Re-photo

The previous post of this walk, Alma Grove & Grange Road, Bermondsey, 1988, ended on Grange Road.

Alaska, The Grange and Leather, 1988: The area of Bermondsey south and east of Bermondsey Street used to be known as The Grange, though I think now estate agents have re-christened it Bermondsey Spa. It was once the farm or grange of Bermondsey Abbey which covered much of the locality from the Norman conquest until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. Bermondsey Priory was established by Cluniac monks around 1089 and enlarged into an abbey around three hundred years later. Estate agents have renamed the area Bermondsey Spa.

The gateway on Grange Road with its carved seal was the works entrance to C W Martin & Sons Ltd who made products from sealskins, mainly imported from Alaska and Canada. The Alaska factory dated from 1869, though it was only taken over by Martin and a partner four years later. The seal skins were de-haired, dressed and died in the factory, which employed around a tenth of all UK fur workers. In its final years until it closed in the 1960s it was owned by Martin Rice Ltd.

Traditionally sealskin was used to make waterproof jackets and boots by the Inuit and other aboriginal people, and seal fur was used for warm coats. Sealskin made tobacco pouches for sailors and sporrans for Scotsmen. Although there are now bans in many countries on the export and import of seal pelts, the trade continues, and seal fur is still used as trims by some of the leading fashion brands.

The market for seal products diminished in the twentieth century and Martin’s increasingly moved into other fur products such as sheepskin jackets and the cleaning of fur coats etc. In 1932 the factory was rebuilt in a striking Art Deco design by Wallis, Gilbert & Partners and it was partially rebuilt after being damages in fire damage. It closed in the 1960s. At some time the legend MARTIN’S on the tower was replaced by the ALASKA now present.

The building was redeveloped as offices in the early 1990s and converted to residential use together with new development on the former Grange Road Baths site later in that decade. Like many former industrial and commercial buildings of merit it reflects a long-held prejudice of the listing authorities and is unlisted. For many years too there was (and perhaps it persists) a peculiar snobbishness among architectural historians and critics against what the called ‘moderne’ buildings.

Perhaps surprisingly, this house at 8 Grange Road with its neighbours in a row of four houses to the left of the picture was Grade II listed in 1972. They date from around 1800.

What attracted me was of course the unlisted (and since removed) part car body advertising the Jaguar Specialists above its ground floor windows. You can just see some marks left by this on the brickwork, but the name board has gone without trace. Above the archway at right is still the notice GREATER LONDON COUNCIL PRIVATE ACCESS DO NOT OBSTRUCT and there is not a gate across the entrance

Josiah Bacon who had become wealthy as a leather merchant left an annuity in 1703 of £150 a year to establish a Free School, at first in St Mary’s Church on Bermondsey St. It later moved to a building on Grange Road which was replaced by this one in 1890. The school moved to Pages Walk in 1962, later becoming a City Technology College. It moved to Rotherhithe in 1991 and is is now co-educational secondary school and sixth form with academy status since 2007.

I’ve written at some length before about the London Leather, Hide and Wool exchange in Weston Street. Leather traders had moved from Leadenhall Street in the City to a new Skin Market on an adjoining site in 1832-3 and 50 years later decided on building a new headquarters for the Leather Industry next door, engaging noted local architect George Elkington. Perhaps his flamboyant and eclectic design was made to please the committee responsible, and it was described as ‘an ornament to the district‘.

It’s overdone porch is supported by Atlas on each side, with a head in the centre that reminds me of Old Father Thames. Above the ground floor windows are five roundels representing various stages of the preparation and sale of leather; fellmongering to scrape the skins clean, tanning to harden the leather, flattening the skins, storing them for sale and finally a customer inspecting a hide.

Originally on the rounded tower at the corner with Leathermarket street there was a clock and above this a balcony and cupola, but these were not replaced after wartime damage. The building had a club area for the leather merchants on its first floor as well as public rooms and a tavern at the rear, now a pub. The exchange closed in 1912.

Bermondsey had a long history of tanning leather and in 1703 The Master, Wardens and Comonalty of the Art or Mistery of Tanners of the Parish of St Mary Magdalen Bermondsey of Surrey received a royal charter making them a guild responsible for the training of tanners and the inspection of tanning within a 30 mile radius of Bermondsey, which continued in force until 1835. Tanning was one of the major industries in the area, but the last tannery in the area closed in 1990. The guild still exists and awards bursaries and prizes etc to young people in the area.

My walk around the leather district will continue in a later post.