More around the Meridian – It’s seldom possible to actually walk for more than a few yards actually on the Greenwich Meridian in London and while planning my Meridian Walk I often wandered around considerably, having to make detours and also looking for the more interesting routes. So not all these images are exactly on the Meridian, but most were taken within a short distance from it.
When I began this project the Meridian was not marked on the Ordnance Survey or Street maps, and one of may first tasks was to get a ruler and pencil it on to them. In 1999 it was added to the OS maps of the area, but does not seem to be on the latest versions. In 1995 there were no smart phones with online maps and GPS which would have made things so much easier.
The Greenway was the recently rebranded path above the Northern Outfall Sewer which rans across East London from Hackney Wick to the sewage treatment plant at Beckton, going under the road here close the the bridge over Abbey Creek on the Channelsea River, where Abbey Lane becomes Abbey Road. You can see the bridge at the left of the picture.
Greenway, Channelsea River, Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-1153
The Greenway is a great traffic-free cycle route for pedestrians and cyclists, running straight and level and this picture gives some evidence of that.
Channelsea River, Long Wall, Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-1111
I’m not sure what this pipe was for, perhaps for taking gas across the river. Not far away on the other side of this tidal creek was one of the largest gas works in London – and you can still see its listed gasholders, though the view is likely to change soon with the site being redeveloped.
But behind me when I made this picture was the Abbey Mills sewage pumping station and on the edge of the creek below were the storm outfalls where sewage would be released after heavy rains. With the changing tides it would flow downstream a little and then could be taken miles upriver along the Prescott channel and the River Lea.
Flats, East India Dock Rd, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1321
I think the Meridian went through the centre of the taller gas holder at Poplar Gas works.
Flats, East India Dock Rd, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1321
Another view with the gasholders in the background.
Clove Crescent, East India, DLR, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1273
My pencilled line for the Meridian shows it going through both the water in the dock and the brick building at left which was the former Blackwall Power Station in both of these pictures.
Clove Crescent, East India DLR, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1263
South of the East India Docks the line crosses the River Thames above and between the two bores of the Blackwall Tunnel, closer to the original western tunnel now used by northbound traffic. I couldn’t take photographs in the tunnel – though it was possible for those on foot to take a bus across, but these would have been rather boring in any case.
This picture shows the southern entrance to the tunnel with its 1897 Grade II listed gatehouse by the London County Council’s Superintending Architect Thomas Blashill. In front of it a less ornate red and white striped arch with heigh and weight restriction signs and hangers to hit any overtall vehicles and hopefully prevent damage to the gatehouse.
One picture not I think actually on the Meridian but not far from it, taken from the long footbridge over the Blackwall Tunnel Southern Approach.
Riverside Path, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1762
My path continued south along the riverside path, with the Meridian going into the River Thames on the extreme left of this picture.
Riverside Path, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1742
I kept to the land continuing along a path I’ve walked many times and making a few more pictures.
Riverside Path, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1743
Like much of London’s riverside almost all of the industry has now gone, but some relics remain, though most of this part of my route is now lined by rather boring flats.
1995 Colour – Greenwich Meridian: The second of a series of posts on my colour work, mainly in London, from 1995, 35 years ago and when I’d been working extensively with colour negative film for ten years, though still continuing to work with black and white.
Obelisk, Trig Point, Pole Hill, Chingford, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95p03-841
In 1992 I began making colour panoramas using a Japanese Widelux F8 swing lens panoramic camera – and later I used a Russian Horizon which gave similar results. Both worked with normal 35mm film but produced negatives that were a little under 60mm wide rather than the 36mm of normal cameras. Both use clockwork to swing the taking lens around a third of a circle exposing the film through a narrow slit behind the lens. The film was held in a curved path – again around a third of a circle – with the lens at the centre of the circle so that the lens to film distance remained constant.
Peacham Hall, King’s Head Hill, Woodberry Way, Chingford, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95p03-411
This arrangement avoided the change in distance from the lens to film that gives some stretching of the subject towards the edges of the frame – and begins to become very noticeable in ultra-wide lenses, particularly wider than around 18mm focal length on a 35mm camera.
Level Crossing, Highams Park, Waltham Forest, 95p03-552
Using the curved film plane avoids this distortion and enables a much wider field of view, while using a fairly moderate focal length – the Widelux has a 26mm f2.8 lens and gives negatives 24x56mm with a horizontal angle of view of 123 degrees.
Bridges, North Circular, Hale End Rd, Hale End, Waltham Forest, 1995, 95p03-463
But there is a downside. Creating the image in this way gives a curvature to objects which is unlike our normal vision which is particularly noticeable on any straight lines, though lines parallel to the axis the lens rotates around remain straight – so if you hold the camera level, verticals will remain straight. But other lines become curved with the effect increasing away from the image centre, giving what is often called a “cigar effect“.
This is a constraint which makes composition far more difficult using a swing lens camera, and was not helped by a rather poor viewfinder on the Widelux. Usually for landscape work I tried to visualise the effect of the curvature and chose a suitable camera position, levelled the camera on a heavy Manfrotto tripod using the spirit level on the camera top plate, lining the camera up using two arrows on the top plate to show the extent of the view (more accurately than the viewfinder) and then pressing the cable release to make the picture.
Stratford Bus Station, Great Eastern Rd, Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-922
For photographing events and some creative effects this is a camera you can use handheld, but you have to remember that even when using its fastest speed of 1/250 second the camera actually takes quite a lot longer to scan around the curved film.
Crowley’s Wharf, River Thames, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-672
These pictures are from a project I began in 1995 with the approaching Millennium in mind. It seemed to me to make sense to carry out a project based on the Greenwich Meridian.
Greenwich Boating Pond, Park Vista, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1431
So I set about walking the Meridian, photographing it at various points in London and used some of these pictures in an attempt to get public funding for a Meridian Walk with some markers in pavements and a web site and publication. Panoramic images seemed a very appropriate format for illustrating the line.
Greenwich Meridian, Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1242
Unfortunately my grant application as usual was unsuccessful, but I did go on to take some more photographs. In 2009 others produced a Greenwich Meridian Long Distance Path covering all of the Meridian in England from Peacehaven to Sand La Mere which of course goes through London and we also have The Line Sculpture Trail. Quite a few more Meridian markers were also added in London since I made this walk.
Many more panoramas from my Meridian project and other colour images from 1995 in the album 1995 London Colour.
Stratford to Upton Park: On Wednesday 4th December I walked with two friends from Stratford Station to the site of the former West Ham football ground at Upton Park.
Though really it wasn’t the football connection that interested us, but the fantastic late Victorian pub on the corner close the the ground which we had seen some pictures that prompted this fairly short walk, one of occasional strolls we meet to take in London which always end in a pub.
Having photographed London since the 1970s I’d been down all the streets we walked along before at various times, in early years on my own. And much of our route I’d walked down with groups of protesters more recently, protesting over housing with Focus E15 and marching from Stratford to protest at the DSEI arms fair.
We met outside Stratford Station and walked through the indoor market to Stratford Broadway where I stopped to take a couple of pictures. On the Broadway we stood by the obelisk erected by fellow parishioners and friends in 1861 to Quaker banker and philanthropist Samuel Gurney (1786-1856). Gurney came from a Norwich banking family and made a hugely successful career in banking in the City of London. But his later years were largely occupied with a wide range of philanthropic causes, including penal reform, the abolition of slavery, support for Liberia, education, the Irish famine, peace with France and more.
In East London he was responsible for the first hospital for workers injured in dock accidents in Poplar and St Paul’s Stratford, founded as a mission by him in 1853. While Gurney is long forgotten, his sister who he worked with on prison reform, Elizabeth Fry, remains famous.
We crossed the Broadway and continued down West Hame Lane, past the housing association building where I photographed Focus E15 Mothers partying against their eviction in January 2014 at the star of their long campaign for “Housing for All” and on towards Church Street.
All Saints West Ham Church was Grade I listed in 1984 and has been a place of Christian worship since around 1130 though it was rebuilt in Early English style later in that century and has had various additions since, with its interior very much altered in Victorian times by George Dyson and George Gilbert Scott. In !857 Lord Grimthorpe added a clock to the tower whose mechanism was the model for Big Ben.
We walked around the churchyard – the church like most in urban areas was locked, though I visited it on Open House Day some years ago – and then went to visit The Angel pub a little way down the street.
There had been an Angel pub here probably since the 16th or 17th century in a old unspectacular timberframed building but it was rebuilt in its present half-timbered fantasy form by its landlord in 1910. Closed and boarded up in 2003 it re-opened shortly after as The Angel Cabaret & Dance Bar, described as a “Trashy run-down Stratford gay dance bar” whose license was revoked in 2010. Plans to turn it into a church were dropped around 2014 and the building is now empty and in a very poor state, with an application in October this year for a possession order.
We continued on down West Ham Lane, looking down from the bridge at Plaistow Station to Willow Cottage, the grade II listed former lodge to the demolished The Willows, dating from 1836. This is one of only four listed buildings in Plaistow North Ward, along with a library and two public houses, neither still open as pubs.
But one older unlisted public house remains in business and was well worth a visit. The Black Lion was certainly there in 1742, and though it was largely rebuilt in 1875 still seems ancient.
By then my colleagues were flagging and it was approaching twilight. Two buses took us to the junction of Green Street and Barking Road where we admired the outside of the Boleyn Public House, built in 1899-1900 by W G Shoebridge and H W Rising. A huge and remarkable pub with fine etched glass and internal furnishings, though it was still closed when we arrived.
That gave us time to photograph the bronze memorial celebrating the 1966 World Cup victory with Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and Ray Wilson, and to walk up to the pathetic Boleyn Ground Memorial Garden on Shipbuilding Way, a circular patch of bare grass and a small playground area. There didn’t seem to be anything to record the history of the site. Back in Augest 2015 I’d photographed local campaigners calling for West Ham’s Boleyn ground to be developed for some of the 24,000 on Newham’s housing list rather than as 838 luxury apartments with no social housing. The site has no real social housing but includes 25% of so-called “affordable housing“.
Waiting outside for the Boleyn to open we met a long-term Hammers fan and customer of the Boleyn. The pub closed in 2020 for refurbishment and has been restored lovingly to “something like its former impressive Victorian glory. Various skilled workers employing traditional methods have been sourced to reinstate Victorian cut glass, lay marble and tiled floors and recreate the wooden screens that divide up the 7 bars which include the Saloon Bar, Public Bars and the much sought after ‘Carriage Bar’ and ‘Ladies Bars’…”
As they say “The Boleyn Tavern conjures up the look of a grand Victorian Gin Palace and is truly a sight to behold.” And we spent some time comfortably doing so.
Stop The London Arms Fair: On Wednesday 6th September 2017 I was with protesters who were blocking the two roads leading to the Excel Centre on the side of the Royal Victoria Dock in Custom House, Newham.
Every two years the DSEI, the Defence & Security Equipment International exhibition takes place at the Excel Centre. This is the world’s largest arms fair, backed by the UK government , where arms companies and arms dealers sell weapons to countries around the world including many repressive regimes. The previous show in 2015 was found to be featuring numerous weapons prohibited under international laws.
The show has been condemned by the Mayor of London, Newham Council and the people who live in this area of East London, but still goes on. It came to the Excel Centre in 2001 and there have been protests against it since then, organised by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and many other groups.
Wikipedia quotes London Mayor Sadiq Khan in 2019: “London is a global city, which is home to individuals who have fled conflict and suffered as a consequence of arms and weapons like those exhibited at DSEI. In order to represent Londoners’ interests, I will take any opportunity available to prevent this event from taking place at the Royal Docks in future years.” Unfortunately he has had no success, and the 2025 show is already being advertised.
CAAT point out that among those official military and security delegations coming to the show are many from human rights abusing regimes including Egypt, the UAE, Democratic Republic of Congo. Arms sales to Saudi Arabia taking a major role in the war in Yemen by UK firms have been £1.9billion since the start of 2021, and overall sales to the coalition since the start of the war in 2015 have been around £18 billion.
Again Wikipeda states that “Amnesty International has criticised the event for selling weapons of torture and for providing weapons that have been traced to attacks on civilians.” You can still see their page on the 2015 arms fair, including a video . And in 2021 they found a company at the fair offering “waist chains and cuffs with leg cuffs“.
Protests at the Excel Centre in 2017 had begun on Monday 4th September when a protest camp was set up close to the Excel Centre. I’d gone there the following day to photograph ‘No Faith In War‘, a series of events organised by various faith groups.
I had returned on Wednesday 6th September when the protest theme was ‘Arms to Renewables – No to Nuclear‘ and there was music, singing, dancing, a free ‘bring and share’ picnic and a short theatrical performance urging that instead of arms industry and huge spending on Trident and on wars we should rather provide jobs in renewable energy technologies and spend the military budget on homes, schools, health and other social benefits.
During the day their were a series of lengthy lock-ons on the roads at both East and West gates blocking access to London’s ExCeL where lorries were arriving to set up the exhibition stands for arms companies. Over the six days of protests there were more than a hundred arrests – and in 2021 the Supreme Court ruled that four of those charged had a “lawful excuse” for their actions which were were “exercising their rights to free speech and assembly (under Article 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights)”.
The Supreme Court ruled that “protestors can still have a defence to a charge of wilful obstruction of the highway, even where there is a deliberate obstruction that has a real impact on other road users.” But each case had to be judged on its merits and on whether the conviction was “a proportionate response to the defendants’ actions” which in this case it was not. It seems clear to me – if not to the judge concerned – that the draconian sentences passed recently on the M25 protesters were not proportionate, and that his refusal to allow them to explain the reasons for their taking action was unlawful.
There are details and photographs of some of the events at the 2017 protests on My London Diary, including those from my later visits on the Thursday and Saturday. All the pictures here are from Wednesday 6th September. The final event on the following Tuesday when the arms show opened was a procession organised by East London Against Arms Fairs (ELAAF) carrying a white wreath with the message ‘Remember Victims of the Arms Trade’ around the Royal Victoria Dock.
The Future For Aviation: The protest at London City Airport on Monday 21st July 2014 by ‘The Future‘, a campaigning group set up to fight climate change and ecological devastation by non-violent protest along with some local residents addressed specific issues related to that airport, but also wider questions about the future of aviation, both still very much with us. A decision is expected shortly by our new Labour government on further expansion plans for the airport following a public inquiry which closed in February.
The group used a painted circle around one eye as a symbol that the people are watching those in power, calling on politicians and others to take action rather than let themselves be bought by corporate interests. And they stated “we will judge them if they choose the toxicity of London City Airport over the health of local people and of London.”
Ten years later, ‘The Future’ are forgotten, and while there has been nothing like enough action the growing signs of the coming catastrophe are just perhaps beginning to get some movement, though still too little and too late.
It should now be clear to every thinking person that we have to find ways to reverse the growth in the aviation industry. To end airport expansion and increasing numbers of flights. Not ideas like changing to bio-fuels or specious calculations over planting trees to compensate for the CO2 generated by flights, nor on the pipe-dream of electric aircraft but quite simply reducing the number of flights.
Quite how this can be done is a matter for discussion, but some measures, such as removing the subsidies for aviation and banning incentive schemes with air miles and discounts could be simply implemented.
Heathrow and London City Airport also pose other problems, generating pollution and noise pollution both from their flight and from the traffic and congestion they generate in urban areas of our heavily polluted city.
The history of London City Airport is a case-study in how the aviation industry has operated by deception. When set up it was to be a low traffic site providing limited services between European capitals for business travellers from the nearby Canary Wharf and the City of London using small, quiet aircraft specially built for short take-off and landing.
Even so the Greater London Council opposed its setting up in the former Royal Docks in Newham, surrounded by densely populated areas but were overruled by central government.
Those initial promises have been long been superseded and by 2014 passenger numbers were 25 times as great with the airport no a a major commercial airport, its runway extended to allow use by larger and far more noisy aircraft, including some scheduled trans-Atlantic flights. From a handful of flights a day there were by then around 15 per hour in its allowed operation times. And more new housing in the surrounding areas had made the airport’s site even less tenable.
The airport was then about to make a planning application for further expansion. Then London Mayor Boris Johnson directed Newham Council to turn this down, but in 2016 transport secretary Chris Grayling and communities secretary Sajid Javid overrode the decision and gave the £344 million scheme the go-ahead.
In 2023, Newham Council again turned down further expansion plans but the airport again appealed. A public inquiry took place in December 2023 to February 2024, and a decision was expected by 23rd July 2024. But the general election means that the decision will now be made by our new Labour government. It will be a key indicator in demonstrating if our new government is really serious in its announced intentions to combat climate change and pollution.
Garden Bridge, Housing, Domestic Violence, Migrants & Police Killings; Saturday 9th July 2016 began for me in Waterloo, where right wing Labour party members were attending a conference. Then I travelled to Hackney for a Sisters Uncut protest over domestic violence and housing, back to Downing Street for a rally against the scapegoating of immigrants and went briefly to a Brexit debate in Green Park and then south of the river again to a protest against police murders in the UK and US.
Garden Bridge protest at ‘Progress’ conference – Coin St
Lambeth Council were supporting the ‘Garden Bridge‘, a private green space to bridge the River Thames close to Waterloo Bridge, an expensive vanity project with a costing over £200 million with little public gain.
Lambeth residents came to protest as Lambeth councillors and council leader Liz Peck were attending the Labour Party ‘Progress’ movement ‘Governing for Britain’ conference.
The Garden Bridge project was finally abandoned in August 2017, by which time it had cost £53m, including £43m of public money.
Housing Protest at ‘Progress’ conference – Coin St
Also protesting outside the Progress conference were housing protesters against the demolition of council estates and their replacement by luxury flats under ‘regeneration’ schemes by London Labour councils including Southwark, Newham and Lambeth.
The protesters were from the Revolutionary Communist Group, Focus E15 ‘Homes for All’ campaign and Architects for Social Housing who had been involved in various campaigns to stop the demolition of social housing in these boroughs.
They say that New Labour policies, now accelerated by the Tory Housing and Planning Act, makes London too expensive for ordinary workers leading to social cleansing, while making excessive profits for developers, including housing associations and estate agents Savills.
East End Sisters Uncut on Domestic Violence – Hackney Town Hall
Sisters Uncut came to Hackney Town Hall to demand the council abolish all plans to demolish council homes, refuse to implement the Housing Act and invest money into council housing and refuges for victims of domestic violence.
They quoted a Women’s Aid report for 2013-5 which found that over 60% of applications to women’s refuges in Hackney are refused as no room is available.
The Brexit vote had been followed by a rise in the scapegoating of immigrants and Islamophobia, and ‘Another Europe Is Possible’ organised a rally at Downing Street to keep Britain open to migrants, and for policies and media which recognise the positive contribution that migration makes to the UK.
Speakers came from a wide range of groups including Movement for Justice, Left Unity, Friends of the Earth, Newham Monitoring Project, Stand Up To Racism and Syrian activists.
Many from the rally were going to the Brexit picnic and discussion in Green Park afterwards, and I did too.
Most of those who came to the picnic felt cheated by a vote that was based on lies and false promises, but they came wanting to find ways to make it into something positive for the country.
There were also some who had come to counter the protest with their own picnic for democracy organised by Spiked magazine, and when the people from the Downing Street rally arrived with their placards some of them came over to pick an argument.
Things got a little heated when a woman from the ‘Spiked’ group accused those holding the placards of being unwashed, and there was some vigorous speaking in response. But people from both sides stepped in to cool things down.
Local black organisers in Brixton called a rally and march in memory of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and to show solidarity with those murdered by police brutality, both in the US and here in the UK.
Alton Sterling was murdered by police officers on July 5, 2016, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, shot at close range after police had pinned him to the ground where he was selling CDs outside a grocery store. In May 2017 the US Justice department announced there was insufficient evidence to support federal criminal charges against the officers concerned – despite the many videos of the incident and other sources.
Philando Castile was fatally shot at close range after has car was stopped by police in he Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. There was video of the incident and the officer was charged with second-degree manslaughter and two counts of dangerous discharge of a firearm. A jury acquitted him of all charges in June 2017.
There were many speeches both about these and other US cases and those in the UK, where Sean Rigg, Wayne Douglas and Ricky Bishop died after being held in nearby Brixton Police Station. One of the organisers spoke wearing a t-shirt listing just a few of those who have been killed by police in the UK. An annual protest is held every year in Whitehall against the many custody deaths in the UK, and in 2015 while this was taking place police took advantage of this to strip the tree in front of the police station of its deaths in custody memorials
Some time after I left the protesters marched around Brixton, bringing traffic to a halt for several hours.
This is the final section of 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, and almost all of these final images are in the book so you can read my deliberately disjointed thoughts that made up the text on the book pages here. Although this was the end of this walk I returned to the area for another walk a few days later.
Dove Cafe, 390, High Road, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-54
Andy & Co, Catering Equipment, 376-80, High Rd, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-55
Good As New Clothes, High Rd, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-41
Jesus is Alive, Leyton Rd, Stratford, Newham, 1989 89-9b-43
178-80 High Rd, Leytonstone, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-44
Here you can see the buildling where I took a photograph in a earlier post of Eves, a ‘STRICTLY LADIES ONLY HEALTH CLINIC’. The road on the corner at the left of the picture is Eve Rd. As you can read the building was also BeCKS Driving Lessons, BRITAINS LARGEST PRIVATELY OWNED DRIVING SCHOOL FOR CAR & H,,G,V.’.
There are some clues as to the origin of this building, including the intertwined initials J and S but I have been unable to find out more. Currently it is a bookmakers.
Noted Eel & Pie House, West St, 481, High Rd, Leytonstone, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-45
Finally I photographed the Noted Eel & Pie House, still present at the start of West Street although the Potato Dealers and Farm Produce shop at left is now an off-licence. The shop sign for the Eel & Pie House has changed and now spreads across three bays and all those white tiles have been replaced by green and the shopfront also now has a large eel at right.
You can read the history of the shop, with some pictures on their web site. It began with the great grandfather of the current owners who was the skipper of an eel barge sailing out of Heeg, a fishing village in the Netherlands. Eels were exported to London from there until 1938. Around 1894 his youngest son came London at the age of nine to live with a family who owned a pie shop and learn the trade, opening a pie shop in Hoxton with a cousin just before the outbreak of The Great War. He married the daughter of another pie shop owner and in 1926 with a loan from his father-in-law set up his own shop under his father-in-law’s name, E Newton, on Bow Road.
The shop name was changed soon after the outbreak of the Second World War when the Home Office insisted his name as a “friendly alien” had to be on the shop front. It became the “Noted Eel & Pie House” with his name, “H HAK” in the smallest font permitted in the bottom right corner as he worried customers might think it German.
In 1976 when two of his sons were then running the business the shop was compulsory purchased by the council and the business opened in Leytonstone in 1978. I suspect the sign in my picture may have come with them as it doesn’t quite fit and there is a name painted over at bottom right.
This was the final frame exposed on this walk. But I was soon to return to take more pictures in the London Borough of Waltham Forest.
I think this was built as the church hall for Trinity Presbyterian Church. The church was founded in 1863 and the hall was built the following year, the church coming later in 1870. The church closed in 1941 and both church and hall were used as factories. The church burnt down in 1953. This building was certainly still in use by Dossetter in the 1970s but since I photographed it has been replaced by flats. The block at left is still there.
Leytonstone Rd, Maryland, Newham, 1989 89-9a-61
Another view of the former church hall. The road layout was altered at least twice sinc I made this pictre and there is now a pedestrianised area with a 10m spiral tower by Malcolm Robertson carrying a clock.
Maryland Station was opened as Maryland Point Station in 1873 by the Great Eastern Railway, 34 years after the line was built. It was renamed as simply Maryland in 1940 and the new buildings were built during the war years in LNER Art Deco style, designed by Sir Thomas Penberthy Bennett, then Director of Bricks at the Ministry of Works. Later he was to be the main architect for Crawley New Town and Stevenage. Network SuuthEast, created in 1982, later added their sign which I think fits reasonably well with the rest.
I could not walk by Scorchers, a 24hr Ironing Service without photographing their signage. I think their 24hrs was the turnaround time rather than suggesting people might have an urgent need for some ironing at say, 3am which they would rush to deal with, though I did have a vision of a van with flashing blue lights and an ironing board rushing through the streets. I cannot now find the exact location and think these buildings may have been on a side street and have probably since been demolished.
I wouldn’t normally post this in these posts as it is only a very slight variation on an image from my previous post. I’d turned around and taken the pictures above and then came back to this place to make a further six frames – a very unusual thing for me, but I was determined to get this exactly as I wanted it. And here it is with the text that came with it on the web site for my ‘1989’ project.
This splendid building is still there just a little off Leytonstone Road in Thorne Close and was built as the Board Room block for the West Ham Union Workhouse around 1870. In 1930 West Ham Borough Council renamed it the Central Home Public Assistance Institution and it was again renamed when it became art of the NHS as Langthorne Hospital. It continued to specialise in geriatric care and had the motto ‘fiat jucunda senectus’ – let there be the delights of old age. It was finally closed in 1999. The older buildings on the site are all Grade II listed.
Langthorne Health Centre, Langthorne Rd, Leytonstone, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-41
The Langthorne Health Centre is still at 13 Langthorne Road, though it appears now to be run by L L Medical Care though still giving NHS treatment.
Another from the web site – though these images without the text are on Flickr. Here I’m presenting the images in the order they were taken, but in the book and web site they were thoughtfully sequenced – and perhaps make a little more sense. The book preview shows around half of the book’s 20 pictures.
Maryland My Maryland, Stratford 1989: It was not until the beginning of September 1989 that I found time to return to London, starting my walks there again on Sunday 3rd September at Stratford in East London and walking from the station towards Maryland.
Tom Allen Centre, Grove Crescent Rd, Stratford, Newham, 1989 89-8p-21
Nobody is absolutely sure why Stratford has an area called Maryland but it could be that this is an unusually named after Maryland Point on the Potomac River in Virginia. Richard Lee (1617-1664) emigrated to the then colony around 1640, making a fortune as “a tobacco planter, trader, an owner and trader of slaves, and an employer and importer of English indentured servants.” Returning to England in 1658 he bought land in Stratford and owned a large house there. The name Maryland Point is first known to have appeared on a map in 1696.
Trinity College Oxford set up a College Mission “in connexion with the Great Eastern Railway Works at Stratford le Bow” around 1890 and it continued there until destroyed by a German air-raid in 1941.
Tom Allen came to work at their mission in Bermondsey while still studying at Trinity in 1909 where he obtained a “Fourth in History” and a Rugby Blue. From 1911 to 1914 he was Warden of the Stratford mission but when the war broke out enlisted as a private in the Grenadier Guards, but was soon offered a commission in the Irish Guards. The following February he went to France “where less than one month later, in the firing trenches near La Bassée he was killed instantaneously by a shell.” He was only 27. The centre named for him was built in 1957.
It is now The Sanctuary, home to The Redeemed Christian Church of God.
Maryland Works, Grove Crescent Rd, Stratford, Newham, 1989 89-8p-22
I can’t make out the name of the company once engraved on the building of the Maryland Works at 20/22 Grove Crescent Road as it is partly covered by the later sign board for ( I think) ‘MTM ties around the world of B J Bass & Co Ltd.’ It and the offices beyond are long gone, replaced by blocks of flats, backing on to the railway.
The Grove Picture Theatre, The Grove, Maryland, Stratford, Newham, 1989 89-8p-23
Built in 1910 by Frazzi Fireproof Construction Ltd of Whitechapel the Grove Picture Palace later became a billiards hall. Although unused and in a rather poor stage it still retained its original decoration and railings in 1989, though its signage above the ground floor had gone. The sign ‘READ GOD’S WORD THE BIBLE’ was on the wall belonging to the Central Baptist Church next door,
The Grove Picture Theatre, The Grove, Maryland, Stratford, Newham, 1989 89-8p-24
Leytonstone Road starts at the north end of The Grove after it crosses the railway and runs parallel to the tracks to Maryland Station before turning north.
These buildings at 7-13 Leytonstone Road are still there but a little altered with the roof of Bacchus’s Bin (now BAR ONE and Thailander Restaurant) having had its gables and the half barrels and sign at first floor level removed. The Chevy Chase pub at No 11 closed in 2010, was until 2014 a restaurant and after being empty for a couple of years is now a solicitors.
Church, Francis St, Maryland, Stratford, Newham, 1989 89-8p-12
This is Emmanuel Hall and is now the Without Borders Church. It has lost its large cross and most of the row of windows along its side since I made this picture.
This picture on the corner looking north where Leytonstone Road turns north with the tower block of Henniker Point in the distance was the first image in the body of my Blurb book, ‘1989’, ISBN: 978-1-909363-01-4, published in 2012 and still available both as softcover or PDF. I had previoiusly published the work on the web in 2006 and it was exhibited in the 2010 London International Documentary Festival – I think the first occasion on which this festival featured still photography.
This is one of only two books of mine which are image/text pieces, though others have some separate texts. For the text I misappropriated the name ‘Upton Sinclair’, an American write and political activist who died in 1968, but I was thinking of nearby Upton Park and the well-known psychogeographic writer Iain Sinclair whose works on London I had long admired. After all there are hundreds if not thousands of us ‘Peter Marshalls’ so why not one more Upton Sinclair?
The blurb on Blurb about ‘1989’ states: ” ‘1989′ claims to be Chapter 1 of a book based on the notes made by the photographer on a walk through the streets of north-east London with a well-known author of ‘psycho-geographical’ works.
But the author is entirely fictional, and the notes, written in 2005, after his death and sixteen years after the pictures were taken are in part a gentle spoof on psycho-geography but more importantly a reflection on photography and the documentary process.”
Parts of it I still find quite funny and it really is one of my favourites among my books.
Focus E15 Mothers Party Against Eviction: Ten years ago today, on Friday 17th January 2014 I went to Stratford to photograph and support mothers threatened with eviction from their hostel.
Focus E15 Mothers Party Against Eviction – East Thames Housing, Stratford
The eviction threat came when Newham Council withdrew funding from the Focus E15 Foyer run by East Thames Housing Association. Rather than accept the evictions and be rehoused by the council in private rented flats in far-flung areas of the UK – including Wales and Liverpool, the women in the hostel decided to join together and fight.
They fought to be rehoused near to friends, families and support including nurseries close to their local area to avoid distress and dislocation for themselves and their children – and eventually they won.
The fight by Focus E15 brought national publicity to the scandals around local authority housing, and was a inspiration to others around the country. They continue their fight with their ‘Housing For All‘ campaign and remain an active campaign against evictions in Newham, including a weekly street stall every Saturday on Stratford Broadway.
Their campaign against Newham Council and its right-wing Labour Mayor Robin Wales who seemed to regard the London borough as a personal fiefdom led to some devious and at times illegal attempts to silence them and was almost certainly a factor in fomenting the revolt by Labour Party members that eventually led to him being deposed. Though his replacement as Mayor, Rokhsana Fiaz, is perhaps only a slight improvement.
All local authorities have suffered under cuts by central government, and in particular attacks on social housing provision, begun under Thatcher and continued by all governments since. The cuts made by the Tory-led coalition following on from the financial crash of 2008 tightened the screw on them still further.
Newham under Robin Wales appears to have decided that they needed to attract a wealthier population to the area and get rid of some of their existing population and had decided in the early 2000s to sell off a well-located and popular council estate close to the centre of Stratford to whoever they could. They began the process of ‘decanting’ people from the Carpenters estate around 2004, with many properties being left empty for years despite having – together with Lambeth – the largest housing waiting lists in Greater London – around 3.5 times the average among London authorities.
One of the Focus E15 slogans was ‘Repopulate the Carpenters Estate’ and it was in part due to their actions, alongside those of other campaigners, that the estate was not sold off and demolished. The estate is now being regenerated by the council although Focus E15 find much to criticise in the council’s plans.
The Focus E15 had begun in September 2013 and the action ten years ago was one of their earliest. I met with them and supporters, including those from the Revolutionary Communist Group, on a street corner near the offices of East Thames and walked with them into the large foyer, where they posed for a photograph for one of the local newspapers.
Then some of the mothers and children moved into the show flat at the front of the offices, with others remaining on the street outside with banners and placards, handing out leaflets to people walking by and using a megaphone to explain why the mothers were protesting.
The member of East Thames staff who had been dealing with the mothers came to talk with them. He assured them that they would be allowed to remain until satisfactory accommodation had been found for them.
The mothers pointed out that East Thames had large numbers of homes available, including many on the former Olympic site in Stratford, but were told that East Thames could not allocate affordable properties directly, but had to work with Newham council.
He seemed genuinely suprised to hear from the mothers that Newham had made offers involving rehousing away from London, in Hastings, Birmingham and elsewhere, away from friends, families, colleges, nurseries and support networks, and stated that East Thames intended to see them rehoused in London.
Later the Group Chief Executive of East Thames, June Barnes arrived and talked with the mothers telling them the same. East Thames seemed clear that the real problem was with Newham Council and not with them, though the campaigners were not really convinced.