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Curry’s, Firestone, A Fountain & Kluwer – Brentford – 1990

Curry’s, Firestone, A Fountain & Kluwer continues from where my previous post about my walk on Sunday 7th January 1990 In Memory of Macleans & Trico – 1990 ended.

Warehouse, 991, Great West Road, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-42 — *Former Curry’s, 991, Great West Road, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-42*

Warehouse and offices built in 1935-6 by F E Simpkins as a distribution centre for Curry’s Ltd. Grade II listed in 1994. Curry’s lost their headquarters building when it was taken over during the war to make aircraft parts. But in 1996 they opened a new superstore a few yards down the road at 971, a site where from 1929 Packard Cars were built; it had beenbadly damaged by a V2 in March 1945, but was rebuilt and became an annexe to Sperry Gyroscope until they moved to Bracknell in 1966.

In 1990, 991 Great West Road was Cooper West London Service. After some years of disuse in 2000 it became the offices of JC Decaux.

*Gate, Firestone Tyre Factory, Great West Road, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-43*

Closed in 1979, the factory was bought by Trafalgar House and demolished during the 1980 August bank holiday to preempt its listing, due to be announced two days later. It was one of the finest buildings designed by Wallis, Gilbert and Partners and only the second to be opened on the Great West Rd in 1928.

*Gate, Firestone Tyre Factory, Great West Road, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-31*

Its demolition was widely condemned as an act of architectural vandalism by architectural critics, many of whom would gladly have lain down in front of the bulldozers had they known about it in time. It’s demolition led directly to the listing of at least 150 twentieth century buildings previously ignored, though too many remained unprotected and have been lost.

Many of us felt that Lord Victor Matthews who ordered the instant demolition to avoid listing should have been in some way brought to justice – or at least have his life peerage removed. But nothing was done.

*Fountain, Great West Road, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-35*

The building at the left of this image is the former Coty Cosmetics Factory at 941 Great West Road from 1932 by Wallis, Gilbert and Partners, now Syon Clinic, and to the right an odd structure outside Homebase. This fountain must have been close to the corner of Shield Drive, perhaps to distract attention from the bland and mediocre more recent buildings in the area.

*Kluwer Publishing, Harlequin Avenue, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-22*

Harlequin Avenue runs north from the Great West Road and is still lined by factories and commercial buildings, few of much architectural interest. Kluwer Publishing was perhaps the exception but this building has since been demolished.

*Gilette, Syon Lane, Isleworth, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-26*

The Gillette building at the corner of the Great West Road and Syon Lane marks the western end of Brentford’s ‘Golden Mile’. To the west of here the land was owned by the Church Commissioners who only permitted residential development in Osterly.

Designed by Sir Banister Flight Fletcher in 1936-7, Gillette continued to make razor blades here until production was moved to Poland in 2006. The tall tower can be seen from miles away in this flat corner of Middlesex.

*Gilette, Syon Lane, Isleworth, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-11*

Plans to convert the building into a hotel and small business park fell through and in 2013 the site was purchased by The Vinyl Factory and made available for filming, at first with four large stages. Plans were approved in 2025 to make more of the site available for filming while preserving the Grade II listed building – and are expected to provide more than 3,400 permanent jobs.

More from my walk in the next instalment.

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Yorkshire Interlude – Hornsea – 2008

Yorkshire Interlude – Hornsea: On Saturday 12th July 2008 when we were staying for a few days in Hull with an old friend we took a bus to the Yorkshire coast at Hornsea for the day.

I’d first visited Hornsea, a small coastal resort, back in 1965 when I made my first visit to the Hull home of my future parents-in-law, but my wife’s memories of it go back further.

Until Beeching swung his axe there were trains from Hull to two seaside towns, Hornsea and Withernsea which stopped at her local station, Botanic Gardens, a quarter of an hour’s walk from her home. People would often go to them for an outing, for a day or even an evening, and many who lived in these towns would commute to work in Hull.

My wife’s family took their annual holiday most years with a week in Hornsea, staying in a cottage that one of her great-aunts had bought for £25 after it had been condemned for demolition in the near future. I think it was more than 25 years later that it actually came down – and the site is now just a small garden on the main street, a few minutes walk from the seafront.

Most times when we go to Hull now – not as often as we used to as most of those we knew there are now dead or have moved away – we take a bus to Hornsea. What used to be around 40 minutes on the train now takes around twice as long on the buses, though at least it is now free for those of us with bus passes. And the old railway line is now part of a long-distance footpath. Perhaps we will visit again this summer.

We’ve also stayed there, in a holiday cottage in the town centre and a couple of times for a few days at a hotel on the seafront there, where we’ve enjoyed some remarkable sunrises over the wide expanse of the North Sea – as well as some battering storms.

But in 2008 we were staying in one of the finest houses in Hull, West Garth, (more here) then owned by an old friend – an ‘Arts & Crafts’ house which gets a short mention in the guide to Hull’s architecture. It had been one of our friend’s childhood homes and after some years of retirement he bought the property. Various ‘improvements’ had been made which meant it had been denied listing and he spent considerable time and money in restoring it to its original state but sadly died before he completed the job.

The weather wasn’t too good, with some heavy showers, but this did mean that we had the town almost to ourselves, as most of those who would normally have come for a day out at the seaside in July stayed home.

We visited Hornsea Mere, a large freshwater lake at the centre of the town, and a shower gave us a good reason to go into its café before we walked down to the seafront. The sea looked cold and uninviting and for once Linda didn’t paddle.

Then along to another café at the Floral Hall where the sun came out briefly after we had taken shelter there and on the the large park, Hall Garth before it was time to get the bus back into Hull.

This time we took the slower route back via Beverley, getting off in Hull on Beverley Road where I took a picture of Bethnal Green, here just a short terrace of houses, before returning to our friends house to cook dinner.

Despite the weather we had enjoyed a good day.

But it wasn’t a good day to have afternoon tea on the south-facing loggia. You can see many more pictures and some captions from our day at Hornsea on My London Diary.

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More Around Brompton: 1988

The Boltons, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4o-52a-positive_2400 — *The Boltons, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4o-52*

If the houses around The Boltons are all much the same – the Grade II listing text for most simply tells you to see that for the first pair, 1 &2 – some distinguished themselves by their gates. Those of No 16 have lost their eagles since I made this picture, and the iron gates have lost both their angled top and the arch above as well as the rampant creeper but have gained an entryphone and a letter box. Walking down the street today there would be no picture to make here.

The Boltons, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4o-66-positive_2400 — *The Boltons, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4o-66*

There are various designs of wrought iron gates to the houses around The Boltons, though quite a few share the same pattern. This one, I think at No 23, appealed to me more than most and I was fortunate to find it half opened, giving a clearer view of the tiled path and those ornamental ceramic leaves containing a small bush.

It also shows the peeling paint which still then could be seen on quite a few of these houses, which are now all I think pristine. I rather liked the impression it gave of these houses being old and lived in.

Jenny Lind, Boltons Place, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4o-55-positive_2400 — Jenny Lind, Boltons Place, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4o-55

Boltons Place leads north from The Boltons to the Old Brompton Road and its east side is occupied by several large houses. That occupied by Jenny Lind, the ‘Swedish Nightingale’, has undergone various changes of street name and number since she moved in as the first occupier in 1874, and is in a rather different style to the rest of the area. In 1906 it was altered by the addition of a rather attractive semi-cicular bow window, hidden in my view. The effect is less austere, described in the Victoria History as “un-Godwinian suavity in a rather French way“.

School, Boltons Place, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4o-54-positive_2400 — School, Boltons Place, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4o-54

The west side of Boltons Place is quite different, occupied by Bousfield Primary School. This primary school was built in 1954-6 by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon and is on the site of Beatrix Potter’s house and garden at 2 Bolton Gardens, where she lived for more than 40 years until she was married in 1913, a short walk from Brompton Cemetery where she found some of the names for her characters. The site became available thanks to wartime bombing.

The school is a heavily over-subscribed local authority school which had its origins in a school set up as a “poor school” for local Catholic children by the parish priest in the 1800s which was renamed Bousfield School in 1913. The children were transferred to the new school in 1956. Later the old building became another Catholic school.

Fulham Rd, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4o-43-positive_2400 — *Fulham Rd, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4o-43*

The Fulham Road has a rather different atmosphere with this row of shops with an entrance probably for horses to be led through to stables behind. When I took the picture it led to the Hungry Horse Restaurant, and although the board with its two horses heads looks like that of a French horse butcher, the English menu will almost certainly not have included horsemeat – nor will it have had hay offer, so any horses would have remained hungry.

Now the gate seems closed and the area behind looks unused. Unsurprisingly the shop at left is now an estate agent.

Cinema, Fulham Rd, Drayton Gardens, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4o-44-positive_2400 — *Cannon Cinema, F*ulham Rd, Drayton Gardens, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-4o-44

The cinema opened as the Forum Theatre in 1930, designed by architect J Stanley Beard, featuring live variety shows with an orchestra. It was sold to Associated British Cinemas (ABC) in 1935 and lost its organ in the 1960s. Like others it got altered internally to provide first three then four, five when I made this picture and finally six screens. Now owned by Cineworld who have transferred it to their Picturehouse chain, it had further renovations in 2019.

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