Westcombe Park and Blackheath: On Saturday 20th January I got off a train at Westcombe Park station to begin another walk. Westcombe Park is in the London Borough of Greenwich and is at the east of Greenwich and north of Blackheath. Twelve years after I made this walk the Westcombe Park Conservation Area was designated in 2002.
House, 146, Humber Rd, Westcombe Park, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1h-21
Banker John Julius Angerstein (1735-1823) bought a large part of what had been parkland around a large country house to build his own house, Woodlands, now a Steiner School and the only listed building (Grade II*) in the area.
It was only when a large area of land was sold in 1876 that residential development of the area was begun – after a false start the Westcombe Park Estate Company was formed in 1878. They laid out roads, drains and sewers and offered freehold and leasehold plots for sale with only fairly loose guidelines over what could be built.
The Woodlands, 90, Mycenae Rd, Westcombe Park, Greenwich, 1990, 1990, 90-1h-23
The development from then on was piecemeal and sporadic and by 1900 much was still undeveloped – and the estate company went into liquidation and the remaining land was sold off cheaply. There are a few properties from the 1880s, rather more from the 1890s particularly in the roads close to the station from which city clerks could travel into work. Although Woodlands is the only nationally listed building in the area, there are many locally listed buildings.
The Woodlands, Mycenae Rd, Westcombe Park, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1h-24
Houses, Beaconsfield Rd, Vanburgh Park, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1h-12
These houses are in the Blackheath Conservation Area and are on the north side of Vanburgh Park, so their frontages facing south with views across the common. The road at right angles in the picture is Beaconsfield Rd. These 3 storey locally listed Victorian villas date from 1860-1866 and were designed by architect Henry William Spratt.
Tree, Bower Avenue, Greenwich Park, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1i-62
From Vanburgh Park I walked across into Greenwich Park and then went down Bower Avenue where I found this massive tree trunk.
The Grade II listed buildings of Vanburgh Terrace date from around 1840. I think this view is from somewhere near Charlton Way or Maze Hill. The terrace faces west across the parkland.
Jubilee Chapel, Primitive Methodist, New Rd, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1f-26
Built in 1897, the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, the church closed in 1964 when a new church opened in Clifden Rd. The Primitives had joined with the Wesleyans and United Methodists in 1932. The building is a rather curious design laid out along the road with a tower like this at each end and five bays between, the central one with what looks as it should be an entrance with taller brickwork and a triangular pediment above a large oval-topped window. You can see a little of the interesting brickwork in my photograph. The windows now have some delicate metal protection in front of them and the building is still in use, I think by an Electrical contactor. It is locally listed for its architectural and social significance.
House, Hamilton Rd, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1f-11
This Gothick style house at 17 Hamilton Road stands head and shoulders above its neighbours with a basement, steps up to a grand doorway and the fine decoration below its distinctive oriel window. It is capped on one side with an attic gable, making it three and a half storeys. Locally listed.
Performance Cars Ltd, Windmill Rd, Great West Rd, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1f-13
Although it might gain no stars for its uncompromising 1930s architecture this building for Performance Cars had a blunt and striking appearance and I was sad to see it was about to be demolished, one of many losses of buildings along the Great West Road. It’s a shame it was not saved, although the adjoining workshops were no great loss. Most of its site is now empty or parking for another motor dealer. I took this picture from underneath the elevated M4.
The Globe, Boston Park Rd, 104, Windmill Rd, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1f-15
The Globe pub on the corner of Boston Park Road and Windmill Road is still open and is a popular traditional pub which still has some original features.Though it is no longer run by Fullers you may still be able to get a pint of London Pride. My picture just shows a little of the large globe let into the parapet above the corner of the building.
The pub was built in the 1880s and acquired by Fuller Smith & Turner in 1908. It is named in an impressive series of reviews of Brentford’s pubs written by ‘Wandering Tom’ and published in the County of Middlesex Indepent in 1996 but he tells us nothing mopre than its name. Unearthed by Vic Rosewarne as part of extensive research into Brentford’s pubs, these notes have been re-published as part of the Brentford High Street project.
Macleans Toothpaste, Great West Rd, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1f-16
Finally two pictures – more to follow later – of another and more important loss of the 1920’s factories that lined the Brentford section of the new Great West Road. This was Maclean’s Toothpaste factory, opened in 1932 and together with the neighbouring Trico was demolished in 1992.
Trico Products Windscreen Wiper factory, No. 980 Great West Road, opened in 1928. The Trico business relocated to Pontypool, South Wales in 1992 and the building was demolished.
Macleans, Boston Manor Rd, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-01
Initially the Macleans site, along with the adjoining former Trico factory next to the Grand Union Canal was to be a UK headquarters for Samsung, but plans fell through with an Asian financial crisis and instead building a new headquarters of GlaxoSmithKline was begun in 1998 and completed in 2001. Designed by Hillier with RHWL and Swanke Hayden Connell it was the biggest single commercial development of the time, and one of the few more interesting new buildings on the Great West Road.
GSK announced they were selling it in 2021 and the last of their staff left the building in 2014. There are now plans being made for what will probably be the largest ever development in Brentford.
Chiswick Waste, Stamford Brook, British Grove & St Peter’s Square: The fourth post on my walk which began at Kew Bridge Station on 10th of December 1989. The previous post was Bedford Park – 1989.
Bedford Park had played an important role in the development of suburban housing for the affluent with the Garden City movement, but after wandering around surrounded by red brick for more than an hour I was glad to get away from it and back to something rather different.
We sometimes think of recycling as being new and green, but it has long been important in our economy. Back in my young days there were ‘pig bins’ for waste food on our street, my father spent half an hour or so neatly smoothing out and rolling our waste newspapers into a neatly tied package to put out on the bin for salvage, and as kids we would eagerly search the neighbourhood for bottles to return to shops and scrap copper, brass, aluminium, lead and zinc to take to our local scrap dealer for pennies. When you only got 6d a week from your parents for pocket money every little helped.
Of course dealers like this one largely worked on an industrial scale – the prices here are in pounds per hundredweight – and a hundredweight was 8 stone – 112 lbs or 50.8 kilograms.
Stamford Brook is now be called one of London’s “Lost Rivers”. Wikipedia has a lengthy description of its complex courses with at least three sources, its six strands and four mouths into the Thames. When the county of London was carved from Middlesex in 1889 its most western course formed the boundary between the London Borough of Hammersmith and the Middlesex urban districts of Brentford and Chiswick – and since 1965 between the London Boroughs of Hounslow and Hammersmith & Fulham.
One northern part of the river is the Bollo Brook, and some of its water was diverted to the lakes at Chiswick House which still have and outflow to the Thames. But most of the rest of the river had been culverted by 1900, largely becoming a part of London’s sewage system. Hopefully the opening a few days ago of London’s supersewer will end the use of two of the mouths at Chiswick and Hammersmith being storm overlows and discharging untreated sewage into the Thames.
Grove House, 66, British Grove, Chiswick, Hounslow, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1989, 89-12b-14
British Grove also has a culvert running under it through some of Stamford Brook was diverted. There was a track here from at least the 18th century. The houses on Chiswick High Road immediately west of British Grove, some listed and dating from 1830-40, are named as British Terrace on the 1873 OS Map and British Grove appears as a narrow track along the boundary between Hounslow and Hammersmith & Fulham with houses only on its west side and the name British Grove across the long back gardens of the houses on the west side of St Peter’s Square. It had previously been a southern part of Chiswick Field Lane and
Later parts of those back gardens were built on and Grove House at No 66 appears to date from around 1930. It is now four flats.
Island Records, Royal Chiswick Laundry, British Grove, Hammersmith, Hounslow, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1989, 89-12b-16
British Grove has a several small claims to fame. It was here around 1863 that Frederick Walton first made linoleum having taken over the British Grove Works in 1860 from rubber manufacture Richard Beard. Unfortunately Walton’s works burnt down in 1862. They were insured and were rebuilt but were too small and Walton moved to Staines which became the centre for the development and manufacture of lino – though later much was made at Kirkaldy. The Staines works closed in 1974.
The Royal Chiswick Laundry was built in the rear garden of 22 St Peter’s Square in the 1890s, facing onto British Grove. The laundry closed in 1968 and the works were used briefly by “a company that added soundtrack to film before the property in 1973 became the offices, recording studios and premises of Island Records, who moved in with a staff of 65.” Their recording studio included “the base of the chimney, which was occasionally used in recordings to add reverberation” to vocals.
Many locals were relived when Island Records moved out and were in 2005 replaced by architects who retained and restored much of the buildings which were renamed Island Studios.
House, St Peter’s Square, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1989, 89-12c-65
This is No 22, the house in whose back garden the Royal Chiswick Laundry was built, at the south-west corner of St Peter’ Square. The houses in the square were built in 1825-30 and 32 are Grade II listed.
Houses, St Peter’s Square, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1989, 89-12c-52
The square was developed piecemeal by builders working to a master plan by the landowner George Scott on part of his Ravenscourt Park Esate, “mostly built in groups of three, with stucco fronts, pediments and Ionic porches.” Between these houses you can see the square chimney of the Royal Chiswick Laundry. And you can admire the architectural detail.
House, St Peter’s Square, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1989, 89-12c-41
Two lions look rather angry at each other beside the stairs to the door of Number 30, with an eagle above the doorway.
Houses, St Peter’s Square, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1989, 89-12c-43
Some of the houses have gateposts with large pineapples – and perhaps others once did. And here again that impressive work above the side gates, as well as an eagle above the front door.
I took a few more pictures around the square, which really is worth a visit, before dragging myself away from one of London’s finest squares towards St Peter’s Church where the next account will begin.
Conveniently a large plaque on the house tells me this is Prioy Gardens and gives the date of its construction, 1880. The London Borough of Hounslow street sign confirms the street name and tells me it is in Chiswick, true, but more specifically it is in Bedford Park. Yet a third street name can be seen on the wall of the house in case anyone was still in doubt.
This Grade II listed house at 1 Priory Gardens is a part of the Bedford Park Estate, “a pioneering commercial development of some 350 houses and a few public buildings built between 1875 and 1886 by inexperienced developer Jonathan Carr.”
The estate was planned “to create a community of like-minded middle class aesthetes who were defined by modest financial resources and significant artistic aspirations” and was generally regarded soon after as ‘The First Garden Suburb’ and had a great influence on later suburban housing.
The whole estate reflects the Queen Anne Revival style of the period which the listing calls ‘Picturesque‘ and is also known as Domestic Revival. Most of the houses and public buildings on the estate built before 1880 were designed by Richard Norman Shaw, the leading architect of this style, but this was one of the earliest by his protégé E J May who had taken over as Estate Architect. A planning application to demolish the house and develop the site was turned down in 1973 and it is now the headquarters of the Victorian Society.
The Tabard Inn at the right of this row also dates from 1880 and is Grade II* listed, one of the public buildings in the area designed by Richard Norman Shaw. This building was was “a pioneering ‘improved’ pub and represented a rejection of the Gin Palace in favour of a more traditionally inspired and respectable inn” and retains much of its original interior features. The exterior of this group of properties was inspired by the well-known Staples Inn on High Holborn – which some may remember featured on tins of Old Holborn hand rolling tobacco.
To the left of the pub is the managers house, and closer to my camera at left are the Bedford Park Stores. Wikipedia has a long and interesting entry on this group of buildings. The stores later became a showroom for coachbuilder H. J. Mulliner & Co.
The buildings of Bedford Park which had become run-down and many in multi-occupation by the middle of last century were saved from ruin by an influential campaign by the Bedford Park Society and all of Carr’s buildings were listed in 1967. Ealing and Hounslow Councils created conservation areas covering the estate in 1970.
This is I think 15 Priory Avenue, one of 4 houses at the crossroads with Rupert Road, where I could have faced in any direction and photographed a listed house, or walked down either of the roads lined with them. I think this was the most distinctive corner, but it was a rather overwhelming ensemble.
Back on the Bath Road the Wendy Wisbey theatrical agency, address 2 Rupert Road, occupied what had previously been The Phildene Stage School. In 2010 it became part of Orchard House School, now part of Dukes Education.
This was another building designed by Richard Norman Shaw. Unfortunately because of the mass nature of the listing of buildings in this area the listing text is almost devoid of any information.
Another picture of this agency which was also a dance school which shows the fine window at the east of the Bath Road frontage.
Houses, Bedford Park, Turnham Green, 1989, 89-12b-51
Another picture from Bedford Park showing some rather less grand houses. I can no longer recall the exact location – perhaps someone wlll be able to recognise it.
St Michael & All Angels’ Parish Hall, Woodstock Rd, Bedford Park, Turnham Green, ,1989, 89-12b-44
The Parish Hall adjoins the church and is listed together with it. The church by Richard Norman Shaw was built in 1880 as a central element in the new Bedford Park Estate, but the parish hall was a later addition in 1887. The front of the church and the hall face The Avenue but there is a small grassed area in front and the street sign in the photograph is for Woodstock Rd.
The central pillar seems remarkably stout and the decorative ironwork includes two angels above each door.
I left the church and walked down past Turnham Green Station to Chiswick High Road to continue my walk. More later.
Turnham Green – 1989: The second post on my walk which began at Kew Bridge Station on 10th of December 1989. The previous post was Kew Bridge & Gunnersbury 1989.
Empire House, Chiswick High Rd, Turnham Green, Hounslow, 1989 89-12a-64
It might be thought odd that this tall office building which was built starting in 1959 should have been called Empire House, when the British Empire was almost completely gone, but the Empire from which this tower got its name was the Chiswick Empire, built for theatre owner and manager Oswald Stoll at 414 Chiswick High Road, replacing some shops and a smithy which opened in 2012.
The architect was the leading theatre architect Frank Matcham and it was a grand example of the Edwardian ‘Jacobean’ style. Built to seat 4,000 it featured mainly variety shows, but also more serious theatre and perhaps was in its heyday in the 1940s and early 50s. Wikipedia has a great list of some of those who appeared in its final years “Tommy Cooper, Max Miller, Max Bygraves, Julie Andrews, Morecambe and Wise, Ken Dodd, Max Wall, Dickie Valentine, the Ray Ellington Quartet, Peter Sellers and Dorothy Squires (1952), Laurel and Hardy on a return visit (1954), Al Martino, Alma Cogan, Terry-Thomas (1955) and Cliff Richard (1959).” Cliff wasn’t quite the man who brought the house down, with the final shows being by Liberace with the theatre being demolished within a month of his stepping away from the piano.
I don’t know who was the architect responsible for Empire House. It has recently been bought and redeveloped into flats and town houses.
This elegant wallpaper factory was designed by C F Voysey and built in 1902. It was the only commercial building designed by the celebrated Arts & Crafts architect and designer and is Grade II* listed.
Arthur Sanderson & Sons Ltd, now just Sanderson, was founded in Islington in 1860 and made fabrics and wallpaper. The company came to Chiswick in 1879 and this building was an extension on the other side of the road to their earlier factory, built in 1893. After a fire in 1928, the company moved to Perivale selling off the Voysey building. They had also built a factory in Uxbridge in 1919 to produce fabrics. Sandersons moved back to into the Voysey building in 2024.
Sandersons had bought the business of Jeffrey & Co who had printed William Morris’s wallpapers and in 1940 when Morris & Co dissolved they also bought the rights to use the Morris name.
Dukes Avenue runs south from Turnham Green towards Chiswick House. Lord Burlington’s grandson was able after the Chiswick enclosures act of 1814 to build the road from his estate to Chiswick High Road. The road is lined with lime trees.
Houses along here seem seldom to be sold, but one went recently for over £3 million. Most appear to be large, solid and Edwardian but of no great interest.
This former Sandersons factory, the “Devonshire works”, was used for light engineering in the 1960s by Evershed & Vignoles of Acton Lane. From 1971 it stood empty until restored by the Cornhill Insurance Co. as the Barley Mow Workspace, for individuals or small firms of designers or craftsmen, the first of whom arrived in 1976.”
After Lord Burlington who built Chiswick House died the property was inherited by the Dukes of Devonshire. I think this works probably dates from 1893.
Afton House, built around 1800 is the only remaining example of the grand houses which were bilt in around 1800 along Chiswick High Road, and it Grade II listed. In the 1850s it was called Falkland House and was a school, but was renamed Afteon House in 1861. From then until 1887 it remained a school but then became a laundry until 1913. Empty and bcoming derelict it was bought in 1919 by Dan Mason of the Chiswick Polish Company (best remembered for their Cherry Blossom Shoe Polish) and given as a club for ex-servicemen.
Linden Gardens, Chiswick High Rd, Turnham Green, Hounslow, 1989, 89-12a-34
Dr Ralph Griffiths who founded the Monthly Review and edited it for 50 years was one of the many “noble, artistic and scholarly residents” of the area in the 18th century and he lived in Linden House where Linden Gardens now is. He was a London bookseller and publisher Ralph Griffiths, with “bookshops at St. Paul’s Churchyard from 1747 until 1753, then at 20 Pater Noster Row until 1759, and finally on the Strand near Catherine Street until 1772 – all under the sign of the Dunciad.”
Griffiths was notably involved in the 1746 publication of Acanius or the Young Adventurer, a fictionalized account of the Young Pretender, and may have been its author. The government attempted unsuccessfully to suppress the book and it remained in print for over 150 years.
Chiswick Fire Station, Chiswick High Rd, Turnham Green, Hounslow, 1989, 89-12a-36
Chiswick Fire Station at 197 Chiswick High Road is an elegant building with a tower and is now a bar and restaurant. It was for sale when I made this picture. Built in 1891 the tower at right was used to hang up fire hoses to dry and also to store the long fire escape ladder. A new fire station was built in 1963 and this became redundant.
War Memorial, Turnham Green, Hounslow, 1989, 89-12a-26
Erected in 1921 ‘In grateful and affectionate memory of the men of Chiswick who fell in the Great War, 1914 – 1918’ this simple obelisk is a rather plain reminder of their sacrifice designed by Edward Willis FSI, Engineer and Architect to the Chiswick Urban District Council. More names were added after the Second World War. There seems to be little reason to justify its Grade II listing
I walked on to Bedford Park. More from there in a later post .
Gateway, Albert Mansions, Crouch Hill, Crouch End, Haringey, 1989 89-11i-61
I walked down Haslemere Road and then turned down Vicarage Path, following this to Crouch Hill.
Albert Mansions, described by various estate agents as “a hidden gem in Crouch Hill” dates from 1903. Although the driveway is clearly marked ‘PRIVATE residents only‘, Vicarage Path goes past the building and emerges at the side of the left gatepost in my photograph. I clearly found this gateway more interesting than the actual mansion building where three and four bedroom leashold flats now sell for approaching a million.
I walked down Crouch Hill and turned west down Ashley Rd. When I reached Highcroft Road I saw an interesting roof a short distance down and walked up to take this picture. Taken from just across the street it rather fails to show clearly the pyramidal cap to the roof, which is more evident in the previous frame (not on-line) taken of the row along this side of the street. But does give a good idea of the architectural detailing, including a fancily written date which I can’t quite read but is perhaps 1897 or 9 and a rather striking head – I wondered who was the model for this intense face. I’m rather suprised that this building does not appear to be locally listed
This locally listed house at 3 Highcroft Road was built in 1875 as the vicarage to St Mary’s Church opposite, and has rather fine porch with a somewhat ecclesiastical look. Like many of the large vicarages provided for Victorian clerics who were expected to have large families and servants I imagine it was sold off some years before I made the picture.
I returned to Ashley Road, walking past St Mary’s church without photographing it. Most of our Anglican churches seem to have been photographed time after time from the Victorian period on, not least because many vicars with time on their hands took up photography as a hobby. I seldom chose to add to the multitude.
There is a line of similar fine houses between Ashley Road and Shaftestbury Road, at 2-20 facing Elthorne Park, but I chose to photograph these because of the wall with its sculptures and irorwork in front of what I think was 6 Hornsey Rise. The wall and ironwork are still there but the figures next to the pavement have long gone. At the right of the picture you can see the Shaftesbury Tavern.
Hornsey Rise was developed from 1848, although it only got the name almost 40 years later replaceing the different names of various short lengths such as this. This picture gives a closer view of one of the two ornamental gates and the house , with the doorway to number 4 at the right of the image.
This pub at 534 is the last building on Hornsey Road, which becomes Hornsey Rise beyond Shaftesbury Rd. According to its local listing it “was built in 1858, by speculative builder Thomas Beall, as the area around it began to be developed. It is a handsome well-preserved building with contrasting brickwork in red and London stock, and pilasters and arches at the upper storey level. “
I choose to photograph not the main pub building but its “1897 addition” on Shaftesbury Rd. However CAMRA states that the pub itself was built “in 1897 with rich wood and glasswork, so typical of the golden age of pub-building.” Looking at the pub exterior I am inclined to believe them and the current building probably replaced or significantly altered Beall’s. As they also state, “The pub was restored in 2014 from a ‘very tired’ state by the small pub chain Remarkable Restaurants Ltd“.
I continued walking down Hornsey Road I photographed this handsome late Victorian building at 471 Hornsey Rd on the corner with Fairbridge Road. Then it was a timber merchant with T C TIMBER on the first floor corner blind window and a rather jaunty-looking painted figure of a town crier in ancient dress looking like a poor piece of advertising clip-art in that above it on the second floor. The shop is now Hornsey Carpets and that figure now looks very washed out and on the first floor is some strange image I make no sense of.
Further down Hornsey Road I went down Hanley Road where I photographed the doorway of the Kokayi Supplementary School. A charity of this name was later registered in 1997 “To advance the education of children and young people particularly children and young people of African and Afro-Caribbean descent by the provision of a supplementary school: By the provision of advice and guidance in matters concerning their education and career development; And by such other charitable ways as the charity through its trustees may from time to time decide.” The charity was removed in 2014 as it had ceased to function.
I was at the end of my walk and made my way to Finsbury Park Station. It was several weeks before I was able to go out and take photographs again.
My wandering around Highgate on Sunday 19th November, continued. You can read the first part of it at Highgate – Mirrors, Mansions & Luxury Cars which had ended at the Kingdom Hall on North Hill.
One thing that I seldom resist on a walk is a passage and a little further down North Hill I found Park House Passage. And after photographing the rather fine house beside it (4 North Hill, not digitised) I went down it to The Park, confusingly not a park but a street, with houses only on the north side. I took several more pictures not on line including two of a large block of flats two the south on Hillcrest, perhaps built later on the parkland which had given the street its name. But trees along the road meant they could not be seen as clearly as I would have liked.
But I saw the ash tree in this picture after I turned on to Southwood Lane in front of some modern housing largely hidden behind an old wall. Both house and tree are still there, though of course the tree has grown considerably. Most of the ash leaves had fallen but some were still holding on and contrasted greatly with the evergreen shrub at the bottom of the frame.
A little further down Southwood Lane I turned into Jackson’s Lane, named after Joseph B Jackson, who lived in a house named Hillside, demolished to build the late Victorian Hillside Mansions and the street Hillside Gardens.
Highstone House is the first house down the street on a very narrow section of the road and it is now rather hidden as the wrought iron gate has been replaced by a solid wooden one.
I photographed another house on the opposite side of Jackson’s Lane and then turned around to return to Southwood Lane photographing this house close to the junction at 62 Jackson’s Lane.
Park Walk, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11f-52
Almost opposite was Park Walk, leading from Southwood Lane to North Road, so I had to go down it. I think the white house on Southwood lane is possibly a detached part of the property on Jackson’s Lane in the previous picture.
Park Walk, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11f-53
The flats which can be seen through the trees are I think on Hillcrest, and are perhaps Cunningham House or Tedder House. Park Walk took me back to North Hill, opposite the High Point flats.
Highpoint, North Road, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11f-44
Berthold Lubetkin designed the Grade I listed High Point 1 flats built in 1931 in the International Modern style as housing for the employees of Sigmund Gestetner but they never got to live in them. Also involved as structural engineer was Ove Arup. I think my picture deliberately avoided taking a standard view of them showing them as a modern masterpiece but instead concentrated on what I take to be an architectural joke at the entrance with pilotis and caryatids.
The flats are on one of the highest points in Highgate and the name above the entrance is clearly High Point, but they are usually referred to as Highpoint. This is Highpoint 1 and later in 1938 Lubetkin added the adjoining more luxurious Highpoint 2 in a similar design. He lived in the penthouse on Highpoint 1 until then.
Le Corbusier visited the flats in 1935 and called them “an achievement of the first rank” and many architectural critics consider them among the finest flats built and among Britain’s finest buildings. Of course they have been much photographed and I didn’t on this occasion do more than take a few frames as I walked past – only this one online.
Car Park, Angel, Works, Off-Sales, Co-op & Carnival Hats: I started my walk on Sunday 5th November 1989 at Walthamstow Central Station, and walked west down Selbourne Road.
Car Park, Selbourne Rd, Vernon Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11b-15
This is Sainsbury’s multistory Car Park on the corner of Selbourne Rd and Vernon Rd and there is a very solid looking rectangular box brick building under the curves of the incline up to the parking space, with anther rectangle, the back of the sign and a very small circle of a car tyre at the extreme right.
I think I walked into Walthamstow cemetery to photograph the chapel there which I’ve not digitised but I also photographed several memorials including this one which I think attracted me because of the feathers on the wing and roses.
There is still a Lennox Trading Estate here, and I think the same gates, although the writing on it is smaller and more regular but otherwise everything looks much the same.
Lennox Road is a short street and its southern side has no buildings but simply the fence of Thomas Gamuel Park, which was re-designed in the 1990s. So the consecutive numbering 82-83 made some sense. The area to the west of the trading estate and the park has been comprehensively redeveloped with low rise housing around Lennox Road.
Thomas Gamuel “was a rich London grocer living in Walthamstow who bequeathed six acres of land known then as Honeybone Field and Markhouse Common, to six trustees, so that rent and profits from this land would be paid to the poor of the parish.”
Chelmsford Road runs down the east side of Thomas Gamuel Park and this former off-license on the corner looked as if it had recently closed with a notice on its side ‘SHOP / YARD & GARAGE STORE TO LET NO PREMIUM’.
The sign and the lamp at the corner suggested to me it had once been a pub rather than just an off-licence though the building seemed too small, but I can find no evidence for this. Both these and the shop front have now gone and the property is now residential including a first floor flat.
Former Co-op, Hoe St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11d-42
I walked down Collingwood Road into St Barnabas Road where I photographed the Safford Hall and the church (not digitised) and then made my way north to Queens Road to cross the railway line and get to Hoe Street, where I made this image.
The beehive was a common cooperative symbol and appears several times on this building along with its date, 1915. For many years it was all the London Co-operative Society store but now only a small section at the northern end is a part of the Co-op, Wathamstow Funeralcare. The London Co-operative Society was formed in 1920 by the merger of the Stratford Co-operative Society and the Edmonton Co-operative Society and I think this was built for the Stratford society.
A few yards north along Hoe Street I took a couple of pictures of the business on the corner with Albert Road
I loved the detailing here with a rather glum looking face holding up a column beside the door. Unfortunately I can’t read the first word of the name of the company here from the angle I photographed this or the next frame, just DISTRIBUTORS LTD. But it did seem a slightly unusual trade to be WHOLESALERS OF CARNIVAL HATS & NOVELTIES.
This property is now entirely residential a has a new fence on top of a low wall around it with a small garden area.
House, 62a, Stroud Green Road, Finsbury Park, Haringey 1989 89-11d-45
At this point I went to Walthamstow Central Station and took the Victoria Line to Finsbury Park. I can’t now remember why I decided to move to a different area but perhaps I simply thought the park at Finsbury Park would be a pleasant place eat my sandwich lunch. I left the station by the Wells terrace entrance and walked along to Stroud Green Road.
As well as the slightly unusual doorway, it seemed to be almost barricaded by the plants growing in front to the door, but the stairs on the outside suggested an alternative entry.
The Wine Press, Caledonian Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10h-26
The Wine Press sold wine by the case at wholesale prices and its doorway had once been surrounded by 15 labelled barrel ends, but the lower four had been removed by the time I made this picture.
At the top you can just see the bottom of a large 2D representation of a wine bottle and out of picture to the right on the wall was a similar flat picture of a bottle of Anglias Brandy, a brandy from Cyprus. I took a second picture – not yet digitised – showing more of the frontage.
Wine was still very much a drink of the metropolitan middle classes and an establishment such as this very much a sign of the gentrification of Islington and other former working class areas of London.
Designed by architect Frederick E Tasker and, opened in 1937 as Mayfair Cinema, it was briefly renamed The Eagle in 1942 but reverted after a popular outcry. Taken over by Essoldo in 1952, it became Essoldo Caledonian Road until 1965 when it became Essoldo Bingo Club. Later it was Top Rank Bingo and finally Jasmine Bingo, closing in 1996. Demolished in 1998.
Grade II* listed, built as the clock tower of the Caledonian Market in 1855, designed by James Bunstone Bunning, Architect and Surveyor to the Corporation of the City of London. The market was built on Copenhagen Fields which had been the meeting point for the crowd of 100,000 who marched from here through London to support the Tolpuddle Martyrs on 21 April 1834. 175 years later I photographed TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady unveiling a plaque on the tower to commemorate this on 25th April 2009.
The ‘Grand Demonstration‘ was I think the first mass demonstration by trade unions and the start of a successful popular campaign that led eventually to the men being released – a pardon was granted in 1835 (but it was 1837 before they arrived back in the UK.) The 2009 march that followed the unveiling was rather smaller, but colourful with some trade union banners including that of the Tolpuddle Branch Dorset County of the National Union of Agricultural Workers.
This remarkable Victorian property on Camden Road appears to have been built as three houses as the three entrances and street numbers suggest, with 350 having a much grander entrance than its two neighbours. 348 appears to be called ‘The Cottage’. Perhaps someone reading this will know more about the history of this building and enlighten us.
The lettering on the front of this house has been changed since I took this photograph, with the addition of the word ‘Collegiate School’ in a central line. There was a Collegiate School at first in Camden St and then at 202 Camden Road before moving to Sandal Rd and Edgware, but so far as I can ascertain with no connection to this building which is now flats.
I think this large semi-detached residence dates from the mid-19th century but again have been unable to find any more about it.
This building has been demolished and replace by ‘The Arcade’ student accommodation with the Big Red bar at ground floor level on Holloway Road.
The lettering at top right appears to have once read CYCLES and was presumably a shop on the corner with Holloway Road. The posters on the wall below it are for an event at the Hackney Empire by the Campaign For Free Speech on Ireland on Tuesday October 17th 1989.
The frontage of Albemarle Mansions stands out above the shops on Holloway Road and was clearly meant to distinguish these mansion flats built in 1898 from the various working class blocks of the same era built by philanthropic companies. Albemarle is a name brought over from France with the Norman Conquest and the title Earl of Albemarle was created several times over the century since then.
My walk on 15th October 1989 more or less came to an end here, and I made only one more picture – not on line – on the short walk to Holloway Road station on the North London Line on my way home.
Stoke Newington Shops: Continuing my walk on Sunday 8th October 1989 which had begun at Seven Sisters Station from where I had walked south down the High Road and the previous post, Church of the Good Shepherd, Synagogue & Stamford Hill had ended on Stamford Hill.
Star Mews, Cafe, Windus Rd, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10d-15
I continued walking down Stamford Hill, taking a brief look down each side street, but nothing particularly attracted my attention until I reached Windus Road. Some way down this I came to the entrance to Star Mews.
The archway to Star Mews is still there between 52 and 54 Windus Road but there is no longer a cafe, the property is now residential with a small walled front garden. Star Mews is one of two mews in the street and leads to two single storey (now with roof windows) in the area behind which were presumably once stables.
The houses here are not grand, and I think these were probably built for small businesses who will have had horse-drawn carts for delivery rather than the carriages of mews in grander districts.
I went back to Stamford Hill and at the entrance to Stoke Newington Station turned into a small pedestrian side-street, Willow Cottages with this row of three shops, one of them Marshall’s School of Motoring so had to take this picture. These are still there beside the new station building, and G’s Car Service is now Ron’s Car Service. – the old station was almost invisible at street level – but this small area has altered so much I can’t be sure. The jewellers is now a hair salon and Marshalls have left the building, now occupied by Ria money transfer and a takeaway.
I crossed the busy A10 Stamford Hill and went down Manor Road opposite where there was this row of shops on the north side. These three shops are single storey buildings, at the end of the two storey buildings of Manor Parade, but seem to have been built in the same style, probably like their larger neighbours in 1906, according to an ornamental date on their gable.
The site with two large advertising hoardings at right is on the side of the railway line, here in a cutting, and there is be little level land behind these shops.
This noticeboard without notices on the top of what was until fairly recently a private hire service office, Hill Cars, is another of the pictures which I used in my web site, exhibition and self-published book ‘1989’, ISBN: 978-1-909363-01-4, still available, and this picture is from those. The first paragraph refers to the page before this one in ‘1989’.
The house here is still at 16 Manor Road and is now residential and without the clutter and signage. Andora’s builders yard is now commercial premises on the ground floor with flats above and a vehicle entrance to more in the yard behind.
L T Locking, Estate Agent, 18, Manor Rd, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10e-65
This short row of shops was just beyond the builders yard, all at 18 Manor Road, although they seem to have been built at different times. Locking’s estate agency is in a taller and more elegant four storey tower, and the closer building at right was, according to a ghost sign under its first and second floor windows, the DEPOSITORIES of T HARRIS, though his name is not clear. This industrial warehouse is now an events and filming venue and was the birthplace of the original TV “Dragons Den” where the first season was shot in 2005.
Also now I think a filming location as ‘The House Next Door‘ (or possibly a part of The Depository’ and that is the next shop.) Earlier it had been home to the curiously named Balloon Lagon (lagon is French for lagoon), which sold odd balloons and then a property agency.
The post at left looks like a lamp post, perhaps for a gas lamp, but could also have simply held an advertising sign. Srill on the pavement it has now lost its upper half.
Back on the A10, I walked down to the end of Stamford Hill at Cazenove Road, where it becomes Stoke Newington High Street, and went briefly down Cazenove Road and photographed a couple of the shops there. I’d previously photographed Madame Lillie on a walk in July 1989 so haven’t digitised the picture I took this time, but this one of Rabinowitz, Kosher Butcher & Poulter and The Metaqphysical & Inspirational World Universal Book Shop at 2 and 4.
I returned to the main road and crossed it to the gates of Abney Park Cemetery where the next post on this walk will begin.
