postwar | >Re-PHOTO

Around the Highwalks – Wood Street: London’s ambitious series of ‘highwalks’, aimed at separating movement on foot from traffic began after World War 2 when the City began to rebuild after extensive war damage – a process that really sprung into action on a large scale in the 1950s.

*Highwalk, Wood St, City, 1994, 94-708-21*

As Wikipedia states, “In 1947 architect Charles Holden and planner William Holford” had put forward a blueprint for “a network of first-floor walkways that would connect buildings across the City.”

Wood St, Escalator, London Wall, City, 1994, 94-709-12, 1994, 94-709-31 — *Wood St, Escalator, London Wall, City, 1994, 94-709-31*

The City of London Pedway Scheme was later adopted by the City of London Corporation and to get planning permission by the 1960s all new developments were required to include first floor access to walkways. It worked where there had large areas destroyed by bombing – such as the Barbican, but elsewhere these walkways were often dead ends leading nowhere.

*Wood St, Escalator, London Wall, City, 1994, 94-709-12*

Although London had suffered greatly from the bombing, much survived – and many damaged buildings had been restored in the immediate aftermath of the war. Although some of the city’s older buildings were demolished there was an increasing recognition of the value of many of them. The 1944 Town and Country Planning Act had given the government power to create a statutory list of buildings of special architectural interest – and those powers were increased in the 1947 Act.

*Green Cuisine, Highwalk, Wood St, London Wall Citry, 1994, 94-709-21*

Listing of buildings began seriously after this, and many buildings in the City gained some protection from demolition – and a resurvey in 1968 began to add more to the lists. It became increasingly clear that the Pedway scheme would never be able to produce a really coherent scheme over most of the City and by the mid-1980s it was effectively discontinued.

*Highwalk, St Alphage Highwalk, London Wall, City, 1994, 94-710-22*

Since then some parts of the walkway system have been lost, while some areas still remain. Around London Wall while some parts of it were closed. The part of the St Alphage Highwalk in these pictures had been demolished but it was partly replaced by a new section during redevelopment around 2017.

*Highwalk, St Alphage Highwalk, London Wall, City, 1994, 94-710-12*

Another problems with the Pedway is that London’s transport systems – buses and Underground largely leave passengers at street level. Getting to the highwalks generally requires going up steps and most people would prefer to simply continue to their destination at street level.

Highwalk, St Alphage Highwalk, London Wall, City, 1994, 94-710-11

For those with disabilities which make steps difficult or impossible this is a real barrier. There were very few places where escalators were provided to ease the problems as these were expensive.

More panoramic images from the City Highwalks in a later post.

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The Podium, Alphage Highwalk, City, 1992TQ3281-064 — The Podium pub, St Alphage Highwalk, City, 1992

When architects and planners looked at how the city should be rebuilt after the considerable bomb damage in the war, they dreamt of a city where people and traffic would be separated, with pedestrians circulating at an upper level on what were called ‘highwalks’, and these were incorporated into the parts of the city which were being rebuilt.

Britannic Tower, Moor St, Moorgate, City, 1992 TQ3281-099 — Highwalk entrance, Britannic Tower, Moor St, Moorgate, City, 1992

The largest of these areas was of course the Barbican, which was linked to the more central areas of the city by highwalks along and across London Wall, but there were also smaller sections of highwalks around Upper Thames St and around the Nat West Tower, Bishopsgate and Wormwood St.

Barbican, City, 1992TQ3281-094 — Escalator, Highwalk, London Wall, Wood St

The planners were young, fit and idealistic and perhaps failed to appreciate the ways people actually moved around the city using buses, tube and taxis and their reluctance to climb stairs unnecessarily to get to buildings most of which still had their entrances at street level. There were escalators, but too few and these were expensive and needed maintenance. The planners perhaps also failed to see how much many older buildings from the Victorian and Edwardian eras would as the years progressed be seen as making a positive contribution to our cityscape – and often but not always be protected from demolition (or at least their facades protected) by listing.

Bassishaw Highwalk, City, 1987 TQ3281-043 — Bassishaw Highwalk, City, 1987

Most of the city continues to exist at street level, and much of the highwalks outside of the Barbican that was built has now been altered or demolished – with the IRA beginning the process in some areas. They also were responsible for the first real controls on road traffic through the city, with the police ‘ring of steel’ introduced in the early 1990s as a response to bombings at the Baltic Exchange and Bishopsgate.

St Alphage Highwalk,, London Wall, City, 1992 TQ3281-103

More recently there have been some minor road and junction closures and the ‘Bank on Safety’ scheme has limited traffic at Bank junction to buses and cyclists between 7am and 7pm Monday to Friday; further controls seem inevitable with some city streets being pedestrianised and others being made ‘no through roads’.

St Alphage Highwalk,, London Wall, City, 1992TQ3281-105 — St Alphage Highwalk,, London Wall, City, 1992

Long overdue is an overhaul of the private hire systems and in particular of ‘black cabs’ which are responsible for much of the congestion in the city. They will be changing to electric vehicles, but we need to see a move to a smartphone app based system with an end to the current discrimination against mini-cabs over the congestion charge and an end to wasteful ‘cruising for hire’.

You can see more pictures from the City of London taken in 1986-92, including some more from the highwalks, in page 3 of my album TQ32 London Cross-Section. These are scans made from cheap trade processed en-prints at the time I took the pictures which were sometimes rather poor quality.

Tag: postwar

Around the Highwalks – Wood Street 1994

High in the City