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.
Shops, Clapham High St, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-42
The rather charming three stroy building occupied on the ground flow at least by Julia Two has gone and together with the low utilitarian shops to the right has been replaced by one of the ugliest buildings on Clapham High Street. But the buildings to the left remain, although with altered shop fronts, as do those on the other side of Venn St.
The Barclays Bank on the corner of Venn St dates from 1895 and closed a few years ago.
I walked on further along Clapham High Street and on along Clapham Common Southside before turning down Crescent Lane to wander around some of the streets to the south. Worsopp Drive is one of the roads in Lambeth’s Notre Dame Estate off Cresecnt Lane in an enviable location just a short walk south of Clapham Common. The estate was built in 1947-1952 when this was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth on the site of the former Notre Dame Convent. It is a mixture of different low and medium rise brick properties and these 8 storey blocks are the tallest.
I don’t know why I didn’t photograph the Clapham Orangery which was retained at the centre of the estate, but I imagine there was some good reason.
UCW House, Union of Communication Workers, Crescent Lane, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-32
From the estate I returned to Crescent Lane where I photographed UCW House, then the home of the Union of Communication Workers. According to the Clapham Society, around 1920 a house on this site was sold to the Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers for use as their headquarters, and renamed ‘The Builders. In the 1930s, the Union of Post Office Workers bought the building and the site was divided between the two unions, with both commissioning new buildings with architect L AS Culliford. This building was opened in spetember 1937, with a extra storey being added in 1976.
The union, by then the Union of Communication Workers , sold the building as offices to he Metropolitan Huusing Trust in 1998. They moved out in 2012 and it was converted to residential use as Metropolitan Crescent.
At the south end of Crescent Lane I turned into Abbeville Road, walking along it to the junction with Park Hill where I made my next picture.
Govette, Park Hill, Abbeville Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-33
I first photographed this sign in 1980 and posted this about that picture when I put it on Flickr:
Govette is originally a French name, and a couple of them came over with William the Conqueror back in 1066 and were given land in Somerset. The name was often spelt without the final ‘e’.
Govette Metal & Glass Works, a family firm and was established in 1956 in Clapham, and in the 1970s split up into several divisions, with Govette’s remaining in Clapham. They closed the factory there in the mid-nineties and specialised in the supply, installation and glazing of steel windows and doors, establishing Govette Windows Ltd in 1996, and are now based in Whyteleafe. They also now have a factory in South Godstone.
I walked back along Abbeville Road and then up St Alphonsus Rd to where it bends at a right angle to the east.
St Mary’s Redemptorist Monastery, St Alphonsus Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5k-35
St Mary’s Roman Catholic church in Clapham Park Road whose spire appears in the background of this picture was built in 1849-51. The Redemptorists are a Catholic missionary congregation and came from Belium to set set up houses in the UK, including this Grade II* listed monastery in Clapham designed by J F Bentley in Art and Craft Gothic style and built in 1892-3.
I continued to the end of the road and turned left into Clapham Park Road going back to Clapham High Street as I wanted to take another picture of the Post Office on Venn St – which I posted in a previous post. I came back down Venn St to Bromell’s Road.
You can still see this alley on Bromwells Road but the view down in is much less interesting, with none of the bridges linking 20 with 22 across the street remaining. The buildings on Bromwells Road have been refurbished and those visible down the alley rebuilt or replaced, althhough I think that at the end of the alley is still there. But what looked like a street with various small workshops is now much tidier.
The account of my walk will continue in a later post.
Car, Rectory Grove, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-52
Although cars in my pictures now often attract attention when I post the on Flickr, I seldom deliberately photographed them, but this is one exception. I think even I might have identified this as a Citroen, but it was only after I posted it that one of my regular commenters identified it as dating from 1938. So it was 51 years old when I took its picture, and apparently is still around and still taxed for road use.
The house it is parked in front of is 12 Rectory Grove, at the end of a short Grade II listed terrace at 12-18, which dates it only as “Early-mid C19”.
Rectory Grove, Rectory Gardens, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-56
I walked back south down Rectory Grove, again passing the entrance to Rectory Gardens which I wrote about in my previous post on this walk. As you can see there are shops on Rectory Grove, one still open in 1989 and I think selling pottery. These buildings were rather grander than those in Rectory Gardens, with three storeys. Between the two shops was I think the entrance to flats above. There was another shop beyond this corner building and may once have been a couple more, although these were I think residential in 1989.
Shops, Rose & Crown, Old Town, The Polygon, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-46
Continuing south I came to Old Town and The Polygon with this Grade II listed corner shop with its row of seven large oilmen’s jars above its mid-19th century shop fronts. The building itself is perhaps a little over a hundred years earlier.
Oilmen sold oil to the public, mainly for use in lighting before the introduction of gas and electric lighting, and often used ancient pots and their pictures in advertising. Large jars of this shape were used for the transport of oil by ship, often containing around 20 gallons, and when full these thick earthenware vessels must have weighed 70 kilograms or more. They were protected in transit with rope cases, but moving them must have been heavy work.
But I think these may well have been ‘single-use’ rather than being returned to source for refilling. Jars were often sawn in half as in Clapham as shop signs in the 19th century and were always then painted red, and often fixed like these above the shop windows. Many came from the Mediterranean filled with olive oil, though whale oil was more commonly used for lighting until the supply fell off and it was replaced by mineral oils.
The People’s Church, Grafton Square, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-35
Designed by William Nevin as a Baptist Church in 1889, the building was renovated and opened as the People’s Church in 1959. Sold after the roof collapsed, it is now the Grafton Square Surgery and The Grafton apartment building, where a loft flat sold recently for around £2m.
Pyramid, Old Town, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-36
I’d photographed this decoration above the shop Pyramid only a few weeks earlier, but the lighting was right and I couldn’t resist making another picture – and I was also keen to get a better image of the crest. Here’s what I wrote about it earlier:
Walking down the street took me the Old Town, where the light was showing the device on the house at No 12 here with its proverb ‘CONTENTEMENT PASSE RICHESSE‘, the motto of the Atkins-Bowyer family. Richard Bowyer (d1820) had taken on the name when he inherited the Manor of Clapham from Sir Richard Atkins of Clapham. I’ve never quite worked out what the relief which is thought to have come from the old Manor House is meant to depict.
Pyramid, Old Town, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-21
Back in 1989 I didn’t own a decent long telephoto lens – the longest I owned were a 90mm for the Leica and a 105mm for the Olympus. I think this was probably taken with the 105mm and the device on the wall is certainly clearer, but no easier for me to interpret. At the top there appear to be three animals with a bird, perhaps an ostrich standing on top of what could be a crocodile or dragon or hound with perhaps a snake on the bird’s back, its head going down to the croc.
Below that with the motto spread over it is what could be cloth hanging from spars or perhaps flames or who knows what, and at the bottom a shield with stripes and what looks like two chickens with their wings up above and one below a row of stars. Perhaps others will know more and comment.
The old manor house was only finally demolished in 1837, though its octagonal tower had been taken down around 1810, perhaps because it was unsafe. It was probably this tower that led to the street laid out on the site, near St Paul’s Clapham being named Turret Grove.
Trinity Close, Flats, The Pavement, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-5j-22
Continuing south along The Pavement took me to this large 1936 development of flats on five storeys with some little interesting At Deco features of which this gate post and porch are perhaps the best. I think that the post (and its partner on the other side of the entrance) may have been built to support an entrance light, but there was no sign of it. The building, which extends back some distance in a roughly H-shape replaced three existing buildings on The Pavement.
It was designed by J J de Segrais and three of its top floor flats on this side have balconies with views over Clapham Common. At the centre just below roof level is a small sculptural decoration which I didn’t try to photograph. Trinity Close is is joined at its north side to another large 1930s block of flats, Windsor Court (which for some reason I didn’t photograph.) It has the date A. D, 1935 on its ‘moderne’ frontage and shops along its ground floor. A tunnel through a wide entrance at the right of this block leads to the rear of both blocks.
Herne Hill, Dorchester and Carnegie: Another episode in in the series of posts on my walk in south London on Sunday 7th May 1989 (on earlier posts I put the date wrongly as 6th May). The walk began with Hanover, Belgrave, Chapel, Shops, Taxis. The previous post was Ruskin & Half Moon, Herne Hill.
Houses, Herne Hill, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5e-34
There are some fine late Victorian houses on Herne Hill and most seemed in a good state of repair, though this one was getting some major work done. The chimneys are impressive. If you click on the image you will go to my Flickr album where you will find a couple more pictures of houses on this section of the street – and there are also a few I haven’t put online.
Flats, Dorchester Court, Herne Hill, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5e-23
A little further up I came to this splendid group of 1930’s ‘moderne’ style flats. There are 96 flats in 8 blocks around a courtyard. Built in 1933-4 Dorchester Court is Grade II listed, the architects were Leslie H Kemp and Frederick E Tasker and the estate was developed by a local builder and developer, Mr Morrell. The name probably came from that of the Dorchester Hotel which had been opened in 1931 on Park Lane intended to be the perfect luxury hotel.
According to Historic England “There are structural problems with the balconies and general external deterioration. A Listed Building Consent application for the extension and refurbishment of the blocks is pending determination” and the Evening Standard in 2022 ran an article with the impresively long headline “Inside neglected Art Deco block where residents face carbon monoxide leaks, mice, cockroaches and lead pipes” stating “Residents at the Herne Hill estate are stuck in a nightmare.”
Until recently Dorchester Court was owned and neglected by the property company Manaquel, a family company whose wealth is estimated at £200 million. The Standard says they have appealed against a 2021 improvement notice from Lambeth Council and that their “endgame appears to be a full-scale redevelopment.”
The Dorchester Court Tenants Union sate that “Dorchester Court is operated by Property Partners, who are owned by Beaumaris Ventures Limited (British Virgin Islands), a financial intermediary of the IFM Group Limited (Jersey), who are both listed in the Panama Papers. Dorchester Court generates around £1.5 million in rent per year with additional income from leaseholder service charges.“
House, 10-12 Herne Hill, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5e-24
A grand pair of Italianate mid-19th century semi-detached houses, now flats, with a most unusual design. The house has now lost its white fence and rather hides behind a brick wall and a tall hedge.
Carnegie Library, Haredale Rd, Herne Hill Rd, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5e-11
I turned left into Herne Hill Road from Herne Hill, and walked along it to photograph the Haredale Road frontage of the Carnegie Library before going on to photograph the main entrance on Herne Hill Road. This Grade II listed library is one of those built with a grant from Scottish-American steel baron, Andrew Carnegie, using his vast profits from his ruthless exploitation of workers to establish over 2,800 libraries. He provided a grant of £12,500 to enable the Herne Hill Library, designed by architects Wakeford and Sons, to be built and opened in 1906.
Carnegie Library, Herne Hill Rd, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5e-12
I was back at the library in 2016 at the end of a ten days of occupation by local residents against Lambeth council’s plans to turn it into a fee-charging gym run by Greenwich Leisure Ltd with an just un-staffed lounge with books. Their occupation had hit national headlines with huge support from around the country.
The gym plans went ahead, but with a little more library provision than originally planned and there is also now the Carnegie Library Hub based in the building, “a thriving sustainable centre of local activity attractive to the whole community for developing employment opportunities, learning, fitness and wellbeing, cultural and social activity” which protects and celebrates its history and legacy.
I didn’t take many more pictures as I walked back to Herne Hill and walked back down it. After a short walk along Half Moon Lane I turned around and went towards the station, where the next part of this walk will begin.
Parish Hall, St Saviour’s Church, Ruskin Park, Herne Hill, Lambeth 1989 89-5e-51
I walked back towards Loughborough Junction station and then turned right down Herne Hill Road, but nothing caught my attention until I came to St Saviour’s Parish Hall on the corner of Finsen Rd. This was erected next door to the church in 1914 and is Grade II listed, its architect Beresford Pite. The hall is now in use as St Saviour’s Church.
St Saviour’s Church was an impressive Victorian building designed by A.D. Gough and consecrated in 1867. It was a short distance to the north on Herne Hill Road in what are now the grounds of St Saviours Church of England Primary School. It was made redundant in 1980 and demolished in 1982 as it was in danger of falling down.
Ruskin Park, named after the named after the noted Victorian writer and naturalist John Ruskin who grew up in the area is just on the other side of Finsen Road, and although I took no photographs here I think I may have found a seat in it to eat my sandwiches before continuing.
Houses, Milkwood Road, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5e-42
I walked back up Herne Hill Road, taking a picture of one of the houses with distinctive porches in the terrace on the west side at 17-35 (not online) and then walking down Wingmore Road to the junction with Hinton Road and Milkwood Road and turning south to go along Milkwood Road towards the centre of Herne Hill.
Milkwood Manor covered a large area including Denmark Hill. The development around Herne Hill began in earnest after the railway station was opened in 1862, and more importantly later in the decade when services began to the City and Kings Cross. In 1868 the Suburban Village and General Dwellings Company took out a 99-year lease to develop twenty-four acres with houses that working men could afford, and cheap worken’s tickets made living in the suburbs possible. Most of those houses are now beyond the means of most working men.
Gubyon Avenue, Fawnbrake Avenue, Kestrel Avenue were all first developed at around the same time, I think largely from the 1880s with development continuing until a little after the end of the century. Much of the land was owned by a family called Gubbins, who perhaps thought Gubyon a more distinctive version of their name. 13 Gubyon Avenue is thought by the Sherlock Holmes Society to have been the location of Major Sholto’s residence, visited by Holmes and Watson accompanying Miss Mary Morstan in The Sign of Four, written in 1889.
The houses in my picture are probably older, in a similar but slightly less grand style and are closer to the centre of Herne Hill at 352 to 373 Milkwood Road. It’s perhaps surprising they lie just outside the Herne Hill Conservation Area.
Wandles, Car Sales, Flats, Milkwood Rd, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5e-4489-5e-44
Just a few yards from the end of Milkwood Road, these flats which have a frontage on Herne Hill are now hard to see from Milkwood Road, hidden by a two-storey block of Sainsbury’s Local and other buildings where the car sales once were.
What I have called flats its actually the rear of the 1906 LCC Fire Station at 130 Herne Hill, its rear with this rather odd gabled tower considerably more interesting than its rather plain Queen Anne frontage.
Herne Hill is split in two by the boundary between the London boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth which runs along the centre of Herne Hill and Norwood Road – all the buildings in this picture are in Southwark borough.
There had been a pub here since 1760, although the current grade II* listed building dates from 1896. It was once one of London’s more famous music venues in London for around 50 years hosting among others U2, Van Morrison, Van Morrison, Dr. Feelgood and David Bowie. Even Frank Sinatra gave an impromptu performance here when he came to visit his former chauffeur on his first night as landlord in 1970.
Closed for around 4 years in 2013 after flooding from a burst water main it has been restored and reopened but no longer features live music. The Dulwich Estate which owns it had wanted to convert the pub to flats, but was prevented when it was listed as an Asset of Community Value by the council and the pub was bought by Fullers.
Shops, Half Moon, pub, Herne Hill, Half Moon Lane, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5e-46
Another view of the Half Moon pub, this time from a few yards up Herne Hill, with shops along the east side of that road. The Half Moon is one of a number of pubs which Dylan Thomas frequented on his visits to London, coming to watch London Welsh play Rugby at the nearby Velodrome. No alcohol was available there and after games the members retired to the Half Moon.
He is said to have found the name for his radio drama Under Milk Wood standing in in the doorway of the Half Moon looking across to Milkwood Road. I can find no evidence for the claims on web sites that he once lived in the road, but I don’t have a detailed biography.
Herne Hill Mansions, Flats, Herne Hill, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5e-32
I continued walking up Herne Hill (confusingly the name of a road as well as the area) and immediately past the Mobil garage – now replaced by Tesco Express – came to this large block of flats.
Houses, Herne Hill, Gubyon Ave, Herne Hill, Lambeth, 1989 89-5e-33
Continuing uphill up Herne Hill were an number of large late Victorian or Edwardian detached houses. This one on the corner of Gubyon Avenue was perhaps just a little larger and certainly had two sides clearly visible. As you can see there are other large houses further up the hill.
