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Houses, a Club, Ghost Sign, Blouses and Baths – 1990

More from my walk on Sunday February 25th 1990 continuing from Around Finsbury Park – 1990.

*Houses, Prah Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2f-22*

A long terrace of three-storey houses on Prah Rd built in 1876-1878 – and there are others in a similar style on nearby Romilly Rd. There is a long and detailed section on Prah Road and its early occupants cited in an essay by John Bold and Charlotte Bradbeer; Booth’s investigators described these and neighbouring streets as having a higher class of occupant: ‘clerks, city men, some mechanics and a great many railwaymen of the better sort, head ticket collectors etc‘.

*Doorway, 1, Prah Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2f-24*

The Finsbury Park Conservative Club opened at 1 Prah Road in 1886 but there was little to show its presence when I photographed its decorative entrance. Later it had a Carlsburg sign added above the doorway, still there though faded although the club closed in 2015. The building was sold in 2016 for over 1.65 million, but completion was delayed as the building was squatted. It is now residential.

*Shops, Berriman Rd, Seven Sisters Rd, Holloway, Islington, 1990, 90-2f-25*

I walked north towards Finsbury Park Station and then turned left down Seven Sisters Road towards Holloway, taking few photographs as I had walked this way before. FINSBURY PARK was then fairly clear at the top of the ‘ghost sign’ on the Berriman Road side of 158 Seven Sisters Road, but I cannot make out the rest of the wording, though the next line could be GENERAL.

*Fosby, Blouses, Works, Thane Villas, Holloway, Islington, 1990, 90-2f-26*

Fosby Of London Ltd were at 3-5 Thane Villas, a few yards down the next turning south off Seven Sisters Road after Berriman Road. The company, established in 1977, made luxury high quality ladies blouses and shirts with “a feminine, elegant feel” which still sell on vintage clothing sites, but the building is now student accomodation.

*Fosby, Blouses, Works, Thane Villas, Holloway, Islington, 1990, 90-2f-13*

A closer view shows some of the fine detailing on the Grade II listed building built in a Queen Anne style in 1909 as factory, offices and wholesale showroom for manufacturing pharmaceutical chemists Fletcher, Fletcher and Company Ltd. Grace’s Guide lists their specialities: ‘”Vibrona” the Ideal Tonic Wine, of which they are the proprietors; is largely prescribed by the medical profession as a Tonic Restorative. ” Bronamalt,” an Ideal Tonic Food for delicate Children and Invalids. Also proprietors of Fletchers’ Syrups of the Hydrobro mates and Fletchers’ Concentrated Liquors, all of proved value. Are the patentees of Fletchers’ Thermo-Hydrometer and Fletchers’ Autometric Stopper, also of Endolytic Tubes for Clinical Diagnosis.

Other products included Effico tonic, Flexaphyll deodorant tablets, Aperigran laxative granules and Rubelix cough syrup. They called the buildings Vibrona House and remaines there until the 1960s when it was bought by Vortex Jersey Ltd.

The building was only listed in 2007, and the listing text comments: “The building has been little altered and retains several features of note including panelling, a glazed partition, a fireplace and rare historic automatic door, an unusual feature in commercial buildings of the era. The difference between the manufacturing and commercial spaces is clearly marked by two staircases which are both of special interest: the utilitarian stone staircase with metal balusters providing access to the factory and the grand timber Jacobean staircase serving the offices and commercial areas.“

*Hornsey Rd Baths, Laundry, Hornsey Rd, Holloway, Islington, 1990, 90-2f-14*

At the next crossroads I turned north up Hornsey Road and photographed the Hornsey Road Baths – Grade II listed in 1994. Another Queen Anne style building, this was built in 1891-2, designed by architect Alfred Hessell Tiltman (1854-1910).

When opened it had two pools for men and one for women, but such was demand that the baths were enlarged in 1894 and a second women’s bath was added in 1900. The listing text concludes by mentioning the “remarkable neon Diving Lady on the South flank elevation, one of 12 such illuminated features placed on swimming pools and lidos in London in the 1930’s and now believed to be the only survivor.”

*Hornsey Rd Baths, Laundry, Hornsey Rd, Holloway, Islington, 1990, 90-2f-16*

The frontage of the baths has the text ‘PUBLIC BATHS AND WASH HOUSES’ incised across it. The wash houses or laundry were added in 1894 and had a large drying room; they became self-service in 1965. The baths were refurbished at a cost of £1.5 million in 1985 and as the board shows were still in use for swimming, warm baths and a sauna when I took these pictures. But lack of funds led to the closing of the baths and laundry the following year.

From 2002-9 the baths were redeveloped, retaining the listed entrance block on Hornsey Road and the chimney but providing 200 apartments, some at affordable rent and others for private sale, an office building for Islington Council and a Sure Start Centre for parents and children.

Laundry, Timber and Glengall Road

The previous post on this walk I made on Sunday 29th January 1989 was Housing and the Grand Surrey Canal – 1989 .

*Elite Laundry, Willowbrook Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-65*

The Elite Laundry at 48a Willowbrook Road was on the edge of the canal walk and had obviously been closed for some time when I made this picture. It has since been demolished but the property in the left half of the picture, behind the roadside structure made mainly of corrugated iron sheeting has been renovated and is now on the Surrey Linear Canal Park. For some time it was the Willowbrook centre, a community planning and education centre of Southwark Council but they decided to sell it in 2017. It is Grade II listed as Willowbrook Urban Studies Centre.

The canal bridge a little further down Willowbrook Road is almost identical to that on Commercial Way, and both were built for the St Giles Camberwell vestry around 1870. This was then named Hill Street Bridge, though the 2015 map still refers to it by the older name of Taylor’s Bridge. The map also names the wharf here as Langdale Wharf. It was the site of timber merchants William Sharvatt & Son Limited.

*Timber Yard, Colegrove Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-66*

Timber from the Surrey Docks was the main cargo of the barges which came down the Grand Surrey Canal, and this yard will once have been a wharf on the canal. I’m unsure exactly where on Colegrove Road it was as this side of the street is now a large run of modern flats and I think all the buildings shown, both those on the wharf and the more distant flats have been demolished.

*Factory, Glengall Rd, Latona Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-51*

Glengall Road and Latona Road were still full of the industrial units that grew up around the Grand Surrey Canal, twith the large building on the corner and the adjoining property on Glengall Road in 1989 being occupied by Hays Chemicals Ltd. These buildings still remain, now occupied by Gadmon Industries, a German company specialising in steel tubing and pipelines, but those further down Glengall Road at the left were demolished in 2022.

*Factory, Glengall Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-52*

Some of the older factories and warehouses in the area had been replaced by more modern buildings, which I have now also been demolished. I think this particular warehouse was built on the actual filled in canal where it went under Glengall Bridge, no trace of which remains. I’m unsure what these stacks are, but I think they were probably made from wood. The peeling paint at left looked to me like a map of some unknown part of the world.

Glengall Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-53

The house at left is 41 Glengall Rd, which has since been extended. The factory buildings have been replaced by a modern equivalent built with a slight echo of the previous structures and is not the Glengall Business Park. The canal ran just to the south of here. I think this was the Glengall Works, where Chubbs moved their Patented Safe Manufactory in 1868, producing fire and burglary resistant safes and strong-room doors. They closed the factory in 1908 moving all production to their Wolverhampton works.

*Travellers Camp, Surrey Linear Canal Park, Glengall Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-54*

Caravans were parked on a part of the canal park. The building at left is still there but the block of flats was demolished as a part of the North Peckham regeneration scheme.

Houses, Glengall Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-55

Houses on Glengall Road were built on open fields to the south of the Old Kent Road between1843-and 1834 in what was then called Glengall Grove to emphasize its rural nature – though a short walk would have taken the new middle-class occupants to some noxous industries beside the canal. The street was planted with lime trees, some of which survive.

*Houses, Glengall Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-42*

These houses are thought to have been designed by the well-known architect Amon Henry Wilds who also designed other houses in the area including some still remaining on the Old Kent Road. But I don’t think there is any sign of his trademark decoration and perhaps he was not personally involved in their construction though providing the look of the houses.

*Houses, Glengall Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-43*

Nos 1-35 (odd) & 24-38 (even) Glengall Road are all Grade II listed, as well as similar houses in Glengall Terrace.

*Houses, Glengall Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-46*

The listings date from 1972, but in 1989 some of the properties were still in a poor state of repair. This picture shows houses which are part of a terrace at 36-50, a later development probably from the 1860s. Having spent some time photographing the houses at the top of Glengall Road I was walking back down the street when I made this picture.

My walk will continue in a later post.

The first post on this walk I made on Sunday 29th January 1989 was Windows, A Doorway, Horse Trough and Winnie Mandela

Hull Colour – 9

Time for the last post on my series of colour pictures from Hull in my Flickr album which covers the period up to 1985. I didn’t stop photographing Hull then, but I did stop using slide film around the middle of that year, and some of the pictures in the album from 1985 were made using colour negative film. Although this made it easier to get good prints and allowed me to work with a wider range of subjects, it does make the images harder to digitise. I’ll write more about this at a later date. The first few images here are from slides and later ones from negatives.

Barge moored in River Hull, Hull 83-Hull-1-2-Edit_2400 — Barge moored in River Hull, Hull 1983

As well as the colour I was attracted by the seemingly random numbers on the building and the ordered line of them on the prow of the barge, indicating the draught – the distance from the waterline to the lowest part of the hull. This barge, R38, is more or less empty and I think floating, its draught below the lowest mark of 4 (I think in feet), but when fully loaded would be at 9 or a little above. The slide mount crops the image rather more than I intended when making this picture.

83-Hull-8-Edit_2400 — Factory, River Hull, 1983

There are new industries on land adjoining the River Hull, particularly on the northern outskirts of the city, around Stockholm Rd, Malmo Rd and Bergen Way, names reflecting the traditional trade, still continuing across the North Sea into the port of Hull. I think this picture was probably made just to the north of Sutton Road bridge.

For me the bank of reeds expressed that these new industries have turned their backs to the river, while traditionally Hull’s industries had been on wharves and dependent on the River Hull for the transport in of raw materials – whale oil, agricultural products and later petroleum products and sometimes the export of bulk products such as edible oils. Now everything moves by lorry.

Lee Shore, River Hull, Hull 83hull159_2400

It is just possible still to recognise this as the view looking upstream from Chapman St Bridge, as the low sheds at left are still standing (or at least were in 2019) but I think most of the rest of the buildings in this view have disappeared and ships such as the Lee Shore and the other vessel upstream on the left bank no longer moor here.

The cocoa works on the right bank was razed to the ground around 10 years ago, and is now Energy Works, a renewable energy site built with the aid of a grant of almost £20 million from the European Regional Development Fund which will power 43,000 homes from waste and develop innovative technologies together with the University of Hull.

S Low, Laundry, Spring Bank, Hull 85-10c1-43_2400

S Low’s laundry had long amused me as I regularly travelled along Spring Bank either on foot or more often on the top deck of a Hull Corporation Bus, and I photographed it a number of times. This was the first I had taken on colour negative film and I’m not sure that the colour is as accurate as on the two different versions on slide film you can also see in the album.

This building is still there on Spring Bank, now painted very drably grey and no longer a shop.

Blanket Row, Hull 85-10c3-61_2400 — Humber Dock Side/Blanket Row, Hull 1985

I apologise for the green cast in this image which I should really correct, but it is perhaps appropriate given that this location, now the Humber Dock Bar and Grill overlooking the marina, describes itself as “Formerly the Green Bricks”.

The picture shows that before becoming a pub and restaurant the area was home to Charles Batte and the Kingston Fruit Co and along the street a number of other businesses, and the green glazed bricks of the pub, opened in 1806 as the New Dock Tavern and around 1838 renamed as the Humber Dock Tavern, taller than the rest of the row, are only just visible above the parked blue van. The green bricks by the Leeds Fireclay Co. Ltd probably date from 1907 and the pub was locally listed in 2006.

This was the final picture from Hull in the album Hull Colour 1972-85 (though I may add more later) which ends with some pictures from Goole.

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