Re-photo

The previous post on this walk in New Cross on 18th December 1988 was A Mattress, Pub, Cinema, Listed Pipe & Naval Baroque

New Cross – Shops, Closed Pubs & Baths: The four shops at the left of the picture are still there on New Cross Road at 257-263, but the buildings at right have gone, replaced by a grassed area on the road leading up to Sainsbury’s petrol station and three shopping warehouses. The antiques shop still looked much the same until around 2017.

Before the site to the right which stretches to New Cross Gate station was developed for Sainsbury’s most was a railway goods yard and works. Planning permission was granted for the development in 1995. Old maps show this site was a public house back in 1914 and it was The Railway Tavern which was still open in a picture from the 1940s which clearly is this same building.

This large detached house at 288 New Cross Road next to Deptford Town Hall is now a part of Goldsmiths University. It was built in 1842 as Hope Cottage and at least from 1914 to 1940 until later was the District Postal Sorting Office.

Unfortunately the long text on the door is impossible to read, but I suspect it told you to ro round to the back instead.

A fine Victorian swimming baths, slipper baths and laundries provided by St Paul’s Deptford vestry in 1895-98 using their powers under the 1846 Public Baths and Wash-houses Act, designed by local architect Thomas Dinwiddy and well described in its Grade II listing text.

The baths seemed to me rather overegged with those little turrets and the wall with its rather ornate and substantial piers was a temptation I could not resist, outlining its rather phallic profile with the darkness of its doorway behind.

The premises were firmly divided into two halves for men and women, and of course I chose a post with the word ‘MEN’ in a rather fancy font for this picture.

These rather solid and heavily built houses are opposite the baths in Laurie Grove and I think probably were built around the same date.

These shops at 297-309 New Cross Road are apparently still there, though restored or rebuilt in a way that removes both the various signage and the individuality of the units, producing a long coherent terrace extending from to 289 to 321 (287 still seems a little different.)

There was more character when I photographed the row, with what I think is an unlit neon sign ‘GREY FOR HMV’ and ‘EATWELL’S THE REAL BUTCHER’ who had declared war on rising prices and were you could save money. A cooked meat and sausage specialist, they supplied hotels, canteens and shipping.

Some way along New Cross Road was the London Tyre Warehouse, its adverts covering the side of The Fox public house at No. 62. In business here since at least 1851 it closed around 1997 and planning permission was granted to change the pub and the warehouse to a place or worship including a free food distribution centre.

It is now the Bethesda Building owned by Christ Faith Tabernacle International.

This walk will continue in a later post.