Tag: Holborn Viaduct

Limehouse and the City – Panoramas 1994

Limehouse and the City – Panoramas 1994: I made one panorama at the end of my trip to Limehouse in June which is on a film processed in July which I overlooked when posting pictures to Flickr.

DLR Viaduct, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1994, 94-701-51

This was taken from the top floor of John Scurr House on Ratcliffe Lane where there are open balconies leading to the flats it shows both the National Rail and DLR Limehouse stations with the DLR viaduct leading east, with the white tower of St Anne’s Limehouse just visible at extreme right before the top of the brickwork of the stairs.

You can also just see the north side of Limehouse Basin on the other side of Branch Road, and lower right of centre is a small but packed garden centre. A bus goes along Commercial Road and you can see the houses and flats of Limehouse and Bow beyond. Like all the other pictures in this post it was taken with a swing-lens panoramic camera with a horizontal angle of view of over 120 degrees.

Blackfriars Rail Bridge, Blackfriars Bridge, River Thames, Southwark, 1994, 94-701-42

Early in July I took a train to Waterloo and walked into the City from there, pausing before I crossed Blackfriars Bridge to make this panorama. This is the only place where the City comes ‘South of the River’ and where I was standing in Rennie Garden I was already in the City of London, though the wall at right and half the rail bridge past it is in Southwark.

While the City boundary for the other bridges is in the centre of the river, for some reason the Blackfriars and Southwark Bridges Act 1867 put the full length and its southern end within the city’s borders, in the parish of St Anne Blackfriars.

The garden here Rennie Garden is named after John Rennie (1761 – 1821) the engineer who built several of London’s bridges but not this one, which was by by Joseph Cubitt, also responsible for the dismantled railway bridge whose red piers remain.

This was the site of the Albion Flour Mills designed by Samuel Wyatt on this site in 1786 to house the machinery of Matthew Boulton and steam engine of James Watt – and it was this steam-powered corn mill, the first major factory in London, which is thought to be the inspiration for William Blake’s ‘dark satanic mills’.

The Albion Mill died by its own hand, burnt down in 1791 by a fire probably caused by poor maintenance when a bearing overheated, but four years earlier Robert Barker had sent his son Henry Aston Barker to sit on the roof of the building to make the sketches for his ‘London from the roof of the Albion Mills‘ which he then added detail, “greatly enlarged and painted in distemper on canvas.” He coined the name ‘panorama’ and in 1787 patented the idea. His panorama, first shown at the Albion Mill shortly before it was burnt down and then shown in various galleries in London.

Sets of aquatints were made by Frederick Birnie which toured Europe and went to the United States and while these survive in various collections the original panorama is lost.

Puddle Dock, Queen Victoria St, City, 1994, 94-701-33

Puddle Dock was a dock and also a sewer outfall and was filled in during the comprehensive reclamation and redevelopment of the area between 1962 and 1972 which created Upper Thames Street as a major road and Puddle Dock linking this to Queen Victoria Street underneath part of Baynard House, a Brutalist office block built for BT and completed in 1979.

As a part of plans to separate vehicle and pedestrian movement in the City it included a walkway leading to Blackfriars Station from which I made this panorama. The dome of St Paul’s can be seen just to the left of the tower of St Andrew by the Wardrobe.

Sculpture, Farringdon Rd, Holborn Viaduct, City, 1994, 94-702-51

Holborn Viaduct was London’s first flyover, connecting the City with Holborn over the deep valley of the River Fleet, which had be culverted here in the 18th century, in part for the building of New Bridge Street. Built in 1863-69 it links Holborn Circus with Newgate Street and was a major redevelopment ‘”the most ambitious and costly improvement scheme of the [nineteenth] century” (White 47), and it involved some outstanding feats of Victorian engineering.‘

Over the years I’ve made quite a few panoramas on and of the viaduct and written about it at some length – here are a few from 1994. You can read a detailed account on the Victorian Web site.

Sculpture, Farringdon Rd, Holborn Viaduct, City, 1994, 94-702-52
Sculpture, Farringdon Rd, Holborn Viaduct, City, 1994, 94-702-52
Sculpture, Farringdon Rd, Holborn Viaduct, City, 1994, 94-703-11
Sculpture, Farringdon Rd, Holborn Viaduct, City, 1994, 94-703-11

More from July 1994 in the City later.

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City, Whitechapel and Wapping 1986

Page 7 of my black and white work in 1986 London Photos begins in the City but then gravitates east to Aldgate, Whitechapel and Wapping.

Holborn Viaduct, Farringdon St, West Smithfield, City 86-7v-12_2400

Holborn Viaduct which carries the road over the Fleet valley – Farringdon St – is a remarkable piece of Victoriana, and a considerable feat of engineering at the time as well as well as a remarkable example of city planning. The scheme, which included the buildings at the four corners of the bridge as well as roads around including Holborn Circus, streets leading to Smithfield Market, as well as provision for gas, water, sewage and other services cost around £2 million in 1863-69 and has been described as “the most ambitious and costly improvement scheme of the [nineteenth] century” and as the world’s first flyover. You can read a detailed account of it at The Victorian Web.

What interested me most were the sculptures which adorn the bridge and I’ve photographed them on various occasions over the years. In 1986 I could only bring myself to stop taking pictures when I came to the end of a cassette of film and also photographed the bridge from below and the corner buildings. I’ve only put two of the 18 frames I took onto Flickr.

Smithfield Market, City 86-8r-45-Edit_2400

There are a number of pictures from the area around Smithfield Market, though I’ve never got up early enough to photograph the market truly in progress – and other photographers have done so pretty well so I didn’t feel I needed to make the effort.

Albion Buildings, Little Britain, City 86-8r-64-Edit_2400

Little Britain remains a fascinating street though now I think only the facades remain and the area behind has been destroyed. I came across it a little too late when demolition of much of it was already underway and by 1986 I think it was well advanced. These properties in Albion Place, for Overbury & Sons Limited at 7 and 8 and John Lovegrove & Co Ltd at 6 had long been closed.

Hessel St, Whitechapel, Tower Hamlets 86-8s-55-Edit_2400

Hessel St in Whitechapel was a remarkable street full of old shops, some now junk shops, others Bangladeshi grocers but with some still retaining the names and descriptions of their earlier Jewish shops. As well as these black and white picture I also photographed some of the shops in colour.

These pictures were made in August 1986 and I returned some time later hoping to take more but I think then most of the street had disappeared.

Prescot St, Aldgate, Tower Hamlets 86-8s-61-Edit_2400
Prescot St, Aldgate, Tower Hamlets 86-8s-64-Edit_2400

Prescott Street now looks a little different, though a number of the older buildings have survived, including a fine pub. But most are now in very different uses and in rather better condition than when I took these pictures in 1986.

Discovery Walk, Wapping Lane, Wapping, Tower Hamlets Discovery Walk, Wapping Lane, Wapping, Tower Hamlets 86-8s-23-Edit_2400

My street map describes this as ‘Ornamental Canal’ and I think that the redevelopment of the London Docks in Wapping is perhaps the least successful of all docklands redevelopment in retaining any real impression of the former dock with the exception of just a small area at its southwest and Shadwell New Basin. Wapping outside the dock area has fared a little better too, though it is sometimes only skin deep.

Page 7 1986 London Photos.

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.