In March 1994 I spent some time photographing in the London Borough of Enfield, and going a little beyond its borders into Waltham Cross. Mostly I was taking black and white pictures – some of which you can see on Flickr in the album 1994 London Photos – but I did also take some in colour, including a few colour panormas.
Mollison Avenue in Brimsdown is a busy road running roughly parallel to and between a railway line and the Lea Navigation with the area between these crammed with industrial and commercial sites. Now much of it is occupied by delivery centres and I think there are rather more fences than in 1994.
This was a picture largely about shapes and as with many olds getting the colours to look natural is a problem – as you can see particulary in the foliage here.
The colour is rather better in this image of a large pipe bridge, possibly carrying gas, over the navigation. The view here looks rather rural, but as usual there is a line of tall pilons.
Here I made use of the curvature from the swing-lens camera – as well as the obvious pipe there is a second interlocking curve with the bridge, the grass bank and the towpath.
Columbia Wharf, Ponders End, Enfield, 1994, 94-03-3-23
Columbia Wharf was now a wharf in name only, with lorries now delivering carpets. This is now a part of ‘Ponders End Waterfront’. I think this picture was taken from Wharf Road.
Enfield Wash is close to Enfield Lock station which I used several times to walk around the area. I have a small suspicion that this launderette may really have been in an area that locals would call Enfield Lock, but I decided given the subject that Enfield Wash was more appropriate.
I still can’t decide whether I preferred the landscape or portrait version of this launderette interior – taken through the window when it was closed.
Shops and Cross, Waltham Cross, Broxbourne, 1994, 94-03-1-61
From Enfield Lock Station a short walk took me to the Lee Navigation towpath which is also the Lea Valley Walk and a couple of kilometres north uder the M25 I was out of Greater London and in Waltham Cross. At right is the Eleanor Cross, one of twelve built to the orders of King Edward I to mark the overnight resting places of his wife Eleanor of Castile who died near Lincoln in 1290 as her body was en route to Westminster Abbey.
Much restored it now sits in the pedestrianised shopping centre, one of only 3 surviving Eleanor Crosses. The one in front of Charing Cross Station is a Victorian 1865 recreation.
Dartford 1995 Again – Panoramas: Part 9 of my occasional series on colour pictures I made in 1995.
Victoria Industrial Park, Victoria Rd, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-252
I enjoyed another walk in Dartford on Sunday May 7th 1995, beginning by taking black and white pictures of buildings around the centre before walking out to the northwest along Victoria Road.
Philips Norman, Cash & Carry, Victoria Rd, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-251
I went on to photographing in the industrial areas between Burnham Road and the Dartford Creek – the tidal River Darent.
Here I was able to make my way down to the west bank of the river and make more pictures.
River Darent, Riverside Wharf, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-121
At this wharf there had once been a fairly small dock which had been filled in but its gates were still there. I think it had perhaps been a dry dock used for ship repairs,
Dartford, 1995, 95p5-133
I think this is a site cleared for the development of a large housing estate, now on Lawson Road and Eleanor Close.
Dartford, 1995, 95p5-153
This long, empty road was University Way, a northern by-pass for Dartford, named in hope of a university that never arrived. Bob Dunn had been a Tory junior education minister who had campaigned for this development. MP for Dartford from 1979 to 1997 when he lost his seat to Labour, he died in 2003, only 56, and the road was renamed in his honour.
The bridge that takes Bob Dunn Way across the Darent was not built with navigation in mind, and makes it difficult for boats of any size to proceed up to Dartford. There has been for some years work being carried out to encourage navigation here, but boats have to look carefully at the tide tables to pass under the bridge. The Dartford and Crayford Creek Trust was founded in April 2016 to work to improve the navigation.
Roundabout, Hythe St, Victoria Rd, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-363
I walked back much the same way to this roundabout and went up Hythe Street in the centre of this picture.
River Darent, Nelsons Row, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-243
Hythe Street tok me to Nelson’s Row where I was able to cross the River Darent. There is also a public slipway here, cleared in recent years by volunteers.
Pipe Bridge, Riverside Path, River Darent, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-232
A few houses on the opposite bank are in Kenwyn Road. Past them you can see the derelict half lock which keeps some water in upstream when the tide flows out. Volunteer have put in considerable work to improve this lock in recent years and to revive navigation on Dartford Creek. In the distance is the Dartford Paper Mills site – closed in 2009 the site has been redeveloped.
Half Lock, Riverside Path, River Darent, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-223
Boats can navigate through the lock when the tide is high enough for them to get over the cill of the lock which holds back sufficient water for the river to be navigable upstream to the centre of Dartford.
Dartford Fresh Marshes, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-361
I turned around here and walked back to Dartford and the station. I’d made an early start to the day on the first train into London and there was still time to stop off on the way home and take a few pictures in Woolwich where I intended to return the following week.
Stroud Green to Grand Parade: Continuing my walk on Sunday 5th November 1989 from where the previous post left me on Stroud Green Road close to Finsbury Park Station.
Boys Entrance, Stroud Green Primary School, Ennis Rd, Stroud Green, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-46
The Girls Entrance to Stroud Green Primary is still there on the corner of Perth Road and Woodstock Road, but the BOYS was recently removed from above the gate at the other end of the school site in Ennis Road, where extensive building work was taking place – so perhaps it will return. The two entrances were over a 100 metres apart, an unusually safe distance. There is also a similar gate for INFANTS on Woodstock Road.
I think most of the school dates from 1897, although Google’s AI unhelpfully told me “Stroud Green Primary School was established in 1997” when I asked when it was built. The Grade II listing text for Woodcock Road School begins “Late C19 building of shallow U-shape with projecting gabled wings and slightly projecting 5 bay centrepiece under higher hipped roof crowned by cupola.” The area had fairly recently been developed with housing, some of which had to be demolished to build the school.
I turned left into Woodstock Road and then right into Oxford Road, heading for the Oxford Road Gate to Finsbury Park.
On the right just before the gate is Oxford House. In the 1960s this was the cinematographic film processor Kay Laboratories, later absorbed into MGM (possibly via Rank Xerox). For some years it was a studio and office space and housed a private college. For some years this 1930s Art Deco building was in a poor state but has recently been refurbished as offices and co-working space.
Pipe Bridge, New River, Houses, Endymion Road, Harringay, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-23
I walked through Finsbury Park on what is now part of Section 12 of the Capital Ring a circular walking route around London, first put forward as an idea the following year but only completed in 2005, but turning north onto the New River Path to exit onto Endymion Road where the houses on this picture are.
These south-facing houses on Endymion Road were lit by early afternoon winter sun. The road was the first constructed in the area after Finsbury Park was established and the development was begun by the Metropolitan Board of Works around 1875. The road goes around the northwest and north sides of the park, giving the houses attractive views over it. Development of the area to the north, West Harringay, began shortly after.
Endymion was in one of several Greek myths a handsome shepherd prince who moon goddess Selene fell in love with and persuaded Zeus to make immortal and to put in eternal sleep so she could visit him every night. John Keats wrote a famous extremely long poem in four sections, each around a thousand lines base on the myth and first published in 1818.
But the name more likely came to Harringay from HMS Endymion, “the fastest sailing-ship in the Royal Navy during the Age of Sail“, built in 1797 and in active service during the Napoleonic Wars and until the First Opium War around 1850 and only finally broken up in 1868.
Building, Green Lanes area, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-25
I think this building was probably on Warham Road, just a few yards down from Green Lanes, but if so there is no trace of it now. I wonder what it was built for, but there are few clues in the picture – perhaps someone local to the area can tell us in the comments.
Shop Window, Grand Parade, Green Lanes, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-11
The Grand Parade on the east side of Green Lanes of shops with middle class flats above them was developed by J C Hill and completed in 1899, with its relatively consistent facades interrupted only by an earlier bank, built five years earlier.
I can’t think who the peculiar bedroom suite in the window of this shop might appeal to, but it seemed like something out a a peculiar nightmare to me, but I guess it was someones’ dream.
Tory Scum, Grand Parade, Green Lanes, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-13
Also and rather more prosaically on Grand Parade on an empty shop front, fly-posting and the carefully stencilled graffiti:
TORY SCUM OFF OUR BACKS WE CAN’T PAY WE WON’T PAY NOPOLLTAX
London Sawmills, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Canning Town, Newham, 1989 89-4b-15
I walked back a few yards to the west along the East India Dock Road and made this picture looking south down Bow Creek, again showing the stacked timber on the wharf. The closer of the two bridges visible was I think just a pipe bridge, probably to carry gas from the nearby gasworks from Poplar to Canning Town, and has since been removed.
The second bridge is a Dock Road Foot Bridge, more commonly called the Blue Bridge (a name it shares with several others in London), though it also carries pipes and is still in place. I think it was intended to provide a route for people living in South Bromley to Canning Town station, and it leads to a bridge taking the footpath over the DLR, but unfortunately this has been almost permanently locked. It has been at least partly rebuilt since I made this picture
Hidden by this bridge a few yards further downstream and fenced off is another bridge, Canning Town Old Railway Bridge, long disused which was built to carry a single rail track over the river.
Pipe Bridge, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1989 89-4c-61
I walked on across Bow Creek and took this picture of the pipe bridge. As you can see it was well fenced off and although there were steps up and a footway across I could not access this.
All this brickwork on the Middlesex side of the river has gone, I think when the road bridge here was widened and a link road provided to the Limehouse Link tunnel but the brick abutment remains on the Essex side. The bridge was built to give sufficient clearance for navigation.
Pipe Bridge, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1989 89-4c-63
At the centre of the river I had crossed from Newham into Tower Hamlets. My street atlas names this area as South Bromley, but I don’t think anyone now knows where that is, as there is no station of that name, the DLR having decided on East India instead.
A few yards on along waste ground I made another picture showing the pipe bridge and the river, before turning back to the East India Dock Road. I made two exposures and I wonder if I may have chosen the wrong one to digitise as it is just slightly unsharp.
London Sawmills, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Canning Town, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4c-65
Across the water you can see much of the planks produced by the sawmill on the wharf, as well as stacks on a further wharf downriver between the building around 50 yards away on land but half a mile downstream round what is now the Bow Creek Ecology Park. Behind the cut timber you can see part of the Pura Foods edible oils factory on the opposite bank of the invisible river, and above that the top of the flood barrier across the river on the other side of the factory.
Timber was for many years a major industry on Bow Creek and along the Lea Navigation, as the Surrey Docks just across the Thames was mainly a timber dock, with large timber ponds. Boats and barges would have brought huge trunks to sawmills such as this, and the cut timber was also mainly transported further on by barge.
Pura Foods, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4c-52
I walked further east and used a short telephoto lens to make this image of Pura Foods. Their factory processing vegetable oils here at Orchard Place had grown considerably over the years, as had the smells from it, and many locals were pleased when the factory moved out in 2006.
Almost all of my pictures at this time were taken with a 35mm lens, giving a moderate wide angle view. The Olympus Zuiko lens I used was unusual in being a shift lens, allow me to move the optical elements relative to the film to give additional control over the perspective. It made it possible for example to photograph taller buildings without tilting the camera which would have resulted in verticals that converged.
Lens design has improved considerably since, and so have our expectations of lenses. Many of my pictures made then have a lack of critical sharpness at the corners which we would now find unacceptable. Digital imaging in particular means we now routinely look at images on a much larger scale on screen than the prints we used to make.
West Ham Power Station, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Newham, 1989 89-4c-55
I crossed to the other side of the busy East India Dock Road, going along Wharfside Road under it, and made this view looking north up Bow Creek. As you can see the West Ham Power Station was then being demolished. This was the last in a number of power stations on the site since 1904, when West Ham Council built one here to power its trams. This was West Ham B, built in 1951 and it used coal brought up Bow Creek as well as coke from the neighbouring Bromley Gas Works.
Power production at the station dropped off from the late 1960s and it closed in 1983. By 1989 its two 300ft cooling towers had already been demolished and the rest of the station was following.
West Ham Power Station, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Newham, 1989 89-4c-56
A second view shows more of the Newham (or Essex) bank south of the main power station building and the closer parts are again full of stacked timber.
Newham Council together with Tower Hamlets has plans for a number of new bridges in the area providing links across Bow Creek, at Lochnagar St, Poplar Reach near to Cody Dock and Mayer Parry connecting the Leven Road former gasworks site to roughly where the old power station was, now the SEGRO industrial park.
It had been a short and interesting walk and I made my way to Canning Town station for the slow journey home. Canning Town is much easier to get to since the Jubilee Line opened at the end of 1999.
Bow Creek, West Ham Power Station, East India Dock Rd, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1989
Bow Creek truly became magical as it passed under the East India Dock Road, and although it has now lost much of the interest on its banks, the incredible flattened S-shape as it curves before reaching the Thames remains impressive.
Bow Creek, West Ham Power Station, East India Dock Rd, Newham, 1989
The creek bends almost 90 degrees to flow roughly south under the road at Ironbridge Wharf (the iron bridge long replaces by more modern concrete structures) only to take a hairpin 180 degree bend to return almost back to the road before sweeping another 180 degrees down to go over the elevated Lower Lea Crossing. From there its convolutions continue with a 90 turn to the east and another to the south before entering the Thames as Leamouth, around 900 metres away as the gull flies, but 1900 by boat.
Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1982
Its course defines two very different peninsulas; to the west on largely undeveloped and now a nature reserve, with the DLR crossing to it on a viaduct and running up it, and on the east an industrial site, then occupied by the edible oil company Pura Foods (earlier Acatos & Hutcheson) and now the site of the City Island development.
Timber yard, Essex Wharf, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, Newham, Tower Hamlets, 1989
On the eastern bank of the river south of Canning Town station is another so-called peninsula, the Limmo Penisula, which became a major Crossrail works site and is now a housing development. The name was previously used for the whole area around this part of Bow Creek and the nature reserve, now the Bow Creek ecology park was first called the Limmo Peninsula ecological park. It is an area of confusing names, with the new development south of the Lower Lea Crossing taking its name, Goodluck Hope, from the area now called City Island. It was also easy to get a little confused by the area itself with the wandering of the river, and even when writing this post I had problems sorting out pictures just from the appropriate area.
Pipe Bridge, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1989
The pipe bridge possibly carried gas from the nearby Poplar Gas works to Canning Town; downstream was a disused railway bridge. A new ‘blue bridge’ was later erected between these two (it appears in my 1992 pictures) and the pipe bridge was taken down though its brick piers left in place – now only the eastern one remains.
Timber Yard, Bow Creek, Tower Hamlets, 1989
The pictures in this post were all taken on or close to the East India Dock Road where it crosses Bow Creek, beginning with a couple looking up river and with the rest looking towards the south. In later posts I’ll cover the area further down Bow Creek which played an important part in the industrial (and footballing) history of the nation, and return with the creek back almost to the road.
Bow Creek, Leamouth Rd, Leamouth, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1982
The pictures here are from visits to the area in 1982 and 1989, but I also took some in 1983, and returned again in 1992, mainly to make some panoramic views, which I’ll write about in a later post. You can see more of my pictures in my Flickr album – this area is on page 4 – and clicking on any of the above pictures will also take you to the larger version there.
