Three Colt Street & Limekiln Dock: My walk in Limehouse on Sunday 6th January 1990 continued. The previous post from this walk is More from Narrow Street – 1990.
Limehouse gets its name from the making of quicklime here, an industry dating back here into antiquity getting its first written reference in 1335. The newly developed flats of Limekiln Wharf and Dundee Wharf on the south side of Limekiln Creek (or Limekiln Dock) are probably on the site of old lime kilns (lime oasts) where chalk (calcium carbonate) brought by boats from Swanscombe or Northfleet or other areas of North Kent was brought ashore in the Creek and roasted to give quicklime (calcium oxide) the vital ingredient for cement, mortar and concrete and with many other uses. When water is then added it forms slaked lime (calcium hydroxide.)
Along the street are the late-Victorian buildings of the Dundee, Perth, and London Shipping Co. which were used by the London Docklands Development Corporation which was responsible for the redevelopment of docklands, over-riding the normal functions of the local authorities and still have the LDDC logo as a weathercock, though this was not in place in 1990.
Limekiln Dock, Three Colt St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1b-36
The always interesting ‘A London Inheritance‘ has a fascinating and very detailed account of the area, based on considerable research, Limekiln Dock and the Black Ditch.
The Black Ditch has been much mythologised as one of ‘London’s Lost Rivers‘ and its lower parts were after the 1855 replaced by the Limekiln Dock Sewer. I imagine the Black Ditch and this were both subsumed into Bazalgette’s grand designs in the 1860s and now flow to Beckton.
The view here is looking out towards the River Thames. Since 1996 there has been a swing bridge taking the Thames Path across the mouth of the creek. It had to be built as a swing bridge because of the ancient rights of navigation into the dock, though I would be surprised to find that it has ever needed to be swung to allow this.
Limekiln Dock, Three Colt St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1b-25
There seemed to be quite a lot of rubbish in the dock in 1990, but in earlier years things were much worse. The post in ‘A London Inheritance’ quotes a court case from 1893 where it is described as “the common receptacle for the sewerage of part of Fore-street, and also being a harbour for a large portion of the animal refuse of the Thames.”
J R Wilson, Ship Stores, Limekiln Dock, Three Colt St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1b-26
J R Wilson, Ship Stores at Limehouse Wharf has a frontage on Narrow Street and its back faces Limekiln Dock. I think the area from which I took this and the other pictures is no longer open to the public, but gave access to the Thames Path before the footbridge across the dock was built. In the foreground is the white-painted flood wall which was built around the Thames in London in the 1970s. Together with the Thames Barrier this has protected London from the serious floods of earlier years, but with rising sea levels will soon become inadequate.
110, Three Colt St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1b-11
The late-Victorian buildings of the Dundee, Perth, and London Shipping Co were in 1990 in use by D D Repro Limited, ‘Plain Paper & Dyeline Specialists. Their board on the building depicts the rough outline of the Thames from Tower Bridge around the Isle of Dogs and on to Beckton.
The Enterprise, pub, Milligan St, 145, Three Colt St, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, 1990, 90-1b-12
The sign on the pub shows a three-masted ship caught in ice. The ships on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 search for the North-West Passage were last seen by the whaler ‘Enterprise’, and I think this picture may be a depiction of one of his two ships, which were abandoned after being ice-bound for over a year. It was a story that very much caught the Victorian imagination.
The pub is said to have closed in 1963, but was open again in 1990, It closed in 2001, the pub became an Indian restaurant but is now an estate agents with another floor added in recent years.
Still more to come from my Limehouse walk in 1990.
Diamonds, Peace & St George: St George’s Day, 23rd April, celebrates the death of this Cappadocian Greek soldier in the Roman Army martyred on this day in AD 303 for refusing to recant his Christian faith. We know little about his life, but can be sure that he never killed a dragon.
As I commented back in 2005, “St George keeps busy as a patron saint of Canada, Catalonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Palestine and Portugal, as well as a number of cities including Moscow and Venice, a whole raft of trades including farmers and soldiers, as well as herpes and syphilis. It’s perhaps surprising he still has time for England, although until recently you would hardly have noticed it in any case.“
It is also at least 23 other national days around the world, a few of which are related to the birth of Shakespeare who was most probably born on April 23, 1564. But I won’t be celebrating National Talk Like Shakespeare Day, World Table Tennis Day, National Cherry Cheesecake Day or any of the rest, though I suppose there is just an outside chance I might dabble with German Beer Day (though I’m more partial to British Bitter, increasingly a rare species, which has its day on June 15th.)
My day began with two protests against the selling of blood diamonds from Sierra Leone at leading London stores, before I went to Trafalgar Square to briefly visit the unimpressive St George’s Day event there. I ate my sandwiches in the Peace Garden at the Imperial War Museum before going to a St George’s Day procession in Southwark from St George’s Cathedral to the church of St George the Martyr, and finally went to a pub in Southwark with a couple of friends where I met and photographed two St Georges.
Sierra Leone Blood Diamonds at Selfridges – Oxford St
Octea mine diamonds in Sierra Leone, Tiffany sell them in Selfridges and children in Kono die
People from the Kono district of Sierra Leone protested at Selfridges on Oxford St as part of a global demonstration against the financial partnership of Tiffany & Co with Octea, the largest diamond mining company in Sierra Leone. They say people in Kono suffer and die because of Octea’s diamond mining.
Octea, wholly owned by Israeli billionaire, Benny Steinmetz is operated by former mercenaries and has been allowed to operate without a licence and tax free. The protesters say it’s operation defies all national and international legal norms and ethics.
Sierra Leone Blood Diamonds at Tiffanys – Sloane Square
From Selfridges the group went on to Tiffanys. Police told them they could not protest on the wide pavement there but must go across to protest in a pen set aside for them in the square opposite.
After some argument they did so, although there seemed to be no reason other than lessening the impact of the protest for the police to move them. Why UK police should take the side of Tiffany and support illegal diamond mining by Octea that defies all national and international legal norms and ethics is hard to understand.
St George was there and you could have your picture taken with a dragon and the square was filled with long tables where you could sit and eat food from the many stalls set up around the edges of the square.
Everyone got handed little St George’s flags, but there seemed to be little going on and little real atmosphere. Perhaps things might have picked up later in the day, but I didn’t feel like returning.
Instead I ate my sandwiches in the Samten Kyil (Garden of Contemplation) in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park commissioned by Tibet Foundation, designed by sculptor Hamish Horsley and opened by the Dalai Lama in 1999. A few yards from the Imperial War Museum it was conveniently just across the road from where my next event was to start.
St George in Southwark Procession – St George’s Cathedral to St George the Martyr
A procession for St George’s Day, led by St George, a Roman Emperor, the Mayor of Southwark and others and with a dragon at its rear made its way from the St George’s RC Cathedral to the Church of England St George the Martyr in Borough High Street. It was a part of ‘A Quest for Community’ with the aim of ‘Taming the dragon of difference’ and was followed by a play outside St George the Martyr telling the true story of St George, a Roman solider from Palestine who chose death rather than give up his Christian faith.
From right to left: St George, Emperor Diocletian, the priestess or haruspex and the emperor’s daughter
I’d not been inside this building before and we had an interesting tour of the building before the procession. Designed by Augustus Pugin it was gutted by incendiary bombing in 1942, left it with only walls and one chapel standing but was rebuilt to the same plan, finishing in 1958.
The route was an interesting one and along streets I had previously photographed – and went past the blue plaque where photographer Bert Hardy was born – and I was able to tell the Mayor something about one of Southwark’s more famous.
We arrived rather late at St George the Martyr and I had to leave shortly after the beginning of a play about St George being performed there by local children – possibly something of a relief.
Two of my photographer friends had been going to come to the St George procession, but had apparently been unable to find St George’s Cathedral. Instead we had arranged to meet afterwards at the King’s Arms, a traditional British pub just off Borough High Street.
Among those drinking there were not one but two St George’s and I photographed both of them, one with his fortunately rather friendly dragon.
Highgate – Mirrors, Mansions & Luxury Cars: My next photographic walk in 1989 was on Sunday 19th November, and began At Highgate Station on the Northern Line, from where long escalators took me up to Archway Road.
The picture is a double self-portrait with me appearing – if dimly – in two of the mirrors in a shop window with the message ‘IF YOU DO NOT SEE WHAT YOU REQUIRE IN THE WINDOW PLEASE ASK INSIDE. My Olympus OM4, held in my right hand (left in the mirrors) covers most of my face.
Mirrors have often featured in photographs and seem endemic in film, and in 1978 John Szakowski staged an exhibition of American photography since 1960 and a book, Mirrors and Windows exploring what he felt was the distinction between photographers whose work largely reflected their own subjective view and others who used photography as a window on the world. It is of course not a dichotomy and we all do both, though perhaps at different positions on the spectrum.
I wandered around a bit up and down Archway Road and can’t remember exactly where this shop was, but not far from the station. Eventually I turned south down Southwood Lane.
Southwood Mansions is an imposing late Victorian mansion block build in 1897 and although its entrance (one of a pair) looked rather down-at-heel in 1989, the large flats here now sell for well over a million pounds. This is a very desirable location, close both to the Underground station and to Highgate village.
Car Showroom, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-42
I went back to Archway Road and wandered a little around the area, taking few pictures. This rather grand car showroom had some rather expensive cars – I was told they are 930 and 964 Porsches and would be worth a fortune now and the first advert that came up on Google lists them at £64,995 to £449,995. I can’t find this showroom now and think it has probably been demolished.
North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-45
These houses are a part of a small estate on North Hill, Bramalea Close and Cross Crescent. They are among those featured on a walk along the street by the Highgate Society which states “Arguably no other road in London, Britain, Europe or, who knows, even the world compares with North Hill in terms of the diversity of its domestic architecture” though it gives rather little information about these. They were built between 1976 and 1982.
BMW, Garage, The Victoria, Pub, 28, North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-46
More expensive cars at Highgate dealer Hexagon, founded by Paul Michaels in 1963. The company is still in business but this site has been demolished and replaced by housing.
The pub building is still there but closed in 2017 and planning permission was granted for the site to be developed with extra residential building but retaining the pub. Some think the developers are waiting until the pub is in such a poor condition they will be able to demolish it and develop the entire site. But so far it does not seem to have been treated to the usual fire started by persons unknown.
Houses, 53, North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-31
Thes building are not mentioned in the Highgate Society walk on North Hill, though I did photograph some of the others. I found it interesting for the porch and the balcony above at 51 and the 1930s style windows of 53 to the right (since replaced) and the unusual fenestration of 53 and 55, clearly a later addition to 51.
Kingdom Hall, North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-35
There is something very odd about these walls and steps that lead up to the door of the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses at 33 North Hill, and it seems perverse in the era of accessible entrances. It was certainly not the straight gate of Matthew 7 verse 14. The The steps from the pavement now seem to have been levelled out and there is now I think step-free access to a lower level of the building.
Seven Sisters Road: on Sunday 1st October 1989 I took the Victoria Line tube to Finsbury Park (a couple of pictures here) and walked through the park to its most easterly corner, the junction between Green Lanes and Seven Sisters Road at Manor House.
Finsbury Park, The Manor House, Manor House, Haringey, Hackney, 1989 89-10a-53
A view from beside the wall to Finsbury Park by the gate. This area was know as Woodberry Down before the Manor House Tavern was first built here on 1830-4 at the crossroads with Green Lanes, a turnpike or toll road, after a 1829 Act of Parliament had allowed the building of Seven Sisters Road. Local builder Thomas Widdows had owned and lived in a cottage on the site and saw a business opportunity, though it is unclear why it was given the name Manor House – probably because it sounded posh.
It opened as a ‘public house and tea-gardens’ in 1834 and its first landlord advertised it, writing “The Grounds adjoining are admirably calculated for Cricket, Trap-ball, or any other amusement requiring space. There is likewise a large Garden and Bowling green, good Stabling, lock-up Coach-houses, &c. Dinners for Public and Private Parties.
The original pub was demolished in 1930 when the road was widened and the Piccadilly line Manor House station built here, and replaced by this attractive Flemish style building with just a hint of Art Deco. The pub and tube station led to the area becoming known as Manor House, with the name Woodberry Down being revived for the large post-war housing estate built a little to the east by the LCC from 1948-62.
You can learn more about its interesting history and varying clientele – including its time as a major Blues venue in the 1960s – in the Wikipedia article cited. The pub closed around 2000 and its ground floor became a supermarket in 2004.
Shops, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-42
Finsbury Park was a rather run-down area in 1989 and some friends were worried about my safety as I walked around the area carrying a bag full of expensive camera equipment, but I had no problems. People were friendly though sometimes clearly thought I was mad to be taking photographs of their streets and shops.
At left is KYPRIAKON KAFENEION, shown more clearly in my next picture. Between the shops are decorated pillars and above them rather odd decorated stone balls. I think the shops were probably added a few years later to the mid-Victorian houses behind.
Cypriot Social Club, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-43
You can still see this row of shops on Seven Sisters Road, in the parade between Yonge Park and Medina Road*, and I think this Cypriot cafe is now a dentists. In 1989 there were many Cypriot businesses in the area, but the area is now more diverse and has a large Muslim community. None of the businesses in my previous picture are still present.
* I have now decided that these shops are those at 218-230 Seven Sisters Road which can clearly be seen in a photograph I took later on this walk. They were very similar to those further down the street but have been more altered since 1989, and some demolished.
Sisters Gowns, a few yards down Coleridge Road was also clearly a Cypriot business, and one of many clothing manufacturers in the area, which has now become one of London’s most vibrant fashion areas, particularly around nearby Fonthill Road.
This doorway could still be seen iin a derelict building n 2008, but the whole corner site was demolished soon after, although the site was still empty in 2022.
Shop Interior, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-31
I think this busts and bodies were for wale along with other pieces of equipment for use in shop displays, but it looked to me like some kind of kinky torture chamber. Though shopping for clothes is often a torture, particularly when accompanying others who are looking for them. I’m not sure what the football is doing here.
Shops, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-32
An extremely motley assortment of buildings from different periods, including BANGS, established in 1907, but I think the frontage at least is from the 1930s.
Rather to my surprise, these buildings are still there, though the shops have changed and below BANGS rather than JANE CAST LTD is now a Tesco. Even the building at the right of the row which appeared in my photograph to have no visible support is still there as well as the pub surrounded by scaffolding have survived. The Eaglet, built in 1869, was apparently badly damaged by a Zeppelin in 1917 but recovered and is still open.
North London Drapery Store, Axminster Rd, Seven Sisters Rd, Holloway, Islington, 1989
Built in 1938 as North London Drapery Store this Art Deco store was damaged in the war. In 1989 it was used by a variety of businesses including London International College. It has recently been converted to provide 118 expensive flats, with shops on the ground floor.
According to ‘Streets With A Story‘, “Robert Enkel from 1830-49 owned property and occupied the nursery until 1834 when Cornelius Crastin and his family took over and continued as nurserymen until at least 1890. The street name disappears by 1975.” Enkel’s family came from Holland and his name was given to the street which dated from around 1875-6. As you can see the street name was actually still there in 1989.
There is still an Enkel Arms pub a few yards away on Seven Sisters Roadm but Enkel Street disappeared with the development of the Nags Head Shopping Centre in 1992. And there is a Nags Head Market indoors at 22 Seven Sisters Road, apparently since 1975.
More from 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. For those images which were in the book I’ll show the book pages here.
Posters, High Rd, Leytonstone, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-44Plough & Harrow, pub, 419, High Rd, Leytonstone, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-45
London City Mission, Ferndale Rd, Leytonstone, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-46
The Victoria County History records an incredible number of missions in Leytonstone mostly formed in the late nineteenth century when this area must have seemed particularly Godless. This mission in Ferndale Road began about 1895 “when the five children of Henry Borton, a builders’ merchant at Wanstead, began holding evangelistic services in the Assembly Rooms. In 1901 their father built for them the present hall in Ferndale Road, designed in brick and stone with baroque features by T. & W. Stone. “
In 1948 the last of these children working there invited the London City Mission to take charge of the building and it became their central Hall. Google Street view shows it in 2008 as Christ Apostolic Church but by 2018 it had become Gospel Generation, “A Church Like No Other“.
Hyams Gymnasium, 857 High Rd, Leyton, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9a-32
I can find little or nothing on-line about Hyams Gynasioum other than my pictures, but the building is still there this side on Gainsborough Road with its entrance on High Rd, but in very different use.
This is now The Walnut Tree, a Wetherspoon pub, and as often it has some history of the area it its web page, but this does not mention Hyams Gym. The figures on the building’s side have gone and its groundfloor windows have been bricked up but the rows of 8 or 9 upper floor gym windows remain.
Leytonstone House has lost its Virginia creeper but otherwise looks much the same, though I think its surroundsings are now different.
Wikipedia states “Leytonstone House, built 1800 and Grade II-listed, was the home of Sir Edward Buxton, MP and conservationist, who with his brother played a big part in preserving Epping, Hainault and Hatfield forests. It housed Bethnal Green School for the juvenile poor from 1868 to 1936.”
Leyton Flats in Snaresbrook is not a tower block but a green space that is part of Epping Forest, largely open grass land but some woodland and two large ponds, Hollow Pond and Eagle Pond which is one of the oldest in the forest and swarms with swans, probably because many injured swans nursed to health by swan resuce organisations on the Thames have been released here. But people are more likely to be imprisoned as the Flats is also home to Snaresbrook Crown Court.
The house in the distance here is at 85, 85a and 87 Whipps Cross Rd, on the corner of Chadwick Road. Locally listed, The Gables was built in 1895 and was part of the Wallwood Park estate which was once the home of the Governor of the Bank of England William Cotton who died in 1845.
Men are fishing in the Hollow Pond on Leyton Flats, close to the Whipps Cross roundabout and Whipps Cross Hospital. The pond, the result of gravel workings, is also a boating lake. Water from the ponds may eventually find its way into the River Roding, but they have never as has been claimed fed the ornamental lakes of Wanstead Park.
More Around Popple Street – My walk on Monday 21st August 1989 continued up and down Popple Street. Popple Street still remains, but the area to the south had been changed by the building in 1979 of the Myton Swing Bridge over the River Hull and the building of the A63 Roger Millward Way which left it as a dead end. Formerly it had led to De La Pole Street and on to Great Union Street – and there is still a footpath leading to a pedestrian crossing at the roundabout on the junction with that street and the A63.
Works entrance, Popple St, Hull, 1989 89-8o-52
Popple Street is a short street leading south-east from Hedon Road and around a hundred yards down it turns at right angles toward A63 – and there are steps up to the pavement but no vehicle access. This picture is on the right-angle bend and the sheds at right are still there, the premises of Arronbrook Leisure Homes Ltd. Astablished in 1987 this company still makes static caravans and holiday homes on the site.
Almost all of the rest of the picutre has changed, except for a large shed which just peeps up above the brick wall, still there on the opposite side of Hedon Road. C B North’s saw mill has long gone, though the company remains as a timber merchants and manufacturer of root trusses on the Hedon Road, but the other sheds there were demolished around 2020.
C M Railton & Son, Popple St, Hull, 1989 89-8o-53
There was another photograph of C M Railton & Sons building in my previous post, I think taken from the footpath which replaced De La Pole St, but here I show it actually a little further down Popple Street looking towards Hedon Road. As I noted in the the previous post the site is now occupied by a medical supplies company, but this rather attractive building has been demolished and replaced by a larger but bland warehouse of First Aid Supplies
Works, Popple St, Hull, 1989 89-8o-54
Walking towards Hedon Road I made this picture of the buildings at the left of the previous view which are still on the street as Selles Medical Goods Inwards. They have lost those pulleys for lifting goods in to the upper floor and the doorways there are now large windows, while the large ground floor window and wall below is now a wide metal-shuttered entrance to the building. The door at right is still there but also with a metal shutter.
Robbies Pub was Grade II listed five years after I made this photograph, and the listing text begins “Formerly known as: Victoria Hotel HEDON ROAD. Public house. c1850, altered c1875 and later C19.” A fairly lengthy description follows. This picture shows some of the fine detail which justifies its listing.
This used to be a popular pub for Hull’s dockers and was known by them as the ‘Monkey House’. Probably the name came from J. F. Mitchell’s “That’s The Way To The Zoo” written in 1883 which includes the verse: ‘That’s the way to the zoo! That’s the way to the zoo! The monkey house is nearly full But there’s room enough for you.’ This became both a skipping rhyme for girls and a popular insult.
The picture also shows the view down Popple Street with the former building of N R Burnett Ltd, still a Hull timber merchant but now in West Carr Lane. I’d photographed this view from the opposite side of the road in 1985, and the caption to that photograph has more about the company: “N R Burnett is a timber company founded in Hull in 1935 by Norman Rutherford Burnett and became a private limited company in 1941. During the war it was based in York, but returned to Hull in 1945, and was based at the Albert Mill here in Popple St until 1960 when it moved to larger premises in Great Union St. It was one of the first suppliers for caravan builders. They still operate from sites in Sutton Fields Industrial Estate, Hull and Ossett as an importer and merchant of panel products, softwood and hardwood timbers.”
C B North, Hedon Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8o-56
On Hedon Road I photographed the offices for C B North as well as the end of the yard stretching from Popple Street of Arronbrook Lt, Mobile Home Manufacturers. The C B North building, across the road from their saw mill, became home to Paragon Joinery and Soper Plastics who relocated and the building was demolished around 2013. I rather liked the two rows of glass bricks inserted in the side wall, one at an angle presumably lighting a stairway. The building was on the corner of the what was I think the entrance to a saw mill (and earlier also a coal wharf) and is now one of the entrances to the South Orbital Trading Park.
Binnington seems to be a relatively common family name in parts of Yorkshire, though not one I’d come across before elsewhere. It’s hard to read the street number but I think it is 323, one of a short run of shops between the railway bridge and De Grey St on the west side of Beverley Rd.
I hadn’t come across many shops that were both hairdressers and tobacconists, though I think there may have been a couple of others in Hull. I wasn’t sure whether the CLOSED notice in the window was merely out of opening hours or more permanent.
Newland United Reformed Church, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8m-13
Newland United Reformed Church was on the corner of Beverley Road and Brooklyn Street but was sold in 2012 and demolished. Nothing had been built on the site by May 2022.
There had been a church here, Hope Street Congregational Church since 1797. In 1903 it had been replaced by Newland Congregational Church, a simplified Gothic brick church designed by Moulds and Porritt in red and yellow brick with terracotta dressings which was demolished in 1969. Presumably it was then replaced with this simpler structure – Newland United Reformed Church from 1972.
May Street runs east from Beverley Rd, and Mayfair Unisex Salon was on its northern corner with Beverley Rd. As well as the obvious attraction for me of the male and female silhouettes for the ‘SUPPLIERS OF N.H.S WIGS GREAT SELECTION’. But also a face peers down from the upper window.
Hills, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8m-15
Not only Mayfair, Hull also had (and still has) its Park Lane, though the lane now looks very different with no trace of Hills or any of its buildings.
The corner is now occupied by a building with a brickwork panel showing a junk and some Chinese characters and was built by the Hon Lok Senior Association along with ten houses and ten bungalows in Park Lane.
Hills, Office, Park Lane, Bull Inn, pub, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8m-16
Thomas Hill Engineering Co. (Hull) Ltd had offices on the corner of their site on Park Lane opposite the Bull Inn. I’m not sure what kind of thinks they engineered but apparently in 1977 they were granted US Patent 4031764 on ‘Devices for “rotating articles in which the disadvantages of existing devices are minimized, and in which the containers are kept in line.”
Stepney Chapel is still on the corner of Cave Street and Beverley Road, but now looks in a very sorry state, around ten years or more since there were last services at Glad Tidings Hall (Pentecostal). The Chapel was built in 1849 when Stepney was still a small village as a Methodist New Connexion Chapel, but was replaced in 1869 by a much larger and grander Gothic church with seating for 600. This closed in 1966 and was demolished with a supermarket now on its site.
The Methodist New Connexion began in Sheffield in 1797 by secession from the Wesleyan Methodists led by Alexander Kilham and William Thom and grew rapidly. Accused of having sympathies with Tom Paine and the French Revolution it gave greater power to the lay member of the churches than the minister dominated Wesleyan Methodists. It grew rapidly paricularly across the north of England, though in the 20th century the various Methodist groupings re-united. William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, was ordained as a Methodist New Connexion Minister in 1858.
As my picture shows clearly, the chapel is aligned to Cave St rather than Beverley Rd.
St Peter & St Paul, Church, 121, Plough Road, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8c-74
I left the riverside and walked down Lombard Road and crossed York Road into York Gardens probably to find a pleasant spot to rest a while and eat my sandwiches before going through the gardens to exit on Plough Road close to the church.
St Peter’s Church is still very much alive now on Plough Road, but SPB looks very different to my picture in 1989. The first St Peter’s Battersea was built in 1875 but was seriously damaged by fire in 1970 and the church moved into the building in my picture which had been its church and school hall.
According to ‘Clapham Junction Insider’ Cyril Ritchert, the demolition of this Grade II listed building, “an accomplished example of the free gothic style“, was opposed by the Ancient Monuments Society, English Heritage, the Battersea Society and the Wandsworth Society but was approved by Wandsworth Council in 2010. The developers made a second application in 2015 before any building on the site had started. Google Street View shows the church still in use in 2012.
To finance the new church the developers had been granted permission for an 8 storey block of flats also on the site. Local residents were angered that the developers managed to game the planning system to eventually build a 10 storey block of housing with minimal affordable housing on the site.
Shop, St Peter & St Paul, Church, Flats, Holgate Ave, Plough Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989
The view of the church from Holgate Avenue shows clearly the position of the church on the edge of the Winstanley Estate to the north of Clapham Junction station. The view of the tower block Sporle Court is now blocked by the new 10 storey block on the church site. The trees at left are in York Gardens.
There is still a billboard and a shop on the corner of Holgate Avenue, but what was then BRITCHOICE is now SUNRISER EXPRESS POLSKI SKLEP. Holgate Avenue was until 1931 known as Brittania Place or Brittania Street and took its name from the Brittania beer house which was possibly in this shop, part of a group of two buildings at 38-40 Plough Lane which are the only remnants of the original 1860s development of the area.
Apparently the Revd Chad Varah, the founder of The Samaritans, was vicar at Saint Peter’s during the 1950’s. St Peter’s was amalgamated with St Paul’s at some time after 1969 – and St Paul’s had been amalgamated with St John in Usk Road in 1938.
According to the Survey of London, “Holgate Avenue, started in the 1920s, was Battersea’s first successful slum-clearance scheme.” Poorly built Victorian houses from the 1860s were replaced by these three-storey tenements built by Battersea’s Labour Council in 1924-37 to high standards with some impressive brickwork and detailing. Probably more importantly for the residents they were provided with electric cooking, heating and lighting facilities, unusual luxury for the time.
There was little land in Battersea for building and while the council would have liked to build single family homes it had to compromise with these. But at least tenants at most had only to walk up three flights of stairs, while most new council building by the LCC in the interwar period was in five-storey tenement walk-up blocks.
Price’s Candles, York Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8c-62
I walked back up Plough Road to York Road, and continued my walk towards Wandsworth Bridge. There was no access to the River Thames on this stretch before the bridge, as the area was still occupied by industrial premises.
Price’s Candles on York Rd was built on part of the site of York House, the London residence of the Archbishop of York from which York Road got its name. You can read more than you will ever want to know about York House in All about Battersea, by Henry S Simmonds published in 1882 and now on Project Gutenberg, which also has a long section on the Belmont Works or Price’s Patent Candle Factory.
Price’s Candles was begun in 1830 by William Wilson and Benjamin Lancaster who had purchased a patent for the separation of coconut fats. They chose the name Price for the business to remain anonymous as candle-making was not at the time a respectable occupation.
They moved to this site in 1847 setting up a large factory and workforce, making candles, soap and other products with stearine wax for the candles and the by products of glycerine and light oils coming cocunuts grown on a plantation they bought in Ceylon. In 1854 they began to import large quantities of crude petroleum from Burma and developed paraffin wax candles. Later they developed processes to work with other industrial wastes, animal fats and fish oils. By 1900 they were the largest candle manufacturer in the world.
The company was taken over by Unilever in 1919, and became owned by other oil companies including BP, who sold part of the site which opened in 1959 as the Battersea Heliport. A few of Price’s buildings remain, though most with added floors, and the rest of the site is mostly new blocks of flats.
York Tavern, pub, 347, York Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8c-63
The York Tavern was on the corner of York Road and Usk Road in the late 1850s but was given a makeover later in the century in the typical 1890s Queen Anne style with fake gable facades. I can’t find a date for the closing of this pub but it was clearly very shut when I made this picture. The building was demolished in 2003.
John Watney & Co Ltd, Wandsworth Distillery, York Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8c-64
Wandsworth Distillery on York Rd was founded by Richard Bush at Gargoyle Wharf around 1780. By 1874 it was owned by John and Daniel Watney. Gin was produced here, having become popular after heavy taxes were imposed on French brandy, and later particularly in the colonies to counteract the unpleasantly bitter taste of the anti-malarial quinine.
Acquired by Guinness, the distillery was demolished in 1992, and I photographed its occupation as the ‘Pure Genius Eco Village‘ by The Land is Ours in 1996. It was redeveloped as Battersea Reach housing from 2002 on.
The Raven, pub, Battersea Church St, Westbridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-56
Also at the edge of Battersea Square, on the corner of Battersea Church Street and Westbridge Road is The Raven pub, probably the most significant building in the area, built here in the mid seventeenth century and open as the Black Raven in 1701. Grade II listed it has had various alterations since then but is the only remaining pre-Victorian building in the area. Its value was recognised by a very early listing made in 1954, although it had been extenisvely rebuilt in 1891
Unfortunately this is no longer a pub, but Melanzana, a independent ‘bar-trattoria-deli‘ which according to Camra no longer serving any real beer. You can drink Peroni or wine with your pizza or pasta. I don’t think its interior retains anything of historic interest.
Another image about gentrification. I’d walked back east along Westbridge Road towards Battersea Bridge Road. I think this house was being converted into four flats. This was a significant area of early middle class development in the area in the 1840s with villas with long rear gardens in contrast to the much more downmarket development of what was rapidly becoming an industrial area.
This and its neighbour at 2 Westbridge Road are a pair of Grade II listed Gothic villas dating from 1845, just a few yards from the junction with Battersea Bridge Road. They are included in the Westbridge Road Conservation Area, much of which was developed by 1865. The appraisal describes them as “napped flint faced Gothic villas, quite unique in the district” and gives a further description of them along with a photograph from across the street taken in winter.
In August when I made my picture the houses were largely hidden by the leaves on the trees in their garden. But my view through the open gate does show the statue in the niche at the top of the building more clearly. The pair of houses also have an unusual front wall and gates.
Cranbourne Court, 113-115, Albert Bridge Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-45
A number of blocks of mansion flats were built in the 1890s on the edges of Battersea Park along Prince of Wales Drive and Albert Bridge Road, their position with views across of the park making them attractive to wealthier middle-class tenants who needed to live close to the West End. Chelsea was too expensive but this area was only just south of the river and not really in those dangerous areas where posher Londoners (and taxi drivers) feared to go. Apparently adverts for some of the new blocks gave their address as Chelsea Reach, Battersea – estate agents today are still often rather inventive in their descriptions of locations.
According to the Survey of London, almost 1,000 apartments were built here between 1892 and 1902.
The development here was suggested by architect and property speculator John Halley, who had moved south to London from Glasgow in the 1880s and had already put up blocks in Kensington. His plans were too dour for London, resembling Glasgow’s tenements, and he teamed up with another architect William Isaac Chambers who pimped them up for London tastes, though other architects made changes too as The Survey of London article recounts.
Cranbourne Court was one of the last blocks to be built, with Halley again involved along with one of his earlier co-developers, Captain Juba Page Kennerley, “a colourful character who had dabbled in a variety of dubious money-making schemes” and who was “indicted for theft and declared bankrupt” in the early 1890s. An undischarged bankrupt, he had set up a building company under an alias ‘Cranbourne & Cranbourne’ who built this block in 1895.
Albert Bridge, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-31
Albert Bridge is a curious mixture, built as a modified cable-stayed bridge using the system patented by Rowland Mason Ordish and William Henry Le Feuvre in 1858. This made use of a normal parabolic cable to support the central span of the bridge but used inclined stays attached to the bridge deck and connected to the octagonal support columns by wire ropes to support the two ends of the load. Ordish’s designs, made in 1864, were only built in 1870-3.
River Thames, Albert Bridge, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-35
When the Chief Engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works Sir Joseph Bazalgette inspected in the bridge in 1884 he found corrosion of the staying rods had made the bridge unsafe and he added steel chains and a new timber deck.
In 1972 the bridge was again found to be unsafe, and the LCC added two concrete piers to support it in mid-river, turning the central section into a beam bridge, though the earlier cables and stays remain in place.
This was one of London’s earlier wobbly bridges (along with Battersea Bridge) and because of its closeness to Chelsea barracks a notice was attached to this “Albert Bridge Notice. All troops must break step when marching over this bridge.” It was feared that troops marching in unison could set up a resonance such as that which had been blamed for the collapse of the Broughton Suspension Bridge in Salford in 1831. The notices now on the tollboths date from 1965 but are said to be replacements of earlier notices on the bridge.
River Thames, Albert Bridge, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-34
The view upstream from the bridge across the River Thames past Battersea Bridge to tower blocks on the 1970s World’s End Estate and the Lots Road Power Station.
I walked on into Battersea Park where the next post about my walk will continue.
More From Stockwell & South Lambeth: My apologies that the previous post in this series from my walk on 19th July 1989, Tradescant, Old South Lambeth Rd and Caron, ended with a repeat of three images taken on Fentiman Road from my walk two days earlier.
After taking pictures on Old South Lambeth Road I probably simply walked to Vauxhall Station without taking more pictures. But I have now found a few more pictures I took probably at the start of the walk which began with Stockwell Park, Bus Garage, Tower and Mason, and also some at the end of my walk in Vauxhall.
These fine houses were built in the mid-nineteenth century and are Grade II listed. The closer and further houses are semi-detached pairs while 47 in the middle is detached. Behind them is the tower block Edrich House on Lansdowne Way.
House, 93, Priory Grove, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7i-62
Priory Grove runs south from Lansdowne Way (formerly Priory Road) and much of it is beside Larkhill Park. This four-storey block, with the name at the top Priory Building is close to its end at Larkhall Lane. In 1989 it had two doors, but now there is only one at the left giving access to the four flats inside. The ground floor has been coated with stucco eliminating the architraves which are a feature of the upper floors.
Larkhall Lane, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7i-65
Larkhall Lane has a listed building and several on the local list, but all I chose to photograph were a couple of odd corners, the first perhaps showing something of the state of the property with a fine stone hidden pillar. I think this has now disappeared.
Larkhall Lane, Stockwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-7i-52
66 Larkhall Lane is now much improved rendering, a tidy garden and the anachronistic shutter removed. The tree has also gone and I suspect much of the interior has also been remodelled. A property listing on the web describes it now as “This is an attractive 2 bed, 1 bath semi-detached house in Lambeth, London. This efficient home is 753 square feet in size with 2 fireplaces and has been extended 3 times since construction before 1900” and estimates its value at £1m-£1.2m.
341-9, Wandsworth Rd, South Lambeth, Lambeth, 1989 89-7i-56
I think I took this rather rapidly through a gap in the traffic which perhaps accounts for its rather odd tilt. At left is a rather odd Gothic Grade II listed building trying to be a castle, with shops on the ground floor and an octagonal tower at each end. The building dates from the mid-19th century but the shops reaching out to the main road were added probably around 40 years later over what was originally a front garden and have since been much altered.
Tucked away in the centre of the picture is a slim building with some interesting polychromatic brickwork at No 345, small and rather unusual Victorian infill.
Wilbraham House, Wandsworth Road, Nine Elms, Lambeth, 1989 89-7i-41
Through the imposing three story vehicle entrance of Wilbraham House we can see Fosbrooke House behind. This long block of flats occupies most of the block between Thorncroft St and Wilcox Road. One web site helpfully tells me it was built between 1930 and 1949 and my guess would have been it was at the end of that period. Four impressive sets of steps on the frontage lead to the 36 flats, with glass bricks providing natural lighting for the stairs. Nine Elms underground station opened in 2021 is just a few yards up the road.
The Elephant And Castle, pub, South Lambeth Place, Vauxhall, Lambeth, 1989 89-7k-11
You get a good view of these elephants from trains going through Vauxhall Station on the Windsor and Reading lines I normally go to Waterloo on. This picture is taken from immediately outside Vauxhall Station entrance. The pub building is still there but closed in 1997 and is now a Starbucks, but its upper floors look much the same. The local list dates it as mid-late 19th century, but the building replaced an earlier one on the site.
The name Elephant And Castle thought to have been first used for pubs around 1770 in nearby Southwark probably derives from the coat of arms of the Cutler’s Company who adopted it in 1622. They used ivory to make knife handles. Though if so it may have been used first for a pub in the City for which we have no record.
I’ll post the other pictures I’ve found from the end of the walk in Vauxhall later.
