Woolwich to New Charlton Panoramas: Continuing my occasional series of colour images from 1995 – I think this is the eleventh post – with some colour panoramas made in May 1995 on a walk from Woolwich to New Charlton.
River Thames, Church Hill, Woolwich, Greenwich, 1995, 95p5-342
My walk had begun when I got off the train at Woolwich Arsenal on my way back from Dartford on May 7th and I think these pictures were made that afternoon as I walked from there to another station keeping close to the River Thames. But I did but return to Woolwich the following Sunday, May 14th and some of these pictures could have been made then.
A path leads up from the roundabout at the start of Woolwich Church Street to Church Hill and St Mary Magdalene Church, built on a spur of high ground leading out towards the river. Originally this ground went rather closer to the Thames, but much of it was quarried for sand though the digging had to stop at the church. Although the present church dates only from 1727-39 there had been a church on this site since the 9th century if not earlier and it was probably a much earlier site of settlement.
The road in front of the church, Church Hill, gives a splendid panoramic view of the Thames. In 1995 you could still see the remains of Woolwich’s riverside industry, but by the time I photographed here again in 2000 all had gone and the area was empty and derilect. Now it is filled with four tall blocks of flats and some other housing.
Former Woolwich Dockyard Dry Docks, Europe Rd, Woolwich, Greenwich, 1995, 95p5-343
Woolwich Dockyard was the Navy’s most important dockyard for many years and ships were built here from 1512 to the Victorian era. By then it had become too small for the new ships and the Royal Dockyard closed in 1869. Parts remained in industrial use and a large area was bought by Greenwich Council in the 1960s where they built the Woolwich Dockyard Estate in the 1970s – part at the left of this picture. I think this is the Grade II listed Graving Dock.
Ernest Bevin, Ferry Boat, River Thames, Woolwich, Greenwich, 1995, 95p5-332
Taken on the Woolwich Dockyard Estate this shows one of the old dry docks and at a mooring in the Thames the Woolwich Ferry Ernest Bevin. You can just see part of the south ferry terminal in the centre of the image.
The ferry across the Thames became a free ferry run by the LCC in 1889 – two days after they had replaced the Metropolitan Board of Works who had organised and funded it. A number of public bridges had been built to make crossing the river in West London easy and free and it had been decided that there must also be a free crossing in East London. The Ernest Bevin was one of three ferries in the third generation of ships which came into operation in 1963 and it was replaced in 2019. All have been named after local figues and Bevin was elected as MP for Woolwich East in 1950.
These point blocks, close to Woolwich Dockyard Station were built for Greenwich Council are St Mary’s Towers, one of the more successful housing schemes of the late 50s and early 60s, opened by Princess Margaret in 1961. They remain now still in good condition and popular.
River Thames, Woolwich, Greenwich, 1995, 95p5-472
Back to the River Thames and another cleared area of the former Dockyard with a view across the river to Tate & Lyle’s Silvertown works.
River Thames, Warspite Rd, Woolwich, Greenwich, 1995, 95p5-433
Another former dockyard area still in industrial use. I think this is Thameside Wharf on Harrington Way. Some of the buildings here were once part of the Siemens Brothers Telegraph Works factory established in 1863 and became Thameside studios for artists around 1990.
Bugsby’s Way, New Charlton, Greenwich, 1995, 95p5-521
Bugsby’s Way took its name from this part of the River Thames known from around 1830 as Bugsby’s Hole or Bugsby’s Reach which probably got its name from this once “marshy area to the south of Blackwall Point where executed criminals were formerly hung in chains.” As E.W.Green suggested in 1948, ‘bug‘ was the old British (ancient Welsh) word for ‘spook’ or ghost, and what could be a better place to meet with ghouls. Bugsby’s Way was built across this marshy area by the London Borough of Greenwich in 1984.
Beatle Line Ltd, Bugsby’s Way, New Charlton, Greenwich, 1995, 95p5-511
Another picture from Bugsby’s Way. The Beatle Line perhaps got its name from the later meaning of ‘bug’, perhaps from a different Anglo-Saxon root, at first simply meaning beatle, though later coming into popular use for a wider range of species – including the famous moth found by Grace Hopper and colleagues in the Mark II computer at Harvard University in 1947.
More around the Meridian – It’s seldom possible to actually walk for more than a few yards actually on the Greenwich Meridian in London and while planning my Meridian Walk I often wandered around considerably, having to make detours and also looking for the more interesting routes. So not all these images are exactly on the Meridian, but most were taken within a short distance from it.
When I began this project the Meridian was not marked on the Ordnance Survey or Street maps, and one of may first tasks was to get a ruler and pencil it on to them. In 1999 it was added to the OS maps of the area, but does not seem to be on the latest versions. In 1995 there were no smart phones with online maps and GPS which would have made things so much easier.
The Greenway was the recently rebranded path above the Northern Outfall Sewer which rans across East London from Hackney Wick to the sewage treatment plant at Beckton, going under the road here close the the bridge over Abbey Creek on the Channelsea River, where Abbey Lane becomes Abbey Road. You can see the bridge at the left of the picture.
Greenway, Channelsea River, Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-1153
The Greenway is a great traffic-free cycle route for pedestrians and cyclists, running straight and level and this picture gives some evidence of that.
Channelsea River, Long Wall, Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-1111
I’m not sure what this pipe was for, perhaps for taking gas across the river. Not far away on the other side of this tidal creek was one of the largest gas works in London – and you can still see its listed gasholders, though the view is likely to change soon with the site being redeveloped.
But behind me when I made this picture was the Abbey Mills sewage pumping station and on the edge of the creek below were the storm outfalls where sewage would be released after heavy rains. With the changing tides it would flow downstream a little and then could be taken miles upriver along the Prescott channel and the River Lea.
Flats, East India Dock Rd, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1321
I think the Meridian went through the centre of the taller gas holder at Poplar Gas works.
Flats, East India Dock Rd, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1321
Another view with the gasholders in the background.
Clove Crescent, East India, DLR, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1273
My pencilled line for the Meridian shows it going through both the water in the dock and the brick building at left which was the former Blackwall Power Station in both of these pictures.
Clove Crescent, East India DLR, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1263
South of the East India Docks the line crosses the River Thames above and between the two bores of the Blackwall Tunnel, closer to the original western tunnel now used by northbound traffic. I couldn’t take photographs in the tunnel – though it was possible for those on foot to take a bus across, but these would have been rather boring in any case.
This picture shows the southern entrance to the tunnel with its 1897 Grade II listed gatehouse by the London County Council’s Superintending Architect Thomas Blashill. In front of it a less ornate red and white striped arch with heigh and weight restriction signs and hangers to hit any overtall vehicles and hopefully prevent damage to the gatehouse.
One picture not I think actually on the Meridian but not far from it, taken from the long footbridge over the Blackwall Tunnel Southern Approach.
Riverside Path, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1762
My path continued south along the riverside path, with the Meridian going into the River Thames on the extreme left of this picture.
Riverside Path, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1742
I kept to the land continuing along a path I’ve walked many times and making a few more pictures.
Riverside Path, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1743
Like much of London’s riverside almost all of the industry has now gone, but some relics remain, though most of this part of my route is now lined by rather boring flats.
New River Company, Reservoir, Engine House, Hornsey Lane, Haringey, 1989 89-11h-43
Beyond these large red-brick buildings that line the north side of Hornsey Lane is the grass covered reservoir built by the New River Company and just beyond that across Tile Kiln Lane is their Engine House dating from around 1859. Now called the Pump House the site includes the base of a large chimney for a steam-driven pump. This reservoir and pump and others in the area became necessary as higher areas in Hampstead and Highgate were developed. The locally listed building has more recently been converted to residential use.
Northwood Hall, Flats, Hornsey Lane, 89-11h-35
A few yards further east I crossed the Archway Bridge, where perhaps surprisingly I didn’t take any pictures of the view down the road. I did take three photographs of one of the ornamental lamposts but haven’t digitised any of these. The two at the east end seem rather similar to some of those on the Thames embankment with entwined fish swimming around them. About 5 years ago the fairly low ornamental fence on each side of the bridge has been augmented with a tall metal fence to prevent people jumping to their death on the road below.
Further east of the bridge is Northwood Hall, an art deco block built as “ultra modern labour-saving” luxury flats in 1935 and designed in a cross shape by George Edward Bright who had earlier worked as an assistant to Herbert Baker, Edwin Lutyens and Guy Dawber. The almost 200 flats were set in extensive gardens with “a restaurant for residents, guest rooms and outdoor amenities including a tennis court. Indoors, there were uniformed porters available 24/7 and an optional maids’ service charged at hourly rates. In kitchens, double door cupboards opening onto the corridors were used to provide additional services including rubbish collection, shoe cleaning and delivery of papers, food and even cooked meals.”
Sat on a hill overlooking London the residents on all but its ground floor have extensive views across London ‘on a clear day as far as Crystal Palace‘ and the building is a landmark visible from much of north London.
This sculpture was commission by and paid for by the architect of the LCC’s Ashmount School, H.T. Cadbury-Brown. Built in 1954-6 it was an important early example of an all-glass curtain wall construction. The cockerel now stands on top of the wall outside the Whitehall Park School, built on part of the Ashmount site with the rest being used for housing.
Crouch End Hill, Crouch End, Haringey, 1989 89-11h-13
Advertising for Nautilus Fitness and Tree Surgery on Crouch End Hill, immediately south of the former Crouch End Station – where the old track is now the Parkland Walk. I wondered what the large letters BSG on the wall stood for but could come up with no sensible solution. I think the picture is looking down Stroud Green Road.
Crescent Café, Crouch End Hill, Crouch End, Haringey, 1989 89-11h-15
The Crescent Café was in part of the former Crouch End Station buildings. A Cafe continues here – with a name change to Sercem Cafe for a couple of years before going back to being Crescent Cafe again until around 2021-2 and is now Merro. The station probably dates from when the line opened in 1867; the station closed in 1954 but goods traffic along the line continued until 1970.
The Café was closed on the Sunday I took this picture. At right you can see one of the tall brick pillars on top a a curved wall that go beside and across the bridge across the former railway. I’d photographed the cafe and these twelve years earlier but hadn’t put the wall picture online.
Monkridge, Crouch End Hill, Crouch End, Haringey, 1989 89-11h-16
I turned north up Crouch End Hill and photographed another mansion block, Monkridge, just a few yards further on. This was apparently built between 1912 and 1935 with around 40 flats and a lower building. The two blocks are very similar in design with this being slightly large actually on Crouch End Hill and the other behind on Haslemere Road.
St Augustine of Canterbury, Church, Archway Rd, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-46
This large Anglican church on Archway Road is immediately to the south of the fine parade of shops which ended the previous post. It always looks to me more like a Catholic Church than an Anglican one, probably because of the sculptural decoration on and above its doorway, and my impression seems to be correct.
The church is a product of three leading members of the Art Workers Guild, a body founded in 1994 promoting the ideas of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. It was begun in 1888 by John Dando Sedding (1838 – 1891), one of the Guild’s founders in 1886-7 its second master and the west front shown here was completed in 1916 by his chief assistant Henry Wilson (1864–1934) with the Calvary added then by J Harold Gibbons (1878 – 1957.)
The church describes itself as a “friendly Anglo Catholic parish church” and has recently “due to theological convictions regarding the catholicity and sacramental integrity” of its mission asked to be removed from the care of Dame Sarah Mullally the Bishop of London and has been transferred to the See of Fulham which has a male Bishop.
Houses, Cholmeley Park area, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-21
I walked up Archway, and photographed the Winchester Tavern (not on line) at 206 before turning west down Cholmeley Park where I think I took this picture of a 1930s suburban house with a circular window beside the door and a rounded bay with Crittal windows. I think I felt it was a rather typical building rather than anything exceptional, something I tried to include in my project.
Flats, 55, Cholmeley Park, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-23
But these flats are clearly unusual, and the facade here was the entrance to the building set up here by the Santa Claus Society in 1890 or 1900 (sources differ) to provide 20 long-term convalescent beds for children with hip and spinal diseases.
The hospital became part of the NHS and was closed in 1954. It was converted by the London County Council in 1954 to provide hostel accommodation for 31 men suffering from tuberculosis who had “reached their maximum degree of improvement under hospital treatment but who cannot be discharged because they are homeless.”
Pineapple, Waterlow Park, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-11h-65
Waterlow Park on a hillside below Highgate Village is one of London’s finest parks and when in the area I’ve often had a short rest in it, finding a suitable spot to eat my sandwiches.
This fine example of a pineapple is beside some steps in the park and I think is one of those produced by Eleanor Coade, who ran Coade’s Artificial Stone Manufactory, Coade and Sealy, and Coade in Lambeth, London, from 1769 until her death in 1821.This hard-wearing architectural material is virtually weatherproof. Coade Stone was produced by a secret process involving double firing of stoneware which died with her final business partner in 1833. It has been revived in recent years by Coade, a company “born due a lack of skilled craftsman capable of restoring the original Coade stone sculpture.”
Pineapples were a common architectural decoration in Georgian and Victorian times, symbolising wealth and fine taste.
I came out of Waterlow Park and crossed Highgate Hill to Highgate Presbyterian Church on the corner between Cromwell Avenue and Hornsey Lane. Designed by Potts, Sulman & Hennings, a fairly short-lived partnership from 1885 to 1891 between Arthur William Hennings, Edward Potts and Sir John Sulman (who left for Australia in 1885) in a Gothic Revival style was completed in 1887. In 1967 it became Highgate United Reformed Church and was converted into flats as Cloisters Court in 1982.
Flats, Hornsey Lane, Haringey, 1989 89-11h-42
This fine terrace is at 57-71 Hornsey lane and I think dates from around 1900, probably the late 1890s, and is joined at its west end to a slightly grander central block at 39 at extreme left of the picture, (where are 41-55?) with Linden Mansions continuing to the west to the former church on the corner of Hornsey Lane.
My walk continued down Hornsey Lane – more in a later post.
A short distance down Spencer Road I turned right into Elsynge Road, a street full of large mainly semi-detached Victorian houses. It got its current name only in 1937, when Park Road was renamed to distinguish it from other Park Roads in London, including one not far away close to Battersea Park.
Local legend has it that some of the houses in this and Spencer Road were built for the Great Exibition of 1851, but in fact development only began in the area a little later, with the first houses in Spencer Road appearing in 1853-7 and in Park Road in 1856-7. Most were built in the 1860s with a handful of later additions.
The area draft Conservation Appraisal Document notes “Nos.9-11 and 13 are of particular interest, being of three and a half storeys with rustication to the lower storeys, canted bays, and projecting porches supported by Corinthian columns. Dentil cornices and decorative architraves to windows add richness of detail.”
As for the name of the house it could refer to one of the various Earl Stanhopes several of whom were prominent Tory politicians, one of the two English and one Scottish villages of that name, or be simply the family name of the residents.
House, Elsynge Rd, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8c-41
The draft Survey of London tells us that the area was initially called the Clapham Station Estate, named after a short-lived station on the line to the east of the area, not Clapham Junction which was only built in 1863.
Number 33 and 35 are rather plainer houses in the street but still large with a basement and three floors above. 35 is unusual for being one of few detached houses in the street and its current valuation is over £4 million. Both were build by the same builder, Richard Down a joiner from Princes Street, Westminster around 1863.
There are six of these large pillars in front of the impressive edifice Elsynge Mansions at 19-23 Elsynge Rd. The Survey of London suggests that this was built as a semi-detached property and converted into flats by the 1890s, a date when the building of mansions was becoming common across London.
Its name will have come from the Tudor Elsynge (or Elsyng) Palace in Enfield which had been used as a hunting lodge by Henry VIII but was part demolished in 1608 and completly not long after; it later became part of the Forty Hall estate. Its exact location had been lost until redicovered from 1960 on by the Enfield Archaeological Society. And clearly it was this name – in some elegant tiling on its front path – which led to the new name for Park Road.
Services Rendered Club (Battersea) Ltd, 4 North Side, Wandsworth Common, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8c-31
At the west end of Elsynge Road I turned into Marcilly Road, photographing a house there (not yet digitised) and walked down to the South Ciercular Road on the north side of Wandsworth Common. These buildings are still there at 4 North Side and are now home to Bright Horizons Day Nursery and Preschool.
There are still a number of Services Rendered Clubs in the UK and I think most of them were formed in or immediately after the Great War particularly for ex-servicemen who had been honourably discharged after becoming permanently unfit to serve. They were awarded the Silver War Medal, also known as the ‘Services Rendered Badge’, a lapel badge designed to be worn on civilian clothing. During the war this would have protected them from being harassed to serve ‘King and Country’. Most also got a printed King’s Certificate of Discharge.
According to the survey of London this was the coachhouse for Devon Villa, “designed by G.H. Page for G. H. Swonnell, maltster, and built in 1861, probably by George Bass“. The former Servicemen’s Club was converted into the nursery and 7 flats in 2005-6..
Pistons, 99, St John’s Hill, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8c-33
I walked up Strathblaine Rd and Sangora Rd but took no more pictures until I turned into St John’s Hill where Pistons, a shop appearing to sell accessories for motorists including numberplates, warning triangles and superglue with a rather phallic sign caught my eye.
The shopfront is still there but for some years this was a furniture shop, ‘inform’ selling Scandinavian designs but the shop here was recently advertised for rent. The advert dated the shop as 1900 but it was built as part of the Strathblaine area development around 1882-6. Never believe what estate agents say.
I took a short detour down Strath Terrace, across the railway bridge and down Boutflower Road. Henry Boutflower Verdon was the first vicar-designate of St Mark’s, Battersea Rise and was much loved in the area by the time he died at the age of 32 in 1879.
A curate under Canon J. Erskine Clarke, Vicar of St. Mary’s Batersea, Verdon was to become Vicar of St Mark’s which was then being transformed from a tin tabernacle a Victorian Gothic church by William White, now Grade II* listed. The new church was dedicated as a memorial to him and Philip Cazenove, a local benefactor who had paid for the building of the church school.
Boutflower’s name was given to the road when Alfred Heaver developed what he called the St John’s Park estate in 1885–9. Heaver must have had a huge production line making these faces in the picture to be spread liberally across the estate. Probably he made a nice profit selling them to the builders.
It was time to end this walk and make my way to Clapham Junction for the train home. It was August and I was shortly off on my travels to Hull, where my next frame was taken and later on to a week in Scotland. So my next walks were rather different.
St Peter & St Paul, Church, 121, Plough Road, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8c-74
I left the riverside and walked down Lombard Road and crossed York Road into York Gardens probably to find a pleasant spot to rest a while and eat my sandwiches before going through the gardens to exit on Plough Road close to the church.
St Peter’s Church is still very much alive now on Plough Road, but SPB looks very different to my picture in 1989. The first St Peter’s Battersea was built in 1875 but was seriously damaged by fire in 1970 and the church moved into the building in my picture which had been its church and school hall.
According to ‘Clapham Junction Insider’ Cyril Ritchert, the demolition of this Grade II listed building, “an accomplished example of the free gothic style“, was opposed by the Ancient Monuments Society, English Heritage, the Battersea Society and the Wandsworth Society but was approved by Wandsworth Council in 2010. The developers made a second application in 2015 before any building on the site had started. Google Street View shows the church still in use in 2012.
To finance the new church the developers had been granted permission for an 8 storey block of flats also on the site. Local residents were angered that the developers managed to game the planning system to eventually build a 10 storey block of housing with minimal affordable housing on the site.
Shop, St Peter & St Paul, Church, Flats, Holgate Ave, Plough Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989
The view of the church from Holgate Avenue shows clearly the position of the church on the edge of the Winstanley Estate to the north of Clapham Junction station. The view of the tower block Sporle Court is now blocked by the new 10 storey block on the church site. The trees at left are in York Gardens.
There is still a billboard and a shop on the corner of Holgate Avenue, but what was then BRITCHOICE is now SUNRISER EXPRESS POLSKI SKLEP. Holgate Avenue was until 1931 known as Brittania Place or Brittania Street and took its name from the Brittania beer house which was possibly in this shop, part of a group of two buildings at 38-40 Plough Lane which are the only remnants of the original 1860s development of the area.
Apparently the Revd Chad Varah, the founder of The Samaritans, was vicar at Saint Peter’s during the 1950’s. St Peter’s was amalgamated with St Paul’s at some time after 1969 – and St Paul’s had been amalgamated with St John in Usk Road in 1938.
According to the Survey of London, “Holgate Avenue, started in the 1920s, was Battersea’s first successful slum-clearance scheme.” Poorly built Victorian houses from the 1860s were replaced by these three-storey tenements built by Battersea’s Labour Council in 1924-37 to high standards with some impressive brickwork and detailing. Probably more importantly for the residents they were provided with electric cooking, heating and lighting facilities, unusual luxury for the time.
There was little land in Battersea for building and while the council would have liked to build single family homes it had to compromise with these. But at least tenants at most had only to walk up three flights of stairs, while most new council building by the LCC in the interwar period was in five-storey tenement walk-up blocks.
Price’s Candles, York Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8c-62
I walked back up Plough Road to York Road, and continued my walk towards Wandsworth Bridge. There was no access to the River Thames on this stretch before the bridge, as the area was still occupied by industrial premises.
Price’s Candles on York Rd was built on part of the site of York House, the London residence of the Archbishop of York from which York Road got its name. You can read more than you will ever want to know about York House in All about Battersea, by Henry S Simmonds published in 1882 and now on Project Gutenberg, which also has a long section on the Belmont Works or Price’s Patent Candle Factory.
Price’s Candles was begun in 1830 by William Wilson and Benjamin Lancaster who had purchased a patent for the separation of coconut fats. They chose the name Price for the business to remain anonymous as candle-making was not at the time a respectable occupation.
They moved to this site in 1847 setting up a large factory and workforce, making candles, soap and other products with stearine wax for the candles and the by products of glycerine and light oils coming cocunuts grown on a plantation they bought in Ceylon. In 1854 they began to import large quantities of crude petroleum from Burma and developed paraffin wax candles. Later they developed processes to work with other industrial wastes, animal fats and fish oils. By 1900 they were the largest candle manufacturer in the world.
The company was taken over by Unilever in 1919, and became owned by other oil companies including BP, who sold part of the site which opened in 1959 as the Battersea Heliport. A few of Price’s buildings remain, though most with added floors, and the rest of the site is mostly new blocks of flats.
York Tavern, pub, 347, York Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8c-63
The York Tavern was on the corner of York Road and Usk Road in the late 1850s but was given a makeover later in the century in the typical 1890s Queen Anne style with fake gable facades. I can’t find a date for the closing of this pub but it was clearly very shut when I made this picture. The building was demolished in 2003.
John Watney & Co Ltd, Wandsworth Distillery, York Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8c-64
Wandsworth Distillery on York Rd was founded by Richard Bush at Gargoyle Wharf around 1780. By 1874 it was owned by John and Daniel Watney. Gin was produced here, having become popular after heavy taxes were imposed on French brandy, and later particularly in the colonies to counteract the unpleasantly bitter taste of the anti-malarial quinine.
Acquired by Guinness, the distillery was demolished in 1992, and I photographed its occupation as the ‘Pure Genius Eco Village‘ by The Land is Ours in 1996. It was redeveloped as Battersea Reach housing from 2002 on.
Clapham Common Northside, Cedars Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-24
This truly grand scale building facing Clapham Common is at the western edge of the London Borough of Lambeth and the road in the foreground is Cedars Road. A terrace of five mansions at 48-52 Clapham Common North side, it was built by J T Knowles in 1860 with the two ends as pavilions with roofs like those of French Renaissance chateaux. It was Grade II listed in 1969 as Knowles Terrace.
Earlier the road had been lined with villas built for rich City merchants in the mid-eighteenth century.
Clapham Common North Side, Wix’s Lane, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-25
Wix’s Lane is the boundary between Lambeth and Wandsworth, although the street sign is from the Borough of Battersea which was became a part of Wandsworth in 1965 and my map shows the boundary as running along this wall.
Charles Wix was a builder and he built a villa for himself on Clapham Common North Side on the west corner of Wix’s Lane around 1780, living there until his death in 1820. Not long after this was rebuilt as Cedars Cottage but it and its neighbours were later replaced by a rather bland red-brick terrace.
The view here gives a better view of the rather heavy ornamental work on the 1860s Knowles Terrace.
The London School Board built Wix’s Lane School, which opened on 27th April 1903. It later became Wix County Primary School. It is now still in use as Belleville Wix Academy and also houses a Lycée Francais.
Wix’s Lane had been a field path from Clapham Common to Lavender Hill but when villas were built along this section of Clapham Common North Side they were given back entrances from it for stabling their horses and carriages. The school was the first building on its west side, taking a large section of the gardens of one of these houses, Byram House.
The Belleville Wix Academy history page includes a quote from a 1937 school inspector ‘”in the early years it was not uncommon to see twenty or thirty children being led to and from Wix’s Lane School by maidservants“. However, it goes on to say: “now the larger houses are divided into flats, and these, as well as the smaller houses in the neighbourhood, are occupied mainly by clerical workers in the City, by local tradesman and shop keepers, and by artisans and labourers of the better type“. “Poverty exists“, it states, “although it is mainly courageously hidden“‘ .
Flats, Cedars Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-12
I walked back to Cedars Road and walked up it past some rather more modern flats on my way to Wandsworth Road. Much of both sides of this tree-lined road are now covered by similar modern flats, and few of the trees are cedars. A few older houses remain but although I photographed a couple of them I’ve not put these pictures on-line.
I turned west on Wandsworth Road and then went up Acanthus Road, on my way to Brassey Square.. Acanthus Road becomes Grayshott Road, and this house is on the corner of that and Glycena Road.
This and a similar house opposite act as a gateway to the Shaftesbury Park Estate built between 1872 and 1877 by the Artizans’, Labourers’, & General Dwellings Company, about which I’ve written in previous posts. These houses and their short terraces are one of only two listed parts of the estate. It was just a little further up the road at what are now Nos 65-7 that Lord Shaftesbury formally began the estate with a memorial stone in 1872. It is still in place but I didn’t photograph it.
I turned east down Sabine Road, another of the first streets to be built after that stone was laid with its message ‘Healthy homes, first condition of social progress’ in 1872. Supposedly the main figure in the 1951 Ealing comedy The Lavender Hill Mob lived in a seedy boarding house here, though none of the film was shot in the area. In just a few yards I was in Brassey Square, intended to be the centre of the estate which is now the Shaftesbury Park Estate Conservation Area.
Brassey Square which took its name from contractor Thomas Brassey and his three sons who all became MPs and had shares and it was meant to have a garden at its centre, but this was built over in 1879. This building with its frontage on Sabine Road has doors numbered 78 and 1 presumably for that road and Brassey Square respectively. The building is locally listed and is presumed to have been a part of the never-completed plan to build a library, central hall and co-operative shops fronting Brassey Square.
My account of the walk will continue in a later post.
More From Stockwell & South Lambeth: My apologies that the previous post in this series from my walk on 19th July 1989, Tradescant, Old South Lambeth Rd and Caron, ended with a repeat of three images taken on Fentiman Road from my walk two days earlier.
After taking pictures on Old South Lambeth Road I probably simply walked to Vauxhall Station without taking more pictures. But I have now found a few more pictures I took probably at the start of the walk which began with Stockwell Park, Bus Garage, Tower and Mason, and also some at the end of my walk in Vauxhall.
These fine houses were built in the mid-nineteenth century and are Grade II listed. The closer and further houses are semi-detached pairs while 47 in the middle is detached. Behind them is the tower block Edrich House on Lansdowne Way.
House, 93, Priory Grove, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7i-62
Priory Grove runs south from Lansdowne Way (formerly Priory Road) and much of it is beside Larkhill Park. This four-storey block, with the name at the top Priory Building is close to its end at Larkhall Lane. In 1989 it had two doors, but now there is only one at the left giving access to the four flats inside. The ground floor has been coated with stucco eliminating the architraves which are a feature of the upper floors.
Larkhall Lane, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7i-65
Larkhall Lane has a listed building and several on the local list, but all I chose to photograph were a couple of odd corners, the first perhaps showing something of the state of the property with a fine stone hidden pillar. I think this has now disappeared.
Larkhall Lane, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7i-52
66 Larkhall Lane is now much improved rendering, a tidy garden and the anachronistic shutter removed. The tree has also gone and I suspect much of the interior has also been remodelled. A property listing on the web describes it now as “This is an attractive 2 bed, 1 bath semi-detached house in Lambeth, London. This efficient home is 753 square feet in size with 2 fireplaces and has been extended 3 times since construction before 1900” and estimates its value at £1m-£1.2m.
341-9, Wandsworth Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7i-56
I think I took this rather rapidly through a gap in the traffic which perhaps accounts for its rather odd tilt. At left is a rather odd Gothic Grade II listed building trying to be a castle, with shops on the ground floor and an octagonal tower at each end. The building dates from the mid-19th century but the shops reaching out to the main road were added probably around 40 years later over what was originally a front garden and have since been much altered.
Tucked away in the centre of the picture is a slim building with some interesting polychromatic brickwork at No 345, small and rather unusual Victorian infill.
Wilbraham House, Wandsworth Road, Nine Elms, Lambeth, 1989 89-7i-41
Through the imposing three story vehicle entrance of Wilbraham House we can see Fosbrooke House behind. This long block of flats occupies most of the block between Thorncroft St and Wilcox Road. One web site helpfully tells me it was built between 1930 and 1949 and my guess would have been it was at the end of that period. Four impressive sets of steps on the frontage lead to the 36 flats, with glass bricks providing natural lighting for the stairs. Nine Elms underground station opened in 2021 is just a few yards up the road.
The Elephant And Castle, pub, South Lambeth Place, Vauxhall, Lambeth, 1989 89-7k-11
You get a good view of these elephants from trains going through Vauxhall Station on the Windsor and Reading lines I normally go to Waterloo on. This picture is taken from immediately outside Vauxhall Station entrance. The pub building is still there but closed in 1997 and is now a Starbucks, but its upper floors look much the same. The local list dates it as mid-late 19th century, but the building replaced an earlier one on the site.
The name Elephant And Castle thought to have been first used for pubs around 1770 in nearby Southwark probably derives from the coat of arms of the Cutler’s Company who adopted it in 1622. They used ivory to make knife handles. Though if so it may have been used first for a pub in the City for which we have no record.
I’ll post the other pictures I’ve found from the end of the walk in Vauxhall later.
In 1994, five years after I made this picture the Stockwell Park Community Trust was created in response to the high crime rate and poor housing services on the Stockwell Park Estate and surrounding areas. The estate was then ranked by the UK government in the worst ten estates in the country. Tenants on the estate got together and formed a Tenant Management Organisation to get funding to refurbish the estate which had been built around 1970 for Lambeth Council.
The Community Trust held a ballot and gained a 97% vote for them to manage the £220 million investment and managed not only to retain all the social housing but to create another five units as well as building some new private housing to help with the finances.
Working with others in the community they also tackled crime and drug dealing on the estate, reducing these massively. The estate was transferred from Lambeth to Network Housing Group in 2007 and is now managed by SW9 Community Housing.
The graffiti here refers to the well-known case of George Davis, sentenced in 1975 to 20 years for an armed robbery which for once he had no part in. Though there were probably many other Georges who were also fitted up by police.
A block of 23 acres ofland of the west side of Brixton Road was leased in 1804 by Randle Jackson, barrister-at-law and an expert on Indian affairs and Robert Slade. In 1804 they split the estate, Jackson taking the northern part. In 1832 Jackson also acquired a stretch of Stockwell Park Road.
Only a few houses along Brixton Road were built before Jackson’s death in 1837, and it was only after this around 1840 that the two streets Lorn Road and Groveway (then Grove Road) were laid out on what had been gardens and outhouses. Lorn Road forms the approach from Brixton Road to St Michael’s Church on Stockton Park Road.
These Grade II listed houses date from the 1840s and are described as cottages ornés and are very much in a Gothic style. Perhaps rather over-exuberantly Gothick.
A wider view of the two houses. There are quite a few other listed houses and others of interest from the mid and later 19th century in Lorn Road, Groveway and Stockwell Park Road which were build on the Jackson estate, but I took few pictures.
Slade Gardens gets its name from Robert Slade, proctor-at-law, who took the southern part of the estate he had leased with Randle Jackson and was suceeded by his two sons. Slade’s younger son Felix is rather better-known than his father for the art school which he enable by a bequest to University College London in 1871. The Slade School of Art was one of the earliest schools to admit women on the same basis as men.
The site was acquired by the London County Council after the Second World War when many of the houses on the site had been badly damaged by a flying bomb which killed 11 people. The LCC bought up the remaining houses and demolished them. It was opened to the public as a park in 1958 and the adventure playground is on part of the site.
Much of the ideas behind adventure playgrounds came from the ‘Junk Playground’ estatblished by Carl Sorenson in 1943 near Copenhagen, based on his observations of how children actually played on waste ground, building sites and bomb sites etc. The movement spread to this country and a number of such playgrounds were set up in urban areas in the decades after the war. Play leaders encouraged imaginative play and tried to prevent serious accidents as well as discouraging drug use.
I think this adventure playground was set up around 1970. In 1999 it became independently managed by local residents and a voluntary committee was formed and the playground was set up as a new charity.
This house has its main frontage on the Stockwell Park Road with this fairly recent extension at the side along Lorn Road.
The other half of this semi-detached house, probably dating from the late 1840s is grade II listed, but this half is not, probably because of this extension as the two halves look almost identical from the frontage on Stockwell Park Road. But although very different in character this seems to me an interesting addition.
House, 41, Stockwell Park Rd, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7e-62
Another house in the area with considerable individuality, 41 Stockwell Park Road described as an ‘Irregular stuccoed early C19 house’ is Grade II listed. The house is on the corner of Groveway and I think was probably one of the first built on the road, probably in the 1840s.
It has a much less sympathetic building attached, a plain four storey modern block you can just see at the right of the picture but this has not prevented its listing – and no reason why it should. But sometimes there seems to be a large element of architectural snobbery in listing decisions.
After taking a near-identical image of Electric Avenue to that I posted earlier I moved on to Coldharbour Lane. Rather to my surprise this row of shops is still there, close to the corner with Electric Lane on the south side of the road.
Clifton Mansions, 22 flats at 429 Coldharbour Lane were built set back from the road in 1896 to house workers at the nearby Brixton Theatre, now the Ritzy Cinema and are still reached by a archway between shops at 427 and 431.
They attracted a wide range of squatters in the 1990s, including the Pogues and Jeremy Dellar. The flats were refurbished in 2012. Flats there can now be rented for around £2,500 a month.
Matlock House looks in rather better condition now and the blocked doorway covered with fly-posting has now been restored. I think the date on the tile above that doorway is 1892. These properties were refurbished in 2015-6 after some 75 squatters living in Rushcroft Road were forcefully evicted in July 2013. You can read about the eviction and see photographs on Brixton Buzz.
Lambeth Council had owned the flats since around 1975 when they had bought them for the constuction of the Innner London Motorway Box, plans for which fortunately were abandoned, as it would have been disastrous for Brixton. Like Clifton Mansions these flats had been built to house artists and technicians from Brixton’s theatre and music halls. The council abandoned the flats and left them to rot, with squatters moving in.
One resident was able to claim “ownership in the House of Lords under the so-called ‘twelve year rule.’ Five Law Lords threw up their hands in exasperation, took a flat away from Lambeth Council and gave it to him, gratis, after more than a decade of Council mismanagement, incompetence, irresponsibility and neglect.”
The squatters formed a neighbourhood association to defend the flats against sale by the council to property developers in 2002. But slowly, despite great public support for the residents the council pressed ahead, destroying a successful community and hugely accelerating the gentrification of Brixton. Flats here are now for sale at around £750,000.
Home in 1989 by Continental Foods, this Grade II listed building at 411-417 Coldharbour Lane, was built around 1914 to the designs of of T R Somerford as one of the chain of Temperance Billiard Halls. The company targeted south London in particular because many new pubs were built here around the end of the 19th century.
Since I made the photograph, there have been some changes with the ground floor now divided into a number of shops, including a community police station. Lambeth Council granted planning permission for it to be turned into a hotel in the 1990s, and the rest of the building around 2005 became a hostel with the name London Hotel, but has since been refurbished as flats named Billiard Lodge.
This row of shops with housing above is between Kellett Road and Saltoun Road on Atlantic Road and includes the Frontline Off Licence. The area around the north end of Railton Road which continues Atlantic Road south of here gained that name after the 1981 clashes with police which became known as the Brixton Uprising or Brixton Riots started here.
Rudra (Rudy) Narayan (1938 – 28 1998) was a barrister and civil rights activist who migrated to Britain in the 1953 from Guyana, spending seven years in the British Army before studying at Lincoln’s Inn to become a barrister.
A blue plaque now marks the building at 413 Brixton Road where he had a law practice from 1987-94. Erected by the Nubian Jak Community Trust and the Society of Black Lawyers it remembers him as ‘BARRISTER, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTION, COMMUNITY CHAMPION AND “VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS’. A heavy drinker who was thrown out of chambers for assaulting his head of chambers, he died of cirrhosis of the liver in Kings College Hospital in 1998 following a lengthy battle with alcoholism.
In 1989 Narayan who had been a Labour councillor and once been selected as Labour candidate for Birmingham Handsworth, but then deselected for allegedly anti-Semitic remarks in his books stood as a candidate in the Vauxhall by-election arguing that a largely black area should have a black MP. His campaign failed to attract much support and Labour’s Kate Hoey was elected.
The plaque is above the San Marino coffee shop on the corner with Brixton Station Road. From there I returned to the area around Ferndale Road where a further post will continue this walk.
