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Schools, Warner Estate, Baptists & Art Deco – 1989

Wednesday, July 24th, 2024

Schools, Warner Estate, Baptists & Art Deco: My motivation for this return to Walthamstow was I think to photograph the building whose pictures end this post. On a previous visit I had – for the only time I can remember – lost a cassette of exposed film. I’d realised this later in the same morning and had gone back on my tracks to search for it to where I changed films, but without success. And there had been one building I had photographed that I was keen to have pictures of as Art Deco was one of my particular themes at the time, working for a never published book, London Moderne. But I’d decided to walk around some other areas again before going to take those pictures.

Markhouse Road Schools, Markhouse Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-63
Markhouse Road Schools, Markhouse Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-63

Markhouse Road Schools it tells us on the building were ‘REBUILT 1907’. Walthamstow was forced by the government Education ministry to set up a school board 1880, before which there were “5 Anglican schools, 5 run by Protestant nonconformists, and 3, including an orphanage and an industrial school, by Roman Catholics.” The school boards provided elementary education for 5-13 year olds. Mark House Road board school opened in 1891 with infants, boys and girls departments.

Unfortunately the schools burnt down a few days before Christmas in 1906 and were almost completely destroyed. Walthamstow Urban Distric Council who had been running elementary schools in the area since 1903 rebuilt them and they reopened in 1908.

The school became a secondary modern school in 1946 and closed in 1966, though the building remained in use for various educational purposes for some years until it was finally demolished a few years after I made this picture.

Nat West, Bank, 10, St James's St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-66
Nat West, Bank, 10, St James St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-66

The rather fine entrance to the NatWest bank in St James St; the building on the north of the corner with Leucha Road, is still there, one of the two blocks built by the Warner Estate featured in the previous post on this walk, but the doorway, now for a food store, is sadly bereft of dragons and decoration.

Houses, Leucha Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-51
Houses, Leucha Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-51

Leucha Road, one many streets built as part of the Warner Estate in Walthamstow got its name from one of the family, Leucha Diana Maude who was the daughter of Clementina and Cornwallis Viscount Hawarden Earl de Montalt, a Conservative politician with an Irish peerage. Clementina was a noted amateur photographer and had ten children, eight of whom survived infancy, so there was no shortage of names for streets around here.

This was one of the earliest to be developed on the Warner Estate in 1895 and the buildings on it are two storey maisonettes, called “half houses” by the Warners.

Leucha Road was acquired by Waltham Forest Council in the late 1960’s and they repainted the doors which had been green like all other Warner properties in what the Conservation Area statement describes as “a pale and inappropriate “Council-house” blue“. The Warner Estate sold off 2400 of their properties to Circle 33 Housing Trust (now part of Circle Housing Group) in 2000 and of these 600 still had outside toilets.

Shops, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-52
Shops, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-52

Another picture of some of the Warner estate shops in the High Street with at the left a rather strange ‘streamline’ feature which I think must have belonged to a building to the left demolished in some road-widening scheme.

Pretoria Ave, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-55
Pretoria Ave, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-55

A house at 2-4 Pretoria Avenue with a rather nice gable, I think also a Warner building.

Baptist Church, Blackhorse Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-41
Baptist Church, 65, Blackhorse Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-41

A curiously barn-like structure dated 1932, Walthamstow (Blackhorse Rd) Baptist Church. This building replaced a ‘tin tabernacle’ in which the congregation had been meeting since 1898. The church is still a “friendly multi-cultural church in Walthamstow.”

Hammond & Champnesss Ltd, Works, Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-45
Hammond & Champnesss Ltd, Works, 52, Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-33

Not dated but also obviously from the 1930s was this building for Hammond & Champnesss Ltd on Blackhorse Lane.

Hammond & Champnesss Ltd was established as in 1905 by cousins Ernest Hammond and Harold Champness to make hydraulic water-powered lifts. They were joined by Ernest’s brother Leonard and for some time the company was Hammond Brothers and Champness Ltd.

Hydraulic lifts are raised and lowered by a piston inside a long cylinder with fluid pumped in to move the piston which is connected either directly or by ropes and pulleys to the lift cabin. They can be used in buildings up to five of six stories high.

Hammond & Champnesss Ltd, Works, Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-32
Hammond & Champnesss Ltd, Works, 52, Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-32

Hammond Brothers and Champness Ltd went bust in 1932 and the company was taken over by E Pollard & Co. Ltd who renamed it to Hammond & Champnesss Ltd but kept it operating as a separate company. This was taken over by US company Dover Corporation in 1971 but they continued to make lift components in Walthamstow until that company was taken over by Thyssen in 1999.

The building became Kings Family Network. It was refurbished in 2014 and is now Creative Works Co-Working office space.

This wasn’t the end of my walk that day, but after taking three pictures of this building I made my way to Blackhorse Road station and took the Victoria Line to Finsbury Park.

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Seven Sisters and Walthamstow High St – 1989

Saturday, July 20th, 2024

Seven Sisters and Walthamstow High St: On Sunday 24th September 1989 I returned to north-east London to continue my walks, this time starting a little to the west on the Middlesex side of the River Lea at Seven Sisters in Haringey. The Lea (or Lee), London’s second largest river, has been a significant boundary at least since the Iron Age when it separated the Catuvellauni from the Trinovantes, later the Middle Saxons from the East Saxons, then England from the Danelaw and until 1965 Middlesex from Essex (though some of Middlesex by then was in the County of London.) It still separates Haringey on the west from Waltham Forest on the east.

House, 176, St Ann's Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-44
House, 176, St Ann’s Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-44

I can’t remember now why I got off the Victoria Line at Seven Sisters and took a short walk from there on my way to Walthamstow, but possibly there was a temporary problem on the Victoria Line which terminated My train there. But I found this part-demolished house, once quite grand, at 176 St Ann’s Rd in South Tottenham.

The sign above the door is for N Nicolau who had manufactured dresses, jackets, skirts and slacks here, though I think the advertisement for vacancies for machinists, finishers and pressers was rather out of date. There were still plenty of clothing sweatshops in the area, and many were Greek or Cypriot run companies.

This house has been rebuilt in a rather plainer fashion, but there are still some other houses of a similar age on the street, largely developed in the later Victorian period. This is now in the St Ann’s conservation area around the church which was consecrated in 1861. The new building here is mentioned; “constructed of London stock brick … white rendered square bays and a slate roof and respects the character and appearance of this part of the Conservation Area.“

J Reid, Pianos, St Ann's Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-45
J Reid, Pianos, St Ann’s Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-45

I liked the PIANOS sign surrounded by keyboards, though the 13 octaves on both top and bottom seemed excessive – our Broadwood manages with only seven and a few extra keys.

J Reid Pianos was established in 1928 and are still in business at 184 St Ann’s Road. You can buy a Reid Sohn piano from them, though these are now made in Indonesia, and they sell other makers too, with the “largesst selection of quality pianos in London“. They have also restored many pianos from “Barraud, Bechstein, Bell, Bernstein, Bluthner, Bosendorfer, Boston, Brinsmead, Broadwood, Carl Schiller, Challen, Challen, D’Este, Erard, Fazioli, Fenner, Feurich, Gaveau, Gebruder, Grotrian, Hoffman, Ibach, Kawai, Kemble, Knake, Knight, Lipp, Matz, Pleyel, Pleyel, Reid-Sohn, Ronisch (Rönisch), Sames, Samick, Sauter, Schiedmayer, Schimmel, Seiler, Squire, Steck, Steinmayer, Steinway (Steinway & Sons), Steinweg, Thurma, Weber, Welmar, Yamaha.“

1858 Model Cottages, Avenue Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-46
1858 Model Cottages, Avenue Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-46

Model cottages were an early form of social housing for the working class and began with the help of Prince Albert who was the President of Society for Improving the Conditions of the Labouring Classes. He was unable to persuade the commissioners of the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park to include the model cottages designed by the SICLC in the exhibition as they were felt to be too political but he had them built next door at Knightsbridge Barracks – and later they were rebuilt where they still are in Kennington Park.

Following this, many of the housing societies set up in the Victorian era to provide relatively cheap and decent homes for the working class built model cottages at various sites across London. Rents were set at levels those in manual work could afford but still gave a decent return to the company investors.

These Grade II listed Model Cottages are some of the earliest to be built and were perhaps a local initiative linked with the neighbouring St Ann’s School and church. They have been restored since I took this picture, and the doorway at left now has a rather austere woman’s head above it – perhaps a modern version of a Mercer Maiden?

Seven Sisters and Walthamstow High St

The next picture, Car, House, Leaves, Bedford Rd, 148, West Green Rd, West Green, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-32, was one of those included with text in my book ‘1989‘.

High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-33
High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-33

Finally I got back onto the Victoria Line to Walthamstow Central and walked to the High St, a very different scene on a Sunday Morning that the crowded market I had photographed recently on a Saturday afternoon.

Palmerston Rd, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-34
Palmerston Rd, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-34

I liked the font used for BEAU.BAGGAGE as well as the STOP PRESS around the window advertising the end of season sale. There was also the three signs at the top right of the shop which somehow seemed joined together. Then there was the street furniture – the waiting man on the traffic lights, the telephone unbox at left and a lamp post with a ‘No Entry’ sign at right.

All very carefully positioned in my frame with probably a little help from the 35mm shift lens which enabled me to choose my position and then slide the lens and view a little to the right or left (and up or down) to position the frame edges where I wanted them. Most of the photographs I took were made with this lens.

High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-35
High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-35

Another picture of shops on the High Street, showing post-war and probably late Victorian buildings. At left is the Cakemaker’s Centre, with its picture of a balance and I think the name EASY WEIGH and in the centre the entrance to The Walthamstow Working Men’s Club & Institute.

The club celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2012 and claims to be the oldest surviving working men’s club in the country. It was founded in 1862 by Lord Henry Solly (1813-1903), British Unitarian minister, social reformer, and instigator & founder of the Working Men’s Club movement, the Charity Organisation, and the Garden City Movement.

This was a temperance club, with the aim to educate working men and free them from alcoholism. It had a library, a games room and a discussion room. The club is limited to 50 members and in 2012 all were still men. They said nothing prevented women joining but none had applied. It is still a temperance club, though members might sometimes bring a can of beer in, and as it is affiliated to the CIU, members can go to many other clubs across the country (including I think a couple in Walthamstow) and buy a beer.

Unlike most other working mens clubs which rely on bar sales this club gets an income from several of the shops whose premises it owns – I think including some in my picture.

More from Walthamstow on this walk in a later post.

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Die Stamping, GPO, Ancient House, Churchyard, Leaves & Market

Monday, July 8th, 2024

Die Stamping, GPO, Ancient House, Churchyard, Leaves & Market: I can’t now recall why I had only time for a relatively short walk in Walthamstow on Saturday 16th September 1989 but it was an interesting one. I think possibly I was unhappy with a picture I had take earlier and had returned to have another attempt.

Essex Die Stamping Co, Church Path, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-31
Essex Die Stamping Co, Church Path, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-31

From Walthamstow Central Station I crossed Hoe St and walked down St Mary Road, which leads to Church Path, and the Essex Die Stamping Co Ltd who were also steel engravers was on this path. The company had moved out to Harlow when I made this picture and the property had already been sold. It is now residential.

Column, Vestry House Museum, Vestry Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-23
Column, Vestry House Museum, Vestry Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-23

At the end of Church Path is Vestry Road and the Vestry House Museum in a Grade II listed building built as the parish workhouse in 1730. Before opening as a local history museum in 1931 it had served as a police station, an armoury, a building merchant’s store, and a private home. Among its exhibits is “the Bremer Car, the first British motor car with an internal combustion engine, which was built by Frederick Bremer (1872–1941) in a workshop at the back of his family home in Connaught Road, Walthamstow.” The museum is currently being renovated and should reopen in 2026.

The short fluted column and capital outside the museum was one of the many which adorned the frontage of Sir Robert Smirke’s fine neo-classical General Post Office HQ in St Martin-le-Grand, built in 19826-9 and demolished in 1912. It was then bought by stone mason Frank Mortimer who presented it to Walthamstow Council. They put it in Lloyd Park, but moved it outside the museum in 1954.

House, 2, Church lane, Orford Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest,1989 89-9b-25
House, 2, Church Lane, Orford Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest,1989 89-9b-25

The Ancient House at 2,4,6 and 8, Church Lane was Grade II listed in 1951, early on in the pioneer survey which followed the Town and Country Planning Acts of 1944 and 1947. The listing text indicates it began as a single fifteenth century hall house but has since been converted into separate dwellings with the hall also divided into normal height floors. It was extensively “restored in 1934 by Mr Robert Fuller under the supervision ofMr CJ Brewin, architect, as a memorial to W G Fuller, head of the Fuller’s firm of builders. “

Monument, St Mary's Churchyard, Church End Path, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-51
Monument, St Mary’s Churchyard, Church End Path, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-51

An atmospheric view of the corner of St Mary’s Churchyard. Beyond the path (although not showing their best side) are the almshouses “ERECTED and ENDOWED FOR EVER By Mrs MARY SQUIRES Widow for the Use of Six Decayed Tradesmens Widow of this Parish and no other” in 1795. You can read more about them in an article by Karen Averby Story of Squires Almshouses built in 1795 in Walthamstow, East London.

Porch, 52-4, Church Hill, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-55
Porch, 52-4, Church Hill, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-55

Although St Mary’s Church is well worth a visit I didn’t photograph it (or take a proper picture of the almshouses.) When I visited the National Building Record in Saville Row I often had to wait in the library where I could pull files for various areas off the shelves and look through the pictures they contained. Most were stuffed full of pictures of old churches, many taken by clergymen who apparently had time on their hands and were often keen amateur photographers. So I felt little need to photograph old churches.

Instead I took the footpath through the churchyard to Church Hill whre I found this porch across the entrance to two houses with delightful leaf ironwork.

Chic, 212, Walthamstow Market, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-56
Chic, 212, Walthamstow Market, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-56

Before catching the Underground from Walthamstow Central I had time for a short wander along Walthamstow Market which claims to be a mile long but isn’t, though at around a kilometre it is still the second longest outdoor market in Europe.

Walthamstow Market, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-43
Walthamstow Market, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-43

The market began in 1885 and operates five days a week with around 500 market stalls as well as shops on both sides of the street. It is still worth a visit but I think has gone down considerably since 1989, though the four pictures I took on this occasion (three on-line) do not show it at its best.

You can browse a few more pictures I took on this walk on Flickr from any of those here, as well as many more of my pictures – over 30,000 from London.

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Mecca, Statues, Bakers, Ladders, Timber… 1989

Wednesday, July 3rd, 2024

Mecca, Statues, Bakers Ladders, Timber… Continuing my walk on Sunday September 3rd 1989 which had begun in Stratford, from which some images appeared in my web site and self-published book ‘1989’, ISBN: 978-1-909363-01-4, still available. The pictures here are in the order I took them. For those images which were in the book I’ll show the book pages here.

Mecca, Bingo Hall, 468, Hoe St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-11
Mecca, Bingo Hall, 468, Hoe St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-11

Back at the Bakers Arms after a little stroll on Leyton Flats I found this closed Mecca Leisure Bingo Hall on Hoe Street, its ground floor frontage covered with flyposting. Cinema Treasures says it opened as The Scala Cinema in 1913, was renamed the Plaza Cinema in 1931 and then closed, reopening in 1933. After its next name change in 1961 to The Cameo Cinema in 1961 it kept going for two years before becoming a Mecca Bingo Club. Left derelict for 18 years after this closed in 1986, it was taken over by a church in 2004, Grade II listed in 2006 and now looks much better. The listing text calls it the Former Empress Cinema and notes its still existing elaborate interior plasterwork.

Mecca, Statues, Bakers Ladders, Timber
Child mannequins, shop window, Hoe St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-12

London Master Bakers, Benevolent Institution, Lea Bridge Rd, Leyton, 1989 89-9a-13 1989 89-9a-13
London Master Bakers, Benevolent Institution, 551, Lea Bridge Rd, Leyton, 1989 89-9a-13 1989 89-9a-13

The London Master Bakers’ Pension Society (now the Bakers’ Benevolent Society) was founded in 1832 and in 1854 decided to build almshouses. The foundation stone for the first was laid in 1857 and the first block of 18 were finished by 1861 and the rest by 1866, providing homes for elderly poor bakers and their widows.

In the late 1960s the site was purchased, probably as a part of a GLC road-widening scheme and the Bakers moved out to new villas in Epping. The almshouses were saved from further threats to demolish them by Grade II listing in 1971 and were purchased by Waltham Forest Council for use as 1-bed flats.

Mecca, Statues, Bakers Ladders, Timber
Drew, Clark & Co, Ladders, Lea Bridge Rd, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-61

This is now Clow Group Ltd, Diamond Ladder Factory, still in this shop on the corner of Shortlands Rd.

Bakers Arms Tyre & Brake Co, 545, Lea Bridge Rd, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-62
Bakers Arms Tyre & Brake Co, 545, Lea Bridge Rd, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-62

Rather to my surprise this corner of Russel Road and Lea Bridge Road still looks remarkably similar although the names have changed and the central buildings have been rebuilt, I think with a slightly wider pavement. But it still sells tyres and cars and there is still a shed on the corner, though no longer named the DUCK INN, and the buildings down Russell Road still look much the same.

Mecca, Statues, Bakers Ladders, Timber
Statues, Capworth St, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-64

House, 27, Capworth St, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-66
House, 27, Capworth St, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-66

This house was demolished to build a modern office for the Capworth Panel & Timber Co Ltd, which was dissolved in 2012. As well as the main house all of the sheds and buidings at right also went.

The house had obviously seen grander days, and I wonder it it had originally had a carriage entrance at left where the brickwork does not quite match and the window and door are clearly much more modern, perhaps having been added at the same time as the first floor windows were given a makeover probably in the 1930s or 50s.

I still had time to continue my wandering around the area and take a few more pictures and will post a final set from this walk shortly.

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Posters, Pub, Mission, Gym, House & Flats, Leytonstone 1989

Saturday, June 22nd, 2024

More from my walk on Sunday September 3rd 1989 which had begun in Stratford, from which some images appeared in my web site and self-published book ‘1989’, ISBN: 978-1-909363-01-4, still available. For those images which were in the book I’ll show the book pages here.

Posters, Pub, Mission, Gym, House & Flats
Posters, High Rd, Leytonstone, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-44

Posters, Pub, Mission, Gym, House & Flats
Plough & Harrow, pub, 419, High Rd, Leytonstone, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-45

London City Mission, Ferndale Rd, Leytonstone, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-46
London City Mission, Ferndale Rd, Leytonstone, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-46

The Victoria County History records an incredible number of missions in Leytonstone mostly formed in the late nineteenth century when this area must have seemed particularly Godless. This mission in Ferndale Road began about 1895 “when the five children of Henry Borton, a builders’ merchant at Wanstead, began holding evangelistic services in the Assembly Rooms. In 1901 their father built for them the present hall in Ferndale Road, designed in brick and stone with baroque features by T. & W. Stone. “

In 1948 the last of these children working there invited the London City Mission to take charge of the building and it became their central Hall. Google Street view shows it in 2008 as Christ Apostolic Church but by 2018 it had become Gospel Generation, “A Church Like No Other“.

Hyams Gymnasium, 857 High Rd, Leytonstone, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-32
Hyams Gymnasium, 857 High Rd, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-32

I can find little or nothing on-line about Hyams Gynasioum other than my pictures, but the building is still there this side on Gainsborough Road with its entrance on High Rd, but in very different use.

This is now The Walnut Tree, a Wetherspoon pub, and as often it has some history of the area it its web page, but this does not mention Hyams Gym. The figures on the building’s side have gone and its groundfloor windows have been bricked up but the rows of 8 or 9 upper floor gym windows remain.

Leytonstone House, Hanbury Drive, Leytonstone, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-33
Leytonstone House, Hanbury Drive, Leytonstone, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-33

Leytonstone House has lost its Virginia creeper but otherwise looks much the same, though I think its surroundsings are now different.

Wikipedia states “Leytonstone House, built 1800 and Grade II-listed, was the home of Sir Edward Buxton, MP and conservationist, who with his brother played a big part in preserving Epping, Hainault and Hatfield forests. It housed Bethnal Green School for the juvenile poor from 1868 to 1936.”

Leyton Flats, Snaresbrook, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-21
Leyton Flats, Snaresbrook, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-21

Leyton Flats in Snaresbrook is not a tower block but a green space that is part of Epping Forest, largely open grass land but some woodland and two large ponds, Hollow Pond and Eagle Pond which is one of the oldest in the forest and swarms with swans, probably because many injured swans nursed to health by swan resuce organisations on the Thames have been released here. But people are more likely to be imprisoned as the Flats is also home to Snaresbrook Crown Court.

The house in the distance here is at 85, 85a and 87 Whipps Cross Rd, on the corner of Chadwick Road. Locally listed, The Gables was built in 1895 and was part of the Wallwood Park estate which was once the home of the Governor of the Bank of England William Cotton who died in 1845.

Leyton Flats, Snaresbrook, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-23
Leyton Flats, Snaresbrook, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-23

Another sculptural group of fallen trunks in the south-east corner of Leyton Flats.

Leyton Flats, Snaresbrook, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-26
Leyton Flats, Snaresbrook, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-26

Men are fishing in the Hollow Pond on Leyton Flats, close to the Whipps Cross roundabout and Whipps Cross Hospital. The pond, the result of gravel workings, is also a boating lake. Water from the ponds may eventually find its way into the River Roding, but they have never as has been claimed fed the ornamental lakes of Wanstead Park.

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Salisbury Street & Spring Bank – 1989

Thursday, March 21st, 2024

Salisbury Street & Spring Bank – more pictures from my walks in Hull in August 1989.

House, Salisbury St, Park Avenue, Hull, 1989 89-8n-54
House, Salisbury St, Park Avenue, Hull, 1989 89-8n-54

During my visits to Hull until around 2000 we stayed at my parent’s-in-law’s home in Loveridge Avenue, which runs from Bricknell Road and Chanterlands Avenue and I often walked through the Avenues, and occasionally stopped to take a photograph on my way elsewhere. All the houses on this section of Salisbury Street along with thw two corner houses on Westbourne Avenue and Park Avenue are Grade II listed.

These houses, at the centre of Westbourne Park Estate, now known as The Avenues, were built shortly after the estate was begun in 1877-79, though by the time I first saw them in the 1960s most were in very poor condition and have since been restored. The listing say these Queen Anne style buildings were by George Gilbert Scott Junior for John Spyvee Cooper.

In 1974 the Architectural Review published Keep it up: George Gilbert Scott junior’s houses
by Colin Amery and Dan Cruickshank (republished in 2023) calling for Hull Council to restore these buildings which had been Grade II listed the previous year. In it the write: “several are mutilated; the houses on the corners of Westbourne Avenue and Park Street have lost their turrets and some are in deplorable condition” and they comment that they “are in one of Hull”s reluctantly created conservation areas. Hull Council still believe in the modern vision of a new city and object to paying money towards ‘gentrification’. “

Terrace, Myrtle Villas, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8d-16
Terrace, Myrtle Villas, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8d-16

Emerging from the Princes Avenue at Botanic I walked up Spring Bank towards the town centre, pausing to make this picture of one of the short terraces leading off the main road which are a feature of many streets in Hull. Myrtle Terrace is even shorter than most and over the brick wall are the back yards of the houses in Percy Cottages, Victoria Avenue, Alexandra Avenues and Beta Villas, short terraces from Mayfield Street in a remarkably dense block of late Victorian development.

Georges Bargain Centre, 178, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8e-62
George’s Bargain Centre, 178, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8e-62

There is now a George’s Bargains and George’s Removals on Spring Bank, but one shop to the west at 180. Rosemount Villa at 178 was, at least in May 2022, the latest image on Google Street View, occupied by Adam Food Store. Their display of fruit and veg has replaced the household appliances on the pavement but their shop and that of Adam Hall Butcher are still the same crude front extension on two of the five late Victorian Villas in this block ending at the corner of Albany Street. Rosemount, Melrose and Leicester Villas all retain their original doorways – that of Rosemount Villa is in my photograph.

In March 2023 Historic England gave Hull City Council £11,900 to develop a regeneration plan for the Spring Bank area of the city. This is currenly out for public consultation until April 7th 2024 and you can see the extremely thorough Character Appraisal on-line.

Practical Motorist's (Hull), 167, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8e-63
Practical Motorist’s (Hull), 167, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8e-63

Practical Motorist’s was on the corner of West Parade and is long gone. The conservation appraisal considers this building to be one of many “Neutral buildings. Many of these buildings could contribute positively to the Conservation Area through investment, restoration and essential repair“, but I think that the upper storeys of this and the neighbouring pawnbrokers at 165 and the side of the building along West Parade deserve a rather more positive appraisal.

The shopfront when I made this photograph was also I think much more sympathetic to the building than most, though it has since been modified. There seem to have been a number of Practical Motorist’s shops around Hull. This one is now a Russian-style sauna.

Spring Bank Jewellers, 165, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8e-64
Spring Bank Jewellers, 165, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8e-64

The three balls are the traditional sign of the pawnbrokers whose notice lists some of the gold, silver or even platinum items they “urgently require” and offers a free testing service with “TOP PRICES PAID Cash!” and “All Enquiries & Dealings COURTEOUS & CONFIDENTIAL“.

The two young women peering intently into the window are casually dressed but still in in high heels. Behind them is one of Hull’s cream painted telephone boxes. The Hull Municipal Corporation set up its telephone service in 1904 and by 1913 it was the only remaining council owned telephone service, all others have been taken over the the Government. K6 boxes like this were first installed in Hull in 1936 and lack the crown on the red versions installed elsewhere across Britain. In 1987 the Hull Telephone Department became Kingston Communications (HULL) PLC. The City finally sold its shareholding in the company in 2007 and the company changed its name to KCOM Group PLC.

Three boys, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8e-65
Three boys, Spring Bank, Hull, 1989 89-8e-65

These lads saw my camera and insisted I take their picture, which they were sure would be published in the Hull Daily Mail, though I told them it would certainly not be. Perhaps they will now see themsleves in this post 35 years later. And should the Hull Daily Mail now wish to publish any of my pictures I’d be happy to supply them at my normal NUJ recommended rates.

More from Hull in a later post. You can see more of my black and white and colour pictures from Hull on Flickr.

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The Raven, Villas, Mansion Flats & A Bridge

Wednesday, February 21st, 2024

The Raven, Villas, Mansion Flats & A Bridge continues my walk on Friday 4th August 1989 in Battersea which began with the previous post, Council flats, Piles of Bricks, A House Hospital and Brasserie.

The Raven, pub, Battersea Church St, Westbridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-56
The Raven, pub, Battersea Church St, Westbridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-56

Also at the edge of Battersea Square, on the corner of Battersea Church Street and Westbridge Road is The Raven pub, probably the most significant building in the area, built here in the mid seventeenth century and open as the Black Raven in 1701. Grade II listed it has had various alterations since then but is the only remaining pre-Victorian building in the area. Its value was recognised by a very early listing made in 1954, although it had been extenisvely rebuilt in 1891

Unfortunately this is no longer a pub, but Melanzana, a independent ‘bar-trattoria-deli‘ which according to Camra no longer serving any real beer. You can drink Peroni or wine with your pizza or pasta. I don’t think its interior retains anything of historic interest.

Skips, House, 26, Westbridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-41
Skips, House, 26, Westbridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-41

Another image about gentrification. I’d walked back east along Westbridge Road towards Battersea Bridge Road. I think this house was being converted into four flats. This was a significant area of early middle class development in the area in the 1840s with villas with long rear gardens in contrast to the much more downmarket development of what was rapidly becoming an industrial area.

House, 4, Westbridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-44
House, 4, Westbridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-44

This and its neighbour at 2 Westbridge Road are a pair of Grade II listed Gothic villas dating from 1845, just a few yards from the junction with Battersea Bridge Road. They are included in the Westbridge Road Conservation Area, much of which was developed by 1865. The appraisal describes them as “napped flint faced Gothic villas, quite unique in the district” and gives a further description of them along with a photograph from across the street taken in winter.

In August when I made my picture the houses were largely hidden by the leaves on the trees in their garden. But my view through the open gate does show the statue in the niche at the top of the building more clearly. The pair of houses also have an unusual front wall and gates.

Cranbourne Court, 113-115, Albert Bridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-45
Cranbourne Court, 113-115, Albert Bridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-45

A number of blocks of mansion flats were built in the 1890s on the edges of Battersea Park along Prince of Wales Drive and Albert Bridge Road, their position with views across of the park making them attractive to wealthier middle-class tenants who needed to live close to the West End. Chelsea was too expensive but this area was only just south of the river and not really in those dangerous areas where posher Londoners (and taxi drivers) feared to go. Apparently adverts for some of the new blocks gave their address as Chelsea Reach, Battersea – estate agents today are still often rather inventive in their descriptions of locations.

According to the Survey of London, almost 1,000 apartments were built here between 1892 and 1902.

The development here was suggested by architect and property speculator John Halley, who had moved south to London from Glasgow in the 1880s and had already put up blocks in Kensington. His plans were too dour for London, resembling Glasgow’s tenements, and he teamed up with another architect William Isaac Chambers who pimped them up for London tastes, though other architects made changes too as The Survey of London article recounts.

Cranbourne Court was one of the last blocks to be built, with Halley again involved along with one of his earlier co-developers, Captain Juba Page Kennerley, “a colourful character who had dabbled in a variety of dubious money-making schemes” and who was “indicted for theft and declared bankrupt” in the early 1890s. An undischarged bankrupt, he had set up a building company under an alias ‘Cranbourne & Cranbourne’ who built this block in 1895.

Albert Bridge, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-31
Albert Bridge, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-31

Albert Bridge is a curious mixture, built as a modified cable-stayed bridge using the system patented by Rowland Mason Ordish and William Henry Le Feuvre in 1858. This made use of a normal parabolic cable to support the central span of the bridge but used inclined stays attached to the bridge deck and connected to the octagonal support columns by wire ropes to support the two ends of the load. Ordish’s designs, made in 1864, were only built in 1870-3.

River Thames, Albert Bridge, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-35
River Thames, Albert Bridge, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-35

When the Chief Engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works Sir Joseph Bazalgette inspected in the bridge in 1884 he found corrosion of the staying rods had made the bridge unsafe and he added steel chains and a new timber deck.

In 1972 the bridge was again found to be unsafe, and the LCC added two concrete piers to support it in mid-river, turning the central section into a beam bridge, though the earlier cables and stays remain in place.

This was one of London’s earlier wobbly bridges (along with Battersea Bridge) and because of its closeness to Chelsea barracks a notice was attached to this “Albert Bridge Notice. All troops must break step when marching over this bridge.” It was feared that troops marching in unison could set up a resonance such as that which had been blamed for the collapse of the Broughton Suspension Bridge in Salford in 1831. The notices now on the tollboths date from 1965 but are said to be replacements of earlier notices on the bridge.

River Thames, Albert Bridge, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-34
River Thames, Albert Bridge, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-34

The view upstream from the bridge across the River Thames past Battersea Bridge to tower blocks on the 1970s World’s End Estate and the Lots Road Power Station.

I walked on into Battersea Park where the next post about my walk will continue.

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A Chateau, Wix’s Lane & Shaftesbury

Friday, January 26th, 2024

Continuing my walk in Clapham on Saturday July 29th 1989 which began with Some Madness and Houses in Clapham.

Clapham Common Northside, Cedars Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-24
Clapham Common Northside, Cedars Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-24

This truly grand scale building facing Clapham Common is at the western edge of the London Borough of Lambeth and the road in the foreground is Cedars Road. A terrace of five mansions at 48-52 Clapham Common North side, it was built by J T Knowles in 1860 with the two ends as pavilions with roofs like those of French Renaissance chateaux. It was Grade II listed in 1969 as Knowles Terrace.

Earlier the road had been lined with villas built for rich City merchants in the mid-eighteenth century.

Clapham Common Northside, Wix's Lane, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-25
Clapham Common North Side, Wix’s Lane, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-25

Wix’s Lane is the boundary between Lambeth and Wandsworth, although the street sign is from the Borough of Battersea which was became a part of Wandsworth in 1965 and my map shows the boundary as running along this wall.

Charles Wix was a builder and he built a villa for himself on Clapham Common North Side on the west corner of Wix’s Lane around 1780, living there until his death in 1820. Not long after this was rebuilt as Cedars Cottage but it and its neighbours were later replaced by a rather bland red-brick terrace.

The view here gives a better view of the rather heavy ornamental work on the 1860s Knowles Terrace.

School, Wix's Lane, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7n-26
School, Wix’s Lane, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7n-26

The London School Board built Wix’s Lane School, which opened on 27th April 1903. It later became Wix County Primary School. It is now still in use as Belleville Wix Academy and also houses a Lycée Francais.

Wix’s Lane had been a field path from Clapham Common to Lavender Hill but when villas were built along this section of Clapham Common North Side they were given back entrances from it for stabling their horses and carriages. The school was the first building on its west side, taking a large section of the gardens of one of these houses, Byram House.

School, Wix's Lane, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7n-11
School, Wix’s Lane, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7n-1

The Belleville Wix Academy history page includes a quote from a 1937 school inspector ‘”in the early years it was not uncommon to see twenty or thirty children being led to and from Wix’s Lane School by maidservants“. However, it goes on to say: “now the larger houses are divided into flats, and these, as well as the smaller houses in the neighbourhood, are occupied mainly by clerical workers in the City, by local tradesman and shop keepers, and by artisans and labourers of the better type“. “Poverty exists“, it states, “although it is mainly courageously hidden“‘ .

Flats, Cedars Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-12
Flats, Cedars Rd, Clapham, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-12

I walked back to Cedars Road and walked up it past some rather more modern flats on my way to Wandsworth Road. Much of both sides of this tree-lined road are now covered by similar modern flats, and few of the trees are cedars. A few older houses remain but although I photographed a couple of them I’ve not put these pictures on-line.

House, Glycena Rd, Grayshott Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7o-65
House, Glycena Rd, Grayshott Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7o-65

I turned west on Wandsworth Road and then went up Acanthus Road, on my way to Brassey Square.. Acanthus Road becomes Grayshott Road, and this house is on the corner of that and Glycena Road.

This and a similar house opposite act as a gateway to the Shaftesbury Park Estate built between 1872 and 1877 by the Artizans’, Labourers’, & General Dwellings Company, about which I’ve written in previous posts. These houses and their short terraces are one of only two listed parts of the estate. It was just a little further up the road at what are now Nos 65-7 that Lord Shaftesbury formally began the estate with a memorial stone in 1872. It is still in place but I didn’t photograph it.

Sabine Rd, Brassey Square, Shaftesbury Estate, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7o-51
Sabine Rd, Brassey Square, Shaftesbury Park Estate, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7o-51

I turned east down Sabine Road, another of the first streets to be built after that stone was laid with its message ‘Healthy homes, first condition of social progress’ in 1872. Supposedly the main figure in the 1951 Ealing comedy The Lavender Hill Mob lived in a seedy boarding house here, though none of the film was shot in the area. In just a few yards I was in Brassey Square, intended to be the centre of the estate which is now the Shaftesbury Park Estate Conservation Area.

Brassey Square which took its name from contractor Thomas Brassey and his three sons who all became MPs and had shares and it was meant to have a garden at its centre, but this was built over in 1879. This building with its frontage on Sabine Road has doors numbered 78 and 1 presumably for that road and Brassey Square respectively. The building is locally listed and is presumed to have been a part of the never-completed plan to build a library, central hall and co-operative shops fronting Brassey Square.

My account of the walk will continue in a later post.

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Tradescant, Old South Lambeth Rd and Caron

Friday, November 3rd, 2023

Tradescant, Old South Lambeth Rd and Caron continues my walk on Wednesday 19th July 1989 in Stockwell and South Lambeth which began with Stockwell Park, Bus Garage, Tower and Mason. The previous post was Clapham Road and South Lambeth – 1989.

Houses, Tradescant Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-24
Houses, Tradescant Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-24

I took a picture (not on-line) on the corner of Tradescant Road, and then walked down it, pausing to take this single image on my way towards South Lambeth Road. I think I took this picture of an exuberantly growing hedge and a spindly small tree largely because I was thinking about the name of the street and the history behind it.

John Tradescant the Elder (c. 1570s–1638) settled in Lambeth and with his son John is said to have founded gardening as we know it in England, importing many of the trees, shrubs and plants we now grow.

He had begun his career as a gardener to the Cecil family, one of Englands richest and most politically influential families and had laid out the gardens at the Early of Salisbury’s new house, Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, travelling across Europe to find new plants for it. In 1617 he helped finance an expedition to the colony of Virginia, and among the plants this brought back was one later named Tradescantia virginiania.

John the Elder in the following years travelled to Russia, bringing back the larch tree, to Algeria coming home with apricots, gladioli and horse chestnuts, to the Middle East for Lilac, as well as to Italy and Turkey and later to France from were he introduced the poppy and scented stock. Later his son also travelled to Viginia bringing home many plants including Virginia Creeper and added to the collections which were exhibited to the public and sold from their nursery.

The family also set up the first public museum in England in the 1630s, the Lambeth Ark or Musaeum Tradescantianum, dsplaying the many curiosities natural and manmade they also brought back from their travels. Thee family were tricked out of this after the death of the younger John and his wife by the wealthy collector Elias Ashmole who later gave it to Oxford University as the main founding collection of the Ashmolean Museum.

You can see more about the family and their huge contribution to gardening at the Garden Museum which is next door to Lambeth Palace in the deconsecrated church of St Mary-at-Lambeth, where the Tradescants are buried.

The Tradescant’s main house, Turret House, was demolished in 1881 and two streets, Tradescant Street (now Road) and Walberswick Street (named after the Suffolk village where some of the family lived) laid out on the site.

Girl, doll, shop, South Lambeth Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-25
Girl, doll, shop, South Lambeth Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-25

On South Lambeth Road I came across this young girl sitting on a stool and playing with a doll outside her family shop. I didn’t want to disturb her and took this picture as she was lost in play.

House, 99, Old South Lambeth Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-13
House, 99, Old South Lambeth Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-13

The demolition of the Tradescant’s house which apparently had been long-abandoned and overgrown South Lambeth Road in 1881 enabled the South Lambeth Road to be straightened and widened in 1883, leaving a section of the old road to the east, now known as Old South Lambeth Road. No 99-105 South Lambeth Road are Grade II listed as an early 19th century terrace, with the listing noting their graceful railings which attracted me.

As you can see at the left of the picture some of these properties were in a fairly poor state in 1989. This was then the side wall of a shop, now converted to residential use and in rather better condition.

Old South Lambeth Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-14
Old South Lambeth Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-14

This section of Old South Lambeth Road is named on Google Maps as Heyford Terrace, although I think this is simply this long row of 8 terraced houses on the east side of the street, separately numbered from the rest of this short road. I think they were built as terraced housed but are now flats and are late Victorian, built not long after the rerouting of the road in 1883.

The houses at the end of the road are in Heyford Avenue, I think also developed around 1890.

House, 119, Fentiman Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-15
House, 119, Fentiman Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-15

I walked down Dorset Road and then turned left into Meadow Road to take me to Fentiman Road where I made my next picture about a quarter of a mile later. I’m rather surprised I didn’t find anything to interest me in that distance.

This house is in one of two similar short terraces immediately west of the junction with Meadow Road and I now think is No 119. The eleven other houses have similar decorative elements though the gables are varied with three patterns. I think then that many now had vigorously overgrown front gardens like this making hiding much of the ground floors, though now some are cleared for parking cars.

House, 104, Fentiman Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7g-62
House, 104, Fentiman Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7g-62

The houses opposite on the north side of the road here are rather larger and detached. Those at 106-112 are listed as is the church on the east side of this house. I think I photographed this rather than the listed buildings as for the reflection in the car and the tree shadow in the lower part of the image.

Caron's Almshouses, Fentiman Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7g-63
Caron’s Almshouses, Fentiman Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7g-63

A few yards further along Fentiman Road are Caron’s Almshouses, founded in 1618 by Noel Caron, Dutch Ambassador to the court of King James 1, and a popular local philanthropist who lived in South Lambeth.

Originally on Wandsworth Road, Caron’s Almshouses became unsuitable for elderly people and moved to these new buildings in Fentiman Rd in 1854. The buildings were leased to the Family Housing association in the 1990s and repaired and modernised for local women in need and officially reopened by the Dutch Ambassador in 1997.

I included these last two pictures in a post on a previous walk made two days earlier in 1989, and I’m unsure now on which of the two walks in the same area they were taken on.

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Clapham Road and South Lambeth – 1989

Monday, October 30th, 2023

Clapham Road and South Lambeth continues my walk on Wednesday 19th July 1989 in Stockwell and South Lambeth which began with Stockwell Park, Bus Garage, Tower and Mason. The previous post was Meadows, Tate Library & Albert Square.

Works, Clapham Rd, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-64
Works, Clapham Rd, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-64

I walked southeast out of Albert Square past the plain brick 1960’s Regency Court block of flats which replaced the damaged No 37 – the only attempt this makes to fit in with the square is to keep to the same roof line but otherwise it stands out as a drab sore thumb – I think a good modern building would have been preferable to dull mediocre. A wide avenue with some trees lining it leads to Clapham Road.

There was no gap between this typically 1930s building immediately to the north of Sir Joseph Causton’s large Printworks building and it may have been a later part of the works or a separate small factory. At its north side it joined a house, still standing. This building has been completely removed, and the space is now a road, Lett Rd, next to the Printworks which has been converted into flats and retail. The left section of the building has been replaced by a recent residential block along Lett Rd.

The Printworks was built in 1903 and Causton’s were one of the largest printing companies, making labels for various products including Marmite and Guiness, stationery and objects including brewery pub trays. During the First World War they printed many propaganda posters and those encouraging war savings. They moved to Eastleigh, Hants in 1936 and the plant was sold to the catalogue company Freemans Ltd in 1937. The company was taken over in 1984 but the name is still used for Causton Envelopes and Causton Cartons, part of the Bowater Group.

Housing, Liberty St, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-66
Housing, Liberty St, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-66

Liberty Street runs from Caldwell Street down to Durand Street behind the Printworks. It was one of the last part of the area to be developed and when these 54 flats were built as Wyke Mansions close to Caldwell Street in 1902 they faced the works across an open field. According to the Oval History site this was later built on by Freeman’s for warehousing after they took over the Printworks. Some of those buildings were demolished in 1996 to build Bakery Close and the rest demolished in 2008 by Gaillard who converted the site into modern flats. But these mansions remain. There appears to be no record of why the street was named Liberty St.

House, Garden, Brixton Rd, Angell Town, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-55
House, Garden, Brixton Rd, Angell Town, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-55

I walked along Caldwell Street to Hackford Road, then down there to Southey Road and on to Brixton Road. I think this remarkable garden of thistles which would have even sent the pessimistic and depressed Eeyore into ecstacy was at 130 Brixton Road, part of the Vassall estate let to Henry Richard Vassall, third Baron Holland. He gave building plots on 80 year leases to builders and speculators in a piecemeal fashion which probably accounts for the stuccoed No 130 adjoining the brick 132. There are brief descriptions of the houses along the road on the Survey of London.

These houses are on the west side of Brixton Road and the River Effra ran on the east side, but was put underground around 1880 and still runs there. But the buildings on that side are set well back from the road.

The Co-op Centre, 11 Mowll St, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-45
The Co-op Centre, 11 Mowll St, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-45

The Co-op Centre was built in 1898 for as a hall for Christ Church, Brixton Rd and used for worship until the church was completed in 1902. Lambeth Co-op Centre became Mowll St Business Centre in 2016. Until the late 1930s the street was named Chapel St, but was renamed to avoid confusion with other Chapel Streets in London after the Rev William Rutley Mowll, the first vicar of Christ Church on the corner of the street.

Doorway, Kinki-Bee Characters, 46 Wilkinson St, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-33
Doorway, Kinki-Bee Characters, 46 Wilkinson St, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-33

Kinki-Bee Characters was in the locally listed Venetian gothic former Stockwell and North Brixton Dispensary on the corner of Wilkinson Street and Bolney Street, South Lambeth built in 1866 to provide medical and surgical advice, medicine, and attendance. The charity was only removed from the Charity Commisions listing in 1997. In 1920 it stated its aims as providing ‘MEDICAL AND SURGICAL AID TO THE SICK CHILDREN OF POOR PERSONS RESIDENT IN THE PARISHES CHRIST CHURCH, NORTH BRIXTON; ST. MICHAEL, STOCKWELL; ST. ANDREW, STOCKWELL; ST. ANN, SOUTH LAMBETH; ST. BARNABAS, SOUTH KENNINGTON; ST STEPHEN, SOUTH LAMBETH; AND ALL SAINTS, SOUTH LAMBETH.’ The plaque on the house was restored in 2012.

Kinki-Bee Characters Limited was set up around 1952 and sold hand-painted dolls and ornaments, bottle stoppers/pourers etc as collectors items. You can still find them on eBay and other web sites. A placard inside the window has the message ‘CHILDREN WANT REAL MOTHERS NOT MADE OF STONE’.

Tradescant sculpture, St Stephen's Church, Wilkinson St, St Stephen's Terrace, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-21
Tradescant sculpture, St Stephen’s Church, Wilkinson St, St Stephen’s Terrace, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7f-21

The Tradescant sculpture by Hilary Cartmel was funded by the local residents’ association and unveiled by naturalist David Bellamy in 1988 and is a memorial to the Tradescant family. John Tradescant, father and son, were 17th century nurserymen and collectors of plants from around the world based in Lambeth.

The sculpture stands on the pavement in front of St Stephen’s Church, built in 1967 to replace the large Victorian building of 1861, built to seat 1,200, which was demolished. The 1967 building has since been modified to replace its narrow slit windows with larger ones. But my back was to this rather plain brick building when I took this picture, and in the background is the rather fine dispensary building from 1866 on the corner of Wilkinson St and Bolney St.

To be continued.

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