Posts Tagged ‘GLIAS’

Bermondsey Equinox 2015

Wednesday, March 20th, 2024

Bermondsey Equinox: Spring, or rather Astronomical Spring, officially starts today, 20th March, though meteorologists see things differently and start it on March 1st and the weather has its own ideas. Botanists too make up their own minds by looking at plants.

Bermondsey Equinox

Today is the Spring Equinox, which I always assumed meant equal lengths of day and night, but checking the tables I find that today we get 24 minutes more day than night.

Bermondsey Equinox

The actual definition of the Equinox is apparently the moment when the Sun is directly above the equator and the Earth’s rotational axis passes through from being tilted towards the southern hemisphere to the north. So it really is just a moment, this year at 3.06 am UTC 20th March. Most years it falls on 20th March, but in 2007 it was on the 21st in the UK, and this year will be on the 19th across the USA.

Bermondsey Equinox

But watch out for Druids, particularly should you be near Tower Hill, where in some previous years I’ve photographed their celebrations which begin at noon, I think Greenwich Mean Time.

Bermondsey Equinox

It’s an interesting event to watch, and doubtless important for those taking part, and also good to photograph at least once or twice, but when you’ve done it a few times difficult to find anything new to say.

So I won’t be there today. And I won’t write about it here, as last year I posted Druid Order – Spring Equinox at Tower Hill and you can still read all about it there as well on the various other posts here and on My London Diary.

Back in 2015 I didn’t go to Tower Hill but was instead on the opposite side of the River Thames in Bermondsey, out for a walk around one of my favourite areas of London with a few photographer friends.

As I wrote then, it was “really just an excuse to meet up, go to a couple of pubs and then end up with a meal” and though it was a fine afternoon I don’t think any of us took many pictures. I’d photographed the area fairly extensively in previous years and had even written a leaflet with a walk for part of it.

The leaflet came about back in the dark ages of computing, when Desk Top Publishing had more or less just been invented and I was teaching an evening class in the use of Aldus Pagemaker, bought up by Adobe in 1994 who then killed it and brought out Indesign, more powerful but far more difficult to use. West Bermondsey – The leather area was an industrial archaeology walk which I made use of to illustrate some of my lessons.

Over the next few years I printed hundreds of copies on my Epson Dot-Matrix printer – which accounts for the crude illustrations – and sold them at 20p a time – hardly a money spinner but it covered my costs. They were bought and given out by local historian Stephen Humphrey (1952-2017), chief archivist at Southwark’s Local Studies Library for 30 years on his local history walks and sold at the Bermondsey festival. I met Stephen who wrote a number of publications on the history of the area a few times – and had visited him in the Library when researching the leaflet, which also relied on information from a walk led by Tim Smith for the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society where it is one of a very long list of interesting walks in London.

The area has changed considerably since I wrote it, but most of what is mentioned remains despite considerable gentrification. You can find several hundreds of my older images of Bermondsey in colour and black and white on Flickr – including those used in illustrating the leaflet in much better reproduction.

There are a few more images from my 2015 walk on My London Diary at Bermondsey Walk.


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More from King’s Cross Goods Yard

Saturday, April 29th, 2023

My posts about my walk around King’s Cross led by the Greater London Industrial Archeology Society on Saturday 8th April 1989 continues with this post. The previous post was Coal Drops and Canal Kings Cross 1989

Western Goods Shed, Kings X Goods Yard, Kings Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4f-23
Western Goods Shed, Kings X Goods Yard, Kings Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4f-23

A couple of the others on this GLIAS walk are on the right edge of this picture, which gives a good impression of the state of the building at the time with scattered rubbish in the foreground and a large pile of it in the distance. You can find more about the site in Peter Darley’s post on the Gasholder blog, from which much of the information here comes.

Behind Western Goods Shed, Kings X Goods Yard, Kings Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4f-11
Behind Western Goods Shed, Kings X Goods Yard, Kings Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4f-11

The Western Coal Drops were converted to become a part of the Western Goods Shed in 1897–99 when the timber viaduct which had been on their west side leading over the canal to Samuel Plimsoll’s coal shoots in Cambridge Road in 1886 was also rebuilt. (I think ‘shoot’ was simply an alternative spelling of ‘chute’.) Darley says that this iron on brick Plimsoll Viaduct was later dismantled and re-erected on their east side when the Western Goods Shed was built. I think this was at the north end of the Goods Shed at left and the Coal Drop roof at right.

North End, Goods Shed, Kings X Goods Yard, Kings Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4f-12
North End, Goods Shed, Kings X Goods Yard, Kings Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4f-12

Although this was taken over a barbed wire fence, the next pictures (one below) were made from the other side of this. I think at least this row of buildings from the original 1850s buildings although in part rebuilt. I don’t think these have survived in the redevelopment though I could be wrong.

North End, Goods Shed, Kings X Goods Yard, Kings Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4f-14
North End, Goods Shed, Kings X Goods Yard, Kings Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4f-14

Another picture from further down the yard in the image above.

Eastern Coal Drops, Kings X Goods Yard, Kings Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4f-16
Eastern Coal Drops, Kings X Goods Yard, Kings Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4f-16

We returned to the northern end of the Eastern Coal Drops where I think this shows the brickwork that once supported the two lines of rails. In the distance you can just see the tops of the Kings Cross gasholders.

1864 Viaduct, Kings X Goods Yard, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4g-62
1864 Viaduct, Kings X Goods Yard, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4g-62

This shows a ground level view of the ‘Berlin Bank’ viaduct seen in an image on my previous post at left and also on the right the viaduct for the Eastern Coal Drops. The area was still in use for storage and as you can see several vehicles were parked around in and between the arches.

Eastern Coal Drops, Kings X Goods Yard, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4g-64
Eastern Coal Drops, Kings X Goods Yard, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4g-64

Another view at ground level between the two coal drops, looking towards the Eastern Coal Drops.

Under the 1864 Viaduct, Kings X Goods Yard, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4g-41
Under the 1864 Viaduct, Kings X Goods Yard, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4g-41

For this picture I used flash to illuminate the brick arch which was only dimly lit. Beyond this the area of the actual coal drops was open above and illuminated by daylight.

Coal Drops, Kings X Goods Yard, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4g-33
Coal Drops, Kings X Goods Yard, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4g-33

The viaducts merged together at the northern end of the Coal Drops site.

Coal Drops, Kings X Goods Yard, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4g-34
Coal Drops, Kings X Goods Yard, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4g-34

This is now part of the restored building which can be seen from what is now called Stable Street. It was the last of the roughly 50 pictures I took inside the Kings Cross Goods Yard where I was able to benefit from the insights of several of the country’s leading industrial archaeologists before the GLIAS walk ended at the exit from the area on York Way.

From there I continued to wander unguided around the area to the north of Kings Cross and St Pancras stations, and I will continue with pictures from this in the next post in this series.

The first post on this walk was Kings Cross, St George’s Gardens & More


Albion Yard and Balfe Street, 1989

Sunday, April 9th, 2023

Albion Yard and Balfe Street: My walk around King’s Cross on Saturday 8th April 1989 continues. The previous post was Along the Cally & York Way. I was taking part in a walk led by the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society, GLIAS.

York Way area Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-34
Albion Yard, York Way, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-34

I cannot now remember if we took an alley from York Way to enter Albion Yard or if we turned east along Railway Street, from where there was another entrance. But I think this building was on our route into Albion Yard, and is now still present either in Albion Yard or the connected Ironworks Yard.

Neither of these yards is named on the old larre-scale OS maps, and only Albion Yard appears on my old street atlas. A few yards away from the Balfe Street entrance on the corner with Caledonian Road The Albion pub opened in 1845 when Balfe Street was called Albion St but the yard was simply labelled on the 1877 map as ‘Blue Manufactury.’ The Albion building is still there though by the time of this walk known as Malt & Hops. For some years it was the Ruby Lounge wine bar, then a Be At One cocktail bar and is now home to the Institute of Physics.

Albion Yard, Balfe St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-35
Albion Yard, Balfe St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-35

The name ‘Albion’ is the oldest known name for the mainland of Britain, in use at least since it was recorded by Greek geographers around 6,000 years ago to distinguished it from Ireland. They are thought to have got the name from the Celts and it was Romanised as Albion.

Some believe it came from a word meaning white and relate it to the ‘White Cliffs of Dover’ but it seems more likely to have a different origin simply meaning ‘land’ or ‘world’, and possibly the same root that also led to Alps and Albania.

Albion Yard, Balfe St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-36
Albion Yard, Balfe St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-36

Albion largely survives in modern English simply in the name ‘Alba’ used by Scottish separatists and in Celtic languages for Scotland.

But Albion is the England of myths, with the fantasies of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae being repeated as fact in histories in the five centuries that followed. But most important for its continued popularity was the work of visionary poet and printmaker William Blake and his ‘Jerusalem‘, subtitled ‘The Emanation of the Giant Albion‘ published in just as six copies before his death in 1827. Later many have come to regard him as the greatest artist Britain has ever produced.

Albion Yard, Balfe St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-21
Albion Yard, Balfe St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-21

Albion Yard had entrances from York Way, Caledonia St, Balfe St and Railway St and was the interior of this block of four streets. The entrances and a few of the buildings that were present in 1989 still exist though in rather different state, but the character of the area, now labelled ‘Regent Quarter’ is very different.

Albion Yard, Balfe St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-22
Albion Yard, Balfe St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-22

An property group’s site provides the following description:

“Regents Quarter is a development of almost six acres of land next to Kings Cross Station that and has been transformed into a living working community. Victorian workshops have been converted into loft style apartments, sitting comfortably alongside ultra modern business and residential spaces…

This sought after gated development boasts a lovely entrance hall further benefitting from a 24 hour concierge/security service.”

Albion Yard, Balfe St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-24
Albion Yard, Balfe St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-24

Some of the properties were still in use as small workshops but others are clearly derelict. I was intrigued by the heads of mannequins visible in the first floor with a door on which the name MODRENO had been hand-painted. This photograph had a sign painted on the wall ‘NO PARKING MODRENO LOADING BAY – SIGNED LECKY’S DUMMY MODELS’. You can find out much more on Modreno at Foxxhunting – Modreno.

Albion Yard, Balfe St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-12
Leaving Albion Yard to Balfe St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-12

You can view a very detailed presentation of the proposed redevelopment of the whole area, which includes a plans and a number of photographs of the current Albion Yard, part of what will be called Jahn Court. You can recognise this and other buildings in my pictures in the photographs there.

Entrance to Albion Yard, Balfe St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-14
Entrance to Albion Yard, Balfe St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-14

The mid 19th century house at left and the adjoining arch with its inscription ‘WORKS & MILLS’ and the date 1846 is Grade II listed. Balfe St was formerly Albion St, and was renamed after the composer of the opera The Bohemian Girl, William Balfe in 1938.

My King’s Cross walk with GLIAS will continue in a later post

The first post on this walk was Kings Cross, St George’s Gardens & More.


Along the Cally & York Way

Saturday, April 8th, 2023

My walk around King’s Cross on Saturday 8th April 1989 continues. The previous post was King’s Cross Road – 1989

Alley, 7 Caledonian Rd, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4d-13
Alley, 7 Caledonian Rd, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4d-13

Although I had begun this walk on my own, at some point I had joined up with others for a walk around the area organised by GLIAS, the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society, of which I had long been a member, and some of the others taking part in the walk can be seen in this and some later pictures.

This alley is now an entrance to the Regent Quarter, an estate which “is currently arranged in two blocks and comprises approximately 260,730 sq ft of mixed-use real estate, across 12 office buildings and 20 retail and leisure units” which was purchased by Hong Kong based Endurance Land in 2018 who aim to revitalise the 3.5 acre site.

The name Regent Quarter applies to a larger area, mainly within Islington but also including the ‘Lighthouse’ block in Camden which largely grew up around the railway. Back in 1989 around a third of the buildings in the area were vacant, some derelict and the rest largely in poor condition, partly because of the blighting effect of uncertainly over future major developments in the area, much of which was then expected to be demolished for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and in which I became interested through the Kings Cross Railway Lands Group in the late 1980s.

Old Forge, Business Centre, Caledonian Rd, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4d-15
Old Forge, Business Centre, Caledonian Rd, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4d-15

This is now a part of the Regent Quarter and I think these particular buildings in the block west of the Caledonian Road reached from the alley above through the opening at the centre of this picture are still present around this internal courtyard. But I can find no mention now of the Old Forge Business Centre name still in the area.

Old Forge, Business Centre, Caledonian Rd, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-61
Old Forge, Business Centre, Caledonian Rd, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-61

Another picture of the internal courtyard of what was the the Old Forge Business Centre.

Caledonian Rd, Keystone Crescent, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-65
Caledonian Rd, Keystone Crescent, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-65

We returned to the Caledonian Road and I took this photograph across the road of one end of Keystone Crescent, but our walk conitnued north up the Caledonian Road, though I did photograph Keystone Crescent on other walks in the area.

Lanitis Fabrics, Caledonia St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-66
Lanitis Fabrics, Caledonia St, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-66

The group turned west down Caledonia Street stopping to admire the 1906 built frontage of the former Kings Cross Laundry, with the large intertwined KCL insignia. More recent signs included those for Lanitis Fabrics Ltd, and Stella Models, with signs calling for Machinists, Overlockers, Pressers, Finishers and Cutters, though I think the business had closed and the building was vacant. The building is still there, much cleaned up.

York Way, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-51
York Way, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-51

Caledonia Street took us to York Way. I’m not sure but I think this may be one of the few listed buildings in the area at 34B, where the Grade II listing text mentions “The highly unusual roof structure is a notable survival.”

If so, the frontage on York Way is rather more impressive than this side of the building, with a nicely symmetrical frontage around an arched carriage entrance, a warehouse for the adjoining black lead works designed by Thomas Marsh Nelson and William Harvey in 1873.

I think this building was where I showed work and gave a presentation as a part of the The London International Documentary Festival in 2010, I think the first time the festival had included still photography.

Taxi depot, York Way, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-53
Taxi depot, York Way, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-53

I think the sign at the upper centre of the image once read COACHWORK DEPT with the later addition of MOTOCOL LTD. The sloping ramp to these first floor works was built for horses and this could possibly have been a converted stables.

Now it was a busy depot for London ‘black cab’ taxis, with the driver of one at right using an air line on a tyre and small group talking by a diesel pump.

Grange Motors, York Way, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-55
Grange Motors, York Way, Pentonville, Islington, 1989 89-4e-55

A second picture shows others on the walk going to look more closely at Crash Repair Specialists Grange Motors, while more taxi drivers are now by the pumps. The alley along the side of Grange Motors led to an enclosed yard surrounded by derelict buildings, but I’ve not digitised the couple of pictures I made there. It was a dead end and we had to come back out onto York Way.

To be continued…

The first post on this walk was Kings Cross, St George’s Gardens & More


Dockhead, Sarsons, Tanner St and Bermondsey Square

Friday, July 29th, 2022

The previous post on this walk was Warehouses, Boats and Biscuits – Bermondsey 1988

Dockhead, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10p-26-Edit_2400
Dockhead, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10p-26

I walked past Dockhead and along Tooley Street, turning down Tower Bridge Road and on to Tanner St making a few photographs, but have only digitised the two shown here. Dockhead is of course at the head of St Saviour’s Dock and until a bridge was built across the mouth of the dock walkers by the river had to take the route past Dockhead – and I often took a picture looking down the dock towards the Thames and this was no exception, but I haven’t yet digitised it.

The building with the circular window on its top floor was Jacob’s Biscuit Factory – another of whose buildings on Wolseley street featured in the previous post.

Tower Coachworks, Tooley St, Lafone St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10q-64-Edit_2400
Tower Coachworks, Tooley St, Lafone St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10q-64

And although I made half a dozen exposures on Tooley St, one on Fair Street and several on Tower Bridge Road, this is the only one on-line. I do sometimes find it hard to know why I’ve not scanned some images and perhaps one day I’ll come back and fill in the gaps. But for the moment this is the only picture here from this section of the route.

It shows the two buildings on the corner with Lafone St, which runs north from Tooley Street to Shad Thames. Tower Coachworks has been demolished and replaced by new flats, but the large warehouse blocks at left, which run across the whole block to Boss St and up Lafone St to Queen Elizabeth St was refurbished by the London Docklands Development Corporation into a large residential development, Boss House. Q’s Ltd Snooker & Pool Club with its line of arrows to guide even the most shortsighted or inebriated to its entrance at rear has long gone. The three warehouses dates from somewhere around 1900 and there was a short street across the middle, Goat St, whose name can just be seen above the van parked on Lafone St, at least on a larger version of this frame.

Sarsons, Vinegar, Tanner St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10q-43-Edit_2400
Sarsons, Vinegar, Tanner St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10q-43

Sarson’s vinegar works were on a large site on Tower Bridge Road with these vats viewed from Tanner St. Their presence was very apparent by the smell which pervaded the area – I couldn’t walk past without thinking of fish and chips – although according to Wikipedia production had moved to Manchester in 1968, it actually continued through the 1980s and the works only closed in 1992.

Thomas Sarson is said to have first brewed his malt vinegar in 1794 in Shoreditch, though apparently this date is unlikely and probably Sarson’s only made cheaper ‘wood’ vinegar until 1894. Sarson’s vinegar was briefly sold as ‘”Sarson’s Virgin Vinegar’ but that name was soon dropped. There is a very detailed article Just Say Sarsons by Tim Smith in a GLIAS Journal about the company with descriptions and photographs from a finely detailed recording visit. The vinegar works were begun by Noah Slee and a Mr Vickers around 1814, but later greatly expanded. The works were run by the Slee family until a merger with Champions in 1908 and their family connection continued until the formation of British Vinegars Ltd in 1932. Later they became a part of Nestlé and the Sarson’s brand is now owned by a Japanese vinegar company, who also own my favourite Hayward’s Pickled Onions.

The site was redeveloped from 2000 on, with its Grade II listed buildings being converted into flats and other buildings such as these vats being demolished and replaced by modern flats.

Tanner St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10q-32-Edit_2400
Tanner St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10q-32

Further west along Tanner St are these three adjoining buildings at 1-3 Tanner St. The Bermondsey Wire Works name has faded a little more but otherwise that building looks much the same, while Neon Manufacturers at No 2 is rather more tidier, has lost its original windows and all signage and has a new door and porch. No 3 has also had something of a face-lift but retains most of its former character, but the hoist no longer has a bucket attached.

Tanner St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10q-33-Edit_2400
Tanner St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10q-33

These buildings were still very obviously in commercial use back in 1988, but I think now most are studios, offices and residential, and I think I went to an exhibition in one of them a few years ago. Tanner Street was originally known as Five Foot Lane and most of it was on a map by 1544. The second part of the story by Richard Miller deals with it after it was renamed Russell Street in the late 18th century when it contained the Bermondsey Workhouse, and part 3 looks at it after Bermondsey Parish Council renamed it Tanner Street in 1881, reflecting the main trade then carried on there. The workhouse closed in 1922, and the site was bought with funds from selling St Olave’s Church in Tooley Street to Hay’s Wharf – and a part of that church’s tower, now Grade II listed, was installed as a drinking fountain in Tanner Street Recreation Ground which opened on the site in 1929. The park got a little larger in the 1990s.

Cockle & Co, Bermondsey Mesh and Wireworks were at 109 Bermondsey St from 1903-1919 and their works stretched around the corner here into Tanner St. According to the Bermondsey Boy web site, No 3 -7 were built in 1838 for three separate businesses but were bought by the Simmons Company, makers of perambulators, mail carts and stretchers in 1888 and later they also owned No 1 – you can see some of their advertisements on thesite. Simmons sold No 1 in 1952 and closed the business in 1959.

Bermondsey Square, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10q-14-Edit_2400
Bermondsey Square, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10q-14

Bermondsey Square looks very different now to when I took this picture in 1988 and I think the actual position where I was standing may now be inside the ground floor of the Bermondsey Square Hotel. My shadow in the foreground shows me looking across the grass area towards the corner of Long Lane and Bermondsey St. The building then the Bermondsey Antique Market is still there – as is St Mary’s Church, but rather than antiques it is now ‘Flour & Grape’ which Google now tells me is an Italian restaurant and “A 3-min walk from the White Cube“. What is left of Bermondsey Square is now paved and although there is a small green area with seating at the front of the hotel it looks very plastic.


Industrial Archaeology: Gloucestershire, 1988

Tuesday, December 7th, 2021

Lock gates, Lydney Harbour, 1988 88-7a-62-positive_2400
Lock gates, Lydney Harbour, 1988 88-7a-62

Some time in 1977 I visited Kew Bridge Engines in Green Dragon Lane, Brentford and was greatly impressed by the huge beam engines there, once used to pump water to the top of the tower. I had joined a local camera club, and they were running a photographic competition in conjunction with the site and allowed us free access. One of my pictures ended up with the second prize (rather to the surprise and disgust of many club members as I wasn’t really a ‘club photographer’) and also got printed in Amateur Photographer. You can see this and many other pictures on my web site London’s Industrial Heritage.

Blast furnace, Gunns Mills, Flaxley, Forest of Dean, 1988 88-7b-63-positive_2400
Blast furnace, Gunns Mills, Flaxley, Forest of Dean, 1988 88-7b-63

But it was there, either on that visit or a later one when I took my young sons and friends to Kew Bridge Engines for a birthday treat that I picked up a leaflet about the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society, and I’ve been a member ever since. Though none of us to this day know how to pronounce GLIAS. And as I say on the web site set up for me by one of those two young boys 25 years on, “I’m not really an industrial archaeologist, but over the last twenty-five years I’ve photographed many things that interest industrial archaeologists.”

Gloucester Docks, 1988 88-7b-65-positive_2400
Gloucester Docks, 1988 88-7b-65

At least one of those boys came with me on a coach trip organised by GLIAS in June 1988 to Gloucestershire where we visited Lydney Harbour, Gunns Mills at Flaxley in the Forest of Dean, Gloucester Docks, the Old Sharpness Canal entrance and Sharpness Docks. It was a long day out, and we arrived back in London only just in time to run for the last train to Staines.

Old Sharpness Canal entrance, 198888-7b-21-positive_2400
Old Sharpness Canal entrance, 1988 88-7b-21

The weather wasn’t ideal, with some quite heavy rain at times, but I still took around a hundred pictures, and there are 29 of them in my album ‘GLIAS trip, Gloucestershire, 1988‘ some perhaps more interesting for their IA content than as photographs. I can’t tell you a great deal about the industrial archaeology, but I think some make interesting photographs, and others are welcome to make more technical comments either here or better on the album.

Old Sharpness Canal entrance, 1988 88-7b-24-positive_2400
Old Sharpness Canal entrance, 1988 88-7b-24
Sharpness Docks, 1988 88-7c-51-positive_2400
Sharpness Docks, 1988 88-7c-51
Sharpness Docks, 1988 88-7b-16-positive_2400
Sharpness Docks, 1988 88-7b-16

More at ‘GLIAS trip, Gloucestershire, 1988


Industrial Archaelogy 1988

Monday, October 26th, 2020

Some photographs from a GLIAS (Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society) coach trip to Gloucestershire in 1988. For most of the time it rained, rather restricting my photography.

Lock gates, Lydney Harbour, 1988 88-7a-62-positive_2400

Lydney Harbour was built in 1810-3 to carry iron ore and coal from the Forest of Dean. These were brought to the harbour by a tramway built in 1809. Coal continued to be shipped from here until 1960 and the harbour only closed in 1977. It was scheduled as an ancient monument in 1985 and later reopened for leisure use More recently there have been some restoration work and a £2.1m Destination Lydney Harbour project began in June 2020 to develop the area for recreation and tourism. An outer Sea gate from the River Severn leads into a Tidal basin, then a lock connects to the dock and Lydney canal. The upper lock gate is a double gate to protect against high tides in the estuary.

The harbour is the mouth of the River Lyd, and a canal leads a mile inland to Lydney. The swing bridge across the canal between the upper and lower parts of the dock was Grade II listed in 1988. Apparently timber was still carried in barges along the canal until around 1980.

Cookson Terrace, Harbour Rd, Lydney, 1988 88-7a-43-positive_2400

Cookson Terrace on Harbour Rd is a row of cottages built in 1858 as a hotel and housing by the Severn and Wye Railway and Canal Company, Grade II listed in 1988.

Blast furnace, Gunns Mills, Flaxley, Forest of Dean, 1988 88-7b-63-positive_2400

Gunns Mills, Flaxley, Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire is a Grade II* Listed Building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument, being probably the oldest surviving blast furnace in the country, dating to 1683. The mill was named after William Gunne who owned an earlier mill on the site. A charcoal blast furnace built here in 1629 was demolished by Parliament in 1650. The furnace was rebuilt in 1683 but went out of use in 1743 when this became a paper mill which closed in 1879, after which some buildings on the site were used as farm buildings.

Gloucester Docks, 1988 88-7b-55-positive_2400

The main site for our visit was Gloucester Docks, a remarkable collection of fifteen Victorian dock buildings around the main basin, built in 1827 as the terminus of the ship canal from Sharpness, and the Barge Arm, provided at the same time to stop barges cluttering up the dock. A new dock, the Victoria Dock, was added in 1847 and further warehouses were added to deal with the increased foreign imports after the 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws.

As the size of vessels increased a new dock was built at Sharpness; larger vessels were unloaded there, with some goods being carried by barges up the canal, while smaller ships continued to use the canal. The docks remained busy until the 1960s but commercial traffic had largely disappeared by the 1980s. Since then the dock has become of popular leisure and residential area both for boaters and tourists.

Old Sharpness Canal entrance, 1988 88-7b-24-positive_2400

The Gloucester and Sharpness Canal was for some years the broadest and deepest canal in the world, intended to be 18ft deep and 86.5ft wide. Authorised in 1793, building was held up by financial difficulties and it was only completed in 1827. 16.3 miles long, it avoided a large loop in the River Severn with a dangerous bend. By 1905 traffic along it had reached 1 million tons a year. Our coach took us for a brief visit to the Old Sharpness Canal entrance, opened in 1827 but no longer in use, before going to Sharpness Dock, opened in 1874 to allow larger ships which could not use the canal to dock. This is still a working dock and most of the older buildings have been replaced by more modern structures.

Sharpness Docks, 1988 88-7c-51-positive_2400

I don’t actually remember much of that visit, but the photographs remain, around a hundred of them, though I’ve only included around 30 in the album. I do remember our coach back to London being held up on the motorway and arriving back in central London hours later than planned, having to run across Waterloo station to just jump on the last train home, minutes before midnight.

More pictures from the trip in a Flickr Album.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.


GLIAS 50

Wednesday, December 11th, 2019

I think I joined the Greater London Industrial Archaelogy Society (GLIAS) in around 1979, forty years ago, but it had then been going for 10 years. I’ve not been the most active of members, particularly in recent years when I’ve been too busy with other things, but over the years I’ve been on numerous walks, several outings, attended talks and lectures and even made some tiny contributions. I still enjoy reading the newsletters and occasional publications of the group.

The various walks usually took me back to areas of London I’d already explored when taking photographs, and they often made me much better informed about buildings I had already photographed. I’ve not been on any lately as they almost always take place when I’m now working. But in previous years, the walks were often followed by the publication of small walk leaflets giving the route and pointing out the IA features.

The first of these walk leaflets was for Tower Hill to Rotherhithe and this anniversary event more or less retraced its steps, led by one of the two original authors, Prof David Perrett, now Chairman and Vice-President of GLIAS. It was a walk I’d first taken – without the aid of the leaflet – in the opposite direction back in 1983 (though I’d photographed parts of the area previously) and quite a few pictures from that are now online on my London Photographs site.

This area on Bermondsey Wall has changed considerably since then, though the riverside of Wapping seen at the top of the image still looks much the same. Of course you can’t see it from this same point, which I think is now occupied by expensive flats.

Inspired by these walk leaflets I went on to produce one of my own, a folded A4 sheet printed on thin card by my laser printer, largely as an exercise in Desktop Publishing which I was then teaching a course on.

Over the next few years I made and sold over well over 500 copies, charging I think 20p for each of them, though I never got the cash for some that were sold locally in Bermondsey (it rankled though the money was insignificant.) My best paying customer was a local historian who used them for several years for the guided walks he did on the local area. I think it is now seriously out of date, but ‘West Bermondsey – The Leather Area‘ has for a long time been available as a free download. (PDF)

The first time I put images from the area on line was in a site called ‘London’s Industrial Heritage‘, designed for me by my elder son, and you can see some pictures from this area from the links on the Southwark page.

I haven’t put many of the pictures from the walk on My London Diary, but there are a few more at GLIAS 50th anniversary walk. If you live in or around London and have any interest in industrial archaeology you would find GLIAS worth joining – and it has a very reasonable annual subscription of £14 (£17 for family membership.)


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media.
And small donations via Paypal – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.


GLIAS 50

Friday, July 19th, 2019

Last Wednesday evening I went on a short walk with members of GLIAS, the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society, from City Hall to Rotherhithe, one of a number of events marking 50 years of the society.

I’ve been a member of GLIAS for much of that time, first coming across it in 1977 when I visited Kew Bridge Engines, ostensibly for the benefit of my one-year-old son, and picking up a leaflet about it there. I’m not sure whether I joined it then, or after a second visit, when we took a party of slightly older boys on an outing for one of his birthdays.

Later that same son wrote a web site for me 20 years ago as a birthday present, London’s Industrial Heritage, a rather more professional site than my own various offerings, on which the black and white pictures here can be found, along with a couple of hundred others, dating from 1973-1986. Its a nice design which creates the site from templates, a database file and of course the images using a batch file which runs a Perl script, but in some respects it is now a little dated. Back then, 550 pixels seemed a sensible size for web images.

Although I have an interest in industrial archaelogy, I lack to engineering knowledge to be a true GLIAS member, and my one real attempt at site recording as a part of the organisation was frustrating. But then I’m not always very impressed by the standards of photography in many of their communications. ‘Record photography’ is sometimes used as a perjorative term, but the best record phography has a power and resonance that is undeniable, for example some of the work of Walker Evans.

St Saviour’s Creek, 2014. We walked around its landward end this week

Our walk the other night was a reprise of one made earlier by two leading GLIAS member back in the 1970s and published in a GLIAS walk leaflet. One is now longer with us, but Professor David Perrett, now Chairman and Vice-President was there to lead us. These published walks, sent free to members also sold well for a few pence at a number of tourist sites in the area. They prompted me to produce a similar leaflet, partly as an example for a desk-top publishing course I was then teaching, on West Bermondsey
in 1992, in part based on a walk led by Tim Smith for the GLIAS Recording Group :

“a downloadable illustrated leaflet for a walk that concentrates on the industrial archaeology of the former leather area of Bermondsey in South East London. I wrote this in 1992 largely to show how simple, cheap and easy it was to produce such things with Pagemaker and a laser printer. I sold around five hundred copies over the next five years, gave some to the church in Bermondsey St to sell, and gave away many more, before deciding to put it on the web rather than bother to print any more. Although the area has changed considerably, it it still an interesting walk to follow. “

The area has changed even more since I wrote this, but you can still download and follow the walk and find much of what was there in 1992.

West Bermondsey walk leaflet (PDF)


There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media.
And small donations via Paypal – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images