek.

The north side of the Broadway has a remarkable variety of architectural styles and includes a group of five houses at the right of this picture Grade II listed as a group at 17-21 consecutive, thought to be all of late C17 origin, though all much altered later. Next is Broadway House, dated 1927, followed at 13-14 by what is probably a late-Victorian property and then a fine piece of 1930 Art-Deco – in my picture ‘Antique Warehouse’ but built for ‘Montague Burton, The Tailor of Taste’. Unfortunately I was just a few months too late to photograph the Deptford Odeon, designed by George Coles in 1938, but demolished earlier in the year – and the billboard at extreme right was in front of its empty site.

To be continued in a later post.

Stowage, Deptford

Stowage, Deptford – Stowage is the place were things were stored and Stowage was from 1600 until 1782 a storage area for the East India Company who also built ships here. The name was not just for the street but for a wider area including the site of Deptford Power Station, the world’s first commercial-scale high voltage power station by Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti in 1889.

The Hoy pub was open on the corner of Stowage at 193 Creek Road at least by 1840 but closed in 2008, becoming a café. Some reports say it lost its licence because of a large number of reports of drug use. It looked closed and unoccupied when I walked past a few months ago. Until the 1920s there were two pubs actually in Stowage, the Old George and the Fishing Smack, both open in the 1820s.

Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-35-Edit_2400 — *Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-36*

The General Steam navigation Co Ltd established its shipyard on Stowage at the mouth of Deptford Creek in 1825, using it to build and maintain its paddle steamers. The site became part of Deptford Power Station for the Deptford East HP station which opened in 1953.

Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-26-Edit_2400 — *Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-26*

The area has a long and interesting history. Stowage was the first base of Trinity House, who were close to St Nicholas’s Church at the west end of Stowage from 1511-1660 before moving to the City of London, and this was the location of the first Trinity House Almshouses. According to the entry in Pepys Diary for Friday 8 April 1664 he went with Sir William Batten, then the Master of Trinity House to see the new almshouses which were being built at Deptford. They were demolished around 1877.

Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-11-Edit_2400 — *Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-11*

The walk District 45 created by the Royal Geographical Society is a fine introduction to the area and one I recently followed (with a few of my own additions) with a couple of friends. It is based on Charles Booth’s walk around the area with the local police in 1899 and you can read Booth’s notebooks on the LSE’s Charles Booth’s London web site (his handwriting is occasionally a little difficult) which provide some further notes to those in the RGS walk.

Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-13-Edit_2400 — *Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-13*

In his notes, Booth described Stowage as “A stinking unpaved lane with wharves on north side until the bend is passed … occupied by a low rough waterside population. ” He went on to say “Most people living here work at one of the factories along the Creek. Besides the chemical works there are numerous business places employing a large number of ‘hands’. The Steam Navigation Company has a large yard in the Stowage.“

“All these works are busy and work is plentiful so that no man need be unemployed. Women work
in woodyard and laundry, girls in the tin factory or as ‘gut girls’ in the meat market cleaning the entrails of the slaughtered beasts. “

Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-12-Edit_2400 — *Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-12*

I walked along the short street on various occasions in the 1980s and 90s, and it seems to me that relatively little had changed, except there were rather fewer houses and people living on the streets. It was a street were there were often small groups of men who looked shifty and where I didn’t always feel able to stop and take photographs and where much that went on was perhaps on the edge of the law. Often there were fires burning and foul smoke, perhaps getting rid of rubber and plastic from various scrap metal objects.

Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10f-64-Edit_2400 — *Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10f-64*

I wrote “It was also an area where anyone with a camera aroused suspicion, if not outright hostility. If you were lucky people just asked accusingly “You from the council?”, but there were others who made rather more direct threats. it was an area where there were dodgy deals, stolen cars and other things going on that it wasn’t healthy to poke your nose into. Most of the time I kept my Olympus OM1 under my jacket as I walked along.”

Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10f-65-Edit_2400 — *Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10f-65*

Other photographers were less timid than me – and had rather different interests in the area. One I knew slightly was Jim Rice, and for his Deptford Creek project he got to know many of those in the area and made some striking portraits.

Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10f-51-Edit_2400 — *Stowage, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10f-51*

Greenwich and Deptford Creek October 1988

Caesars American Restaurant, Waterloo Rd, Lambeth, 1988 88-10e-55-Edit_2400 — *Caesars American Restaurant, Waterloo Rd, Lambeth, 1988 88-10e-55*

I had spent several days wandering around Hackney in the previous months and decided it was time to go back south of the river and picked on Deptford for my next walk. I’d decided to get a train from Waterloo East to Greenwich as my starting point, but arrived in to Waterloo with some time to spare and walked briefly along Waterloo Road. You won’t find Caesars there now, its place taken by a vape shop and Tesco Express.

Norman Rd, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-56-Edit_2400 — *Norman Rd, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-56*

I took the train to Greenwich Station and came out onto Norman Road which is on the east side of Deptford Creek. There are still some industrial sites here but the area to the north shown in my photograph now has tall blocks of flats both on the creek side (to the left of my picture) and on the right. There was no access to the Creek here.

Posters, Norman Rd, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-41-Edit_2400 — *Posters, Norman Rd, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-41*

The area around Deptford Creek now has many artists studios, but back in 1988 I wasn’t expecting to see this kind of display in the area, and it wasn’t at all clear whether this was a result of fly-posting followed by vandalism or art, though I inclined to the latter. It certainly had become art by the time I photographed it.

Deptford Creek, Creek Rd, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-44-Edit_2400 — *Deptford Creek, Creek Rd, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-44*

Finally on Creek Road I was able to see the creek itself, looking across to Deptford from the Greenwich end of the bridge. In the distance is the spire of St Paul’s Deptford. Tall blocks built around 2017 on Copperas Street now block that view.

Deptford Creek, Creek Rd, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-45-Edit_2400 — *Deptford Creek, Creek Rd, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-45*

Walking across the bridge gave me this view of the Deptford side. Creek Road Bridge is a lifting bridge and in 1988 often caused severe traffic delays in the area when lifted at high tides to allow vessels to pass. I think bridge lifts are now rare, though at least until recent years they were still occasionally needed to allow vessels carrying aggregate to berth at Brewery Wharf just below the bridge on the Greenwich side.

In the distance you can see the Deptford Creek Railway Bridge which was also a lifting bridge, though of very different design. I understand this is now welded in place and incapable of lifting.

Deptford Creek, Creek Rd, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-46-Edit_2400 — *Deptford Creek, Creek Rd, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-46*

Although Deptford Creek forms the boundary between Deptford (in the London Borough of Lewisham) and Greenwich for much of its length, the area around its mouth from a little south of Creek Road as far west as Watergate Street in Deptford is in the London Borough of Greenwich, including the whole now former site of Deptford Power Station. Both sides of the Creek were industrial in 1988, though the last of the three power stations had ceased operation in 1983, and it was spectacularly demolished in 1992. The first station, designed by Sebastian de Ferranti and opened in 1889 was the world’s first ‘central’ power station, operating at high voltage and on an unprecedented scale and closed in the 1960s.

Deptford Creek, Creek Rd, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-32-Edit_2400 — *Deptford Creek, Creek Rd, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-32*

Much of the Deptford side of the Creek north of Creek Road was occupied by scrap metal dealers and in 1988 this brick building at Crown Wharf was the offices of London Iron & Steel Limited.

Deptford Creek, Creek Rd, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-33-Edit_2400 — *Deptford Creek, Creek Rd, Deptford, Greenwich, 1988 88-10e-33*

The Creek turns west after going under Creek Road, then around to the north to enter the RIver Thames. There is a large pile of scrap on the wharf in front of the disused power station and Turbulence, a general cargo vessel, 1426 tons gross built in Selby, Yorkshire in 1983 is moored there. Large heaps of sand and gravel are at an aggregate works on the Greenwich bank, though previously there had been a gas works here.

Today the scene is entirely different, with large residential developments on both sides of the Creek, at Millennium Quay on the west and New Capital Quay on the east. A new footbridge joining the two across the mouth of the Creek was opened in 2015. This is a swing bridge which also occasionally has to be opened to let vessels pass at high tide.

My walk continues in a later post.

South of the River – 1987

Scrap Metal, Deptford Creek, Deptford, Greenwich, 1987 87-10l-45-positive_2400 — *Scrap Metal, Deptford Creek, Deptford, Greenwich, 1987*

Many of my favourite London walks were by the River Thames, back in 1987 still lined with industry, most now replaced by luxury flats, and rather less interesting. Walking along Creek Road from Deptford to Greenwich took me past a power station, scrap metal yards, sand and gravel works and a former gas works with the creek flowing past them.

Scrap Metal, Power Station, Deptford Creek, Deptford, Greenwich, 1987 87-10l-44-positive_2400 — *Scrap Metal, Power Station, Deptford Creek, Deptford, Greenwich, 1987*

The final section of Deptford power station had been decommissioned in 1983, but most of of it was still standing, though I think some demolition was taking place around it. And a smaller chimney, I think on the opposite bank of the creek, was still belching out smoke, and there were piles of sand and gravel on the opposite bank as well as the scrap metal at left where the creek went under Creek Road.

Scrap Metal, Deptford Creek, Deptford, Greenwich, 1987 87-10l-32-positive_2400 — *Scrap Metal, Deptford Creek, Deptford, Greenwich, 1987*

Both banks of Deptford Creek here are in the London Borough of Greenwich, something I often forgot when captioning images, expecting the creek to be the boundary. The creek is of course still there, and more conveniently for walkers there is now a footbridge across it a few yards from where it enters the Thames. A path now runs beside the Thames too, where both the power station and gas works once stood, in some ways a gain, but there is now so much less of interest to see.

Art Gallery, Wood Wharf, Greenwich, 1987 87-10l-43-positive_2400 — *Art Gallery, Wood Wharf, Greenwich, 1987*

I don’t remember going inside the Art Gallery at Wood Wharf, and I think it was probably now open when I took this picture. Wood Wharf is now tall residential blocks – with a riverside walkway, restaurants and a pub.

The Lone Sailor, pub, Francis Chichester, Old Loyal Briton, Thames St, Greenwich, 1987 87-10l-35-positive_2400 — *The Lone Sailor, pub, Francis Chichester, Old Loyal Briton, Thames St, Greenwich, 1987*

The Loyal Briton at 62 Thames Street went through a variety of names over the many years since it was built, probably around the middle of the 19th Century, possibly as a fire station, though it was selling beer by the 1850s.Its renaming as The Lone Sailor was probably after Francis Chichester’s single-handed voyage around the world in 1966-7 when his yacht Gypsy Moth was put on display not far from the Cutty Sark in 1968, remaining there until 2004, when she was restored and put back into sail. The pub closed in the 1990s, later becoming the SE10 restuarant. It had a brief time as a Chinese takeaway and gambling den, and in October 2013 reopened as a pub, The Old Loyal Britons. But the lease was only for a year, and it closed permanently in October 2014 to be replaced in 2018 by a large block of 1,2 & 3 bedroom appartments.

Lambeth Hospital, Renfrew Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1987 87-10l-65-positive_2400 — *Lambeth Hospital, Renfrew Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1987*

A workhouse was built in 1871 in Renfrew Rd to house 820 inmates and five years later the Lambeth Infirmary was built on an adjoining site, with the two being combined as Lambeth Hospital in 1922. It was taken over by the LCC in 1930 and by 1939 was one of London’s larger municipal hospitals. It continued in use under the NHS until 1976 when a new wing was opened at At Thomas’ Hospital. Parts still remain – including this building which since 1998 has housed the Cinema Museum.

87-10k-62-positive_2400 — *Trade Counter, Westminster Bridge Rd, Newington, Southwark, 1987*

This is now a part of the Peabody Head Office building, Minster Court.

Royal Eye Hospital, St George's Circus, Newington, Southwark, 1987 87-10k-51-positive_2400 — *Royal Eye Hospital, St George’s Circus, Newington, Southwark, 1987*

The South London Opthalmic Hospital opened with two beds in a house near here in 1857, but after some growth and several name changes it moved to this larger block on the NW corner of St George’s Circus as the Royal Eye Hospital in 1892. Badly damaged in the war it reopened in 1944, becoming part of the NHS in 1948. In 1976 patients were transferred to St Thomas’s Hospital with out-patient clinics ending in 1980. It was demolished in the 1990s and a student hall of residence, McLaren House, built on the site.

Temporary Housing, London Park Hotel, Dante Rd, Newington, Southwark, 1987 87-10k-33-positive_2400 — *Temporary Housing & London Park Hotel, Dante Rd, Newington, Southwark, 1987*

The London Park Hotel was built in 1897 as the Newington Butts Rowton House, the third of its kind under Lord Rowton’s recently introduced scheme of hostels for down-and-out or low-paid working men in London. They had communal facilities including a dining hall, lounge, reading room, washrooms, barbers, cobblers and tailors shops, shoe cleaning rooms and parcel rooms for storage on the lower floors and on the upper floors were private cubicles each with a bed, chair, shelf and chamber pot, all for 6d a day. Lodgers were not allowed into the cubicles during the day. They could either eat in the dining room or cook there own food (more at http://www.workhouses.org.uk/RowtonNewington/).Originally having 805 beds, a new wing added in 1903 increased that to 1017. It was renamed Parkview House and in 1972 re-opened as the London Park Hotel. It closed in the 1990s but was for a while used to house refugees and asylum seekers. It was demolished in December 2007.

More pictures on page 7 of my 1987 London Photos on Flickr.

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.

Train windows and London’s best view

Back in the old days of British Rail (and at times after privatisation) I often used to enjoy taking pictures out of train windows. Then many carriages on suburban routes had doors between every pair of seats, and the doors had windows that you could slide down to around waist level and so take pictures unobstructed, though it might make it rather draughty for your fellow passengers. There were stern warnings about not leaning out of windows, and unless you braced yourself against the door frame it might have been possible to fall out, but you could photograph in any direction.

Some of the older rolling stock you needed to open the window to actually open the door at stations, as the doors only had handles on the outside, a useful safety precuation which made the carriages childproof and avoided any accidental opening, but sometimes meant infrequent travellers were trapped inside, unable to work out how to open them. Older readers too may remember the thick leather straps with holes to fit around a pin to hold the windows open at various levels.

Slightly more recent carriages came with a stiff handle you had to move sideways, protected by a raised surround, which only trapped mainly elderly ladies whose hands were no longer strong enough to move them and relied on other passengers to allow them to alight.

Now we have automatic opening doors and fixed windows with air conditioning on almost all services (though some still have narrow windows that don’t open enough to be useful) and can be sweat boxes when the air conditioning fails in summer or chill you if it can’t be switched off in winter. But more importantly for photographers, they have windows that are often scratched inside by bored travellers and almost always filthy outside. I have at times travelled with a cloth so when joining a train at the start of its journey I could select my seat and then step off the train to clean the window I was going to sit at so as to get a clearer view.

But either the train I joined at Charing Cross was new (and it did have that toxic smell of plasticiser) or had been recently cleaned, and for once I had a clear view. I hadn’t got onto the train to take pictures, just to get me to Blackheath, but it seemed to be too good a chance to miss, so I made a number of exposures.

The problem with photographing through glass is of course reflections. You can cut these down by removing any lens hood that would interfere and holding the front of the lens (or lens filter) directly against the glass. However this can cause vibration, so a small gap is a good idea, particularly while the train is in motion. Modern train windows are double glazed and while this close approach can avoid reflections from the pane you are in contact with, you still get them from the outer pane.

It also only works when the edge of the lens is in contact with the window all around, meaning you are restricted to views directly opposite the window and cannot aim the camera to left or right.

There is a solution to these problems, and it is in the form of a giant floppy lens hood with a hole at the centre which stretches to fit on the body of any lens. It’s called ‘The Ultimate Lens Hood‘ and is around 25cm across, and I have one sitting on my desk. The main problem with it (apart from looking rather eccentric) is that although it is a silicone rubbery thing that can squeeze down considerably, it is still too large to easily fit in my normal camera bag, at least without leaving out something essential like my sandwiches. So it was sitting there on my desk while I made these pictures 25 miles away. Slightly smaller versions are available and I think I might get one. Even a normal cheap rubber hood as I’ve used in the past can help a lot.

I was on my way to Blackheath to photograph an event that ended at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, and my final pictures in this set were taken without benefit of any windows of the incredible view from the terrace in Greenwich Park north across the River Thames. It’s a view I first saw and photographed many years ago, and though rather changed since the building of Canary Wharf remains London’s most splendid.

I did try to take more pictures from the train on my return from Maze Hill to Waterloo, but the windows were not so clean, and only a few were usable – and then required considerable retouching.

More pictures at Charing Cross to Greenwich

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.