Posts Tagged ‘Quakers’

DSEi Arms Fair Protest Festival – 2017

Saturday, September 9th, 2023

DSEi Arms Fair Protest Festival: Saturday 9th September 2017 was a busy day for protests at the two road entrances to the ExCeL centre where preparations were being made for the worlds’s largest arms fair, DSEI, the Defence & Security Equipment International, backed by the UK government where arms companies and arms dealers sell weapons to countries around the world including many repressive regimes.

DSEI Festival Morning at the East Gate

DSEi Arms Fair Protest Festival

Several hundred people had turned up in the morning for a festival day at the East gate for a programme of speakers, workshops, spoken word, choirs and groups.

DSEi Arms Fair Protest Festival

People crowded onto the road when lorries arrived to enter with equipment for the show, but police moved them to the side to allow the lorries to continue into the Excel Centre.

DSEi Arms Fair Protest Festival

By lunchtime things at the West gate seemed to be fairly quiet and a ‘critical mass’ group of cyclists were on their way to the East gate and I decided to take the DLR and meet them there.

Festival of Resistance – DSEI West Gate

DSEi Arms Fair Protest Festival

I arrived at the West gate just as police were leading away Chaplin look-alike mime protester
Charlie X who had locked himself to a lorry. He told me had made the mistake of having the keys with him in a pocket which made their job a little easier.

A supporter handed him a flower and police gave him back his walking stick before leading him away under arrest to a police van.

Although I kept well out of the way of the police while taking these pictures, some of them don’t appreciate being photographed and I got pushed out of the way – but not before I had taken a series of pictures.

The critical mass cyclists were standing on the roundabout at the entrance to the site and police noticed that one of them had his bike lock around his neck. They talked with him and he told them he needed to lock his bike if he left it anywhere to prevent it being stolen. Probably all the cyclists had locks with them for the same reason, but police decided to arrest him for carrying a lock. Almost certainly this was the stupidest arrest of the day.

Other people held posters against the arms fair, danced to music and a choir sang. I decided to return to the East gate.

DSEI East Gate blocked

Back at the East Gate I found the road blocked by a lock-in, with two people joined through a pipe which the police were struggling to remove. The couple were surrounded by a large group of police blocking my view but I managed to take a few pictures between their legs.

Other protesters sat on the blocked road as police hammered into the concrete around the linked arms of the locked pair, slowly and patiently removing it to avoid injuries.

A group of Quakers led a religious service on the blocked road. Mounted police arrived to help with clearing the road and people were told they would be arrested if they didn’t move. There were several arrests with people led away to waiting police vans a short distance away, as well as the two who had locked themselves together who police eventually separated.

The lorry waiting behind the lock-on still could not move as a man was lying underneath its wheels. Police tried to handcuff him but took some time to manage to get his hands together.

Eventually he was carried away. The performances on the roadside continued with a crowd listening to poetry from Janine Booth, but others moved onto the road to block lorries. People danced on the other carriageway and the Strawberry Thieves choir sang though without their normal conductor who had already been arrested.

Police cleared most of the road, but there was still a ring of people with a placard ‘STOP SELLING ARMS TO SAUDI ARABIA’ and a guitar. They linked arms to make it difficult for police to remove them and were still there half an hour later when I had to leave. At the DLR station I could hear the sound of a musical protest on the walkway by East London Against Arms Fairs and went briefly to take a few pictures before my train arrived.

More about the day’s events and many more pictures on My London Diary:
DSEI East Gate blocked
Festival of Resistance – DSEI West Gate
DSEI Festival Morning at the East Gate

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No Faith In Arms – 2017

Tuesday, September 5th, 2023

No Faith In Arms: On Tuesday 5th September 2017 various faith groups came to London’s Docklands for a faith-based day of protest against the Defence and Security Equipment International (Dsei) Arms fair, the largest arms fair in the world, held every two years at the Excel Centre on the north bank of the Royal Victoria Dock in Newham.

No Faith In Arms

Before I arrived some protesters had locked themselves together on the approach road to the East gate of the site stopping deliveries for setting up the event for some time.

No Faith In Arms

People of various faiths were sitting beside the road and a number of Quakers held a meeting on the grass verge. A number of them went and sat down in the road to stop deliveries. Police talked with them for some time, urging them to move before carrying them away and depositing them on the grass.

No Faith In Arms

A few were arrested and led away to waiting police vans but the protest continued with more moving out to block the road.

No Faith In Arms

Then four protesters descended on ropes from a bridge over the approach road a few hundred yards to the north, dangling in mid-air, with each pair holding a banner between them and blocking the road for around an hour and a half before police managed to remove them. Others stood in a circle and held a mass on the blocked road closer to the Excel Centre.

There are just two gates to the Excel centre site almost a mile apart, and at the other, the West Gate I found a small group of protesters walking very slowly in front of lorries coming into the centre and being moved away by police. One woman who kept going back onto the road was eventually arrested.

I returned to the East Gate, where a small group of Buddhists was sitting and praying by the side of the road. An Anglican group arrived to sing peace songs and some protesters had brought small black coffins with photographs of some of the children killed in war taped to the top which were arranged along the side of the road.

The protests continued for a number of days and I returned several times to photograph them as you can see at the links listed below. I also covered protests against the arms fair in other years, at least since 2007.

Protests are taking place now over the 2023 Dsei Arms fair, again being held in Newham and you can find details at the Stop The Arms Fair web site. The include a vigil by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign today, 5th September 2013, and other events at the site and elsewhere until the arms fair ends on Friday 15th September.

Protests against Dsei Arms Fair in 2017:

Wreath for victims of the arms trade
#Arming The World
DSEI East Gate blocked
Festival of Resistance – DSEI West Gate
DSEI Festival Morning at the East Gate
Protest picnic & checkpoint at DSEI
Protesters block DSEI arms fair entrances
No Faith in War DSEI Arms Fair protest

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C of E Praises Weapons of Mass Destruction

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023

C of E Praises Weapons of Mass Destruction

Westminster Abbey has been home to some pretty bizarre events over the last thousand years or so since the site first became home to a small monastery on Thorney Island around 960 AD, and another will be taking place this weekend.

C of E Praises Weapons of Mass Destruction

Possibly the most obscene and blasphemous service there took place on Friday 3rd May 2019, when a service was held there celebrating Britain’s weapons of mass destruction, giving thanks for 50 years of continuous nuclear threat by British submarines armed with nuclear missiles.

C of E Praises Weapons of Mass Destruction

As protesters across the road pointed out, Britain was currently wasting £205 billion on the replacement of Trident, around a quarter of a year’s total government spending on a weapons system which can never be used as it would be totally catastrophic for the world.

C of E Praises Weapons of Mass Destruction

The established church has of course a long record of taking the wrong side in history, supporting the rich and powerful, something Christianity inherited from older religions, which throughout history have been ways to subjugate the common people and keep them docile.

This weekend we see this again in action, with a ceremony taking place in which people around the country are to be invited to swear an oath of allegiance, though I think many will be swearing other things about this. It follows in a tradition established in 1066 when our Norman conquerors celebrated their victory with the first coronation there.

Reading the Bible and in particular the New Testament, supposedly the basis of Christianity, we find a very different religion, one in which swords shall be beaten into ploughshares and the love of power is seen as a sin. Certainly not one as the protesters pointed out one that would be thanksgiving for nuclear weapons.

CND and Christian CND protested opposite Westminster Abbey against the blasphemous and morally repugnant thanksgiving service celebrating Britain’s nuclear weapons. It was a much more Christian event than that taking place across the road, though the Christians there were joined by others including Buddhists.

Those present took part in a die-in after which there was a rally, but I left to go home, stopping briefly on my way to photograph a small group of Fridays For Future climate protesters in Parliament Square.

Fridays For Future climate protest
Die-In against Nuclear Weapons celebration

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School, Meeting House, Houses & Shops – Peckham

Wednesday, January 4th, 2023

The previous post on this walk on Sunday 12th February 1989 was A Market, Chapel & More Houses – Peckham

School, Bellenden Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-45
Highshore School, Bellenden Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-45

You will look in vain for this school on Bellenden Road now. The school, a special school, moved to a shared site with Archbishop Michael Ramsey School,Camberwell in 2013 leaving the building empty. It was demolished in 2015 and replaced by Cherry Garden special school, which moved out of Bermondsey to here.

I’m unsure as to the date of this school, though it was clearly postwar, possibly dating from the 1960s. Perhaps surprisingly it was not mentioned by Cherry and Pevsner in their London 2: South volume though it seemed to me to be clearly of architectural interest. Southwark Council described it as “a distinctive post-war school” but wanted to knock it down so went on to say “it is not of sufficient quality of construction nor is it sufficiently unique to warrant the particular protection given by listing“. I can’t comment on the structural soundness from the four pictures I took but can’t think where you can find a similar building. It gets a rather deprecating comment in the Holly Grove Conservation Area Appraisal, “Highshore School, immediately adjacent to the conservation area, was built using standardised lightweight constructional systems and open site-planning principles which undermine the established morphology of street frontages“, not fitting in neatly with the Georgian housing in the area.

House, Highshore Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-33
House, Highshore Rd, Elm Grove, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-33

This house is on the corner of Higshore Road and Elm Grove and I think its address is 64 Elm Grove. It is certainly a very impressive and substantial late Victorian house with a quirkiness I found appealing enough to take a second frame.

House, Highshore Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-34
House, Highshore Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-34

Post Office Depot, Highshore Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-35
Post Office Depot, Highshore Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-35

I didn’t photograph the listed houses in Highshore Road, perhaps suffering from a surfeit of rather standard Georgian or early Victorian houses in the area. Fine though they are I didn’t feel a need to photograph all of them.

The Post Office Depot is rather less usual and carries a ‘Historic Southwark’ board as well as being Grade II listed. This is possibly the earliest building in what was then known as Hanover Street, built in 1816 as the Friends Meeting House, apparently on the site of a pond. It was considerably enlarged in 1843.

Shops, Rye Lane, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-21
Shops, Rye Lane, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-21

These buildings are stll there at the north end of Rye Lane, though now with different shops, but almost all the buildings visible on Peckham High Street in the picture have gone. There is still a bank at 65 Peckham High Street the extreme corner of which can just be seen but the rest of the buildings including the Midland Bank have gone, with a walkway here now leading to the Peckham Pulse Leisure Centre built in 1998.

Shops, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-22
Shops, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-22

I took another picture of these shops from a slightly different viewpoint to one I had made a month earlier which I wrote about aat some length in a post on that earlier walk. The building housing ‘Stiletto Ecpresso’ has been replaced since 1989 by a taller and rather less interesting structure but the rest still look much the same, though with different uses.

Canal Head, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-23
Canal Head, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-23

Had I been aware of the changes that were soon to take place in this area I would have made more than this picture at Canal Head. This was the start of the walk along the route of the Peckham Branch of the Surrey Canal, at the back of what is now the The Drovers Arms, roughly at the south-east corner of the more recent Leisure Centre.

Doorway, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-24
Doorway, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2e-24

The Drovers Arms has the address 71-79 Peckham High St and tucked away down a short driveway at its read is this building at 71, now a dental surgery, Peckham Dental Care. The building at right with a bricked up and painted over doorway is the pub, which has a rather grander and more useful entrance on the High Street, opened in 2000.

The main building at 73-79 was built around the end of the 19th century, according to Historic England by architects J & J W Edmeston, for the London and South Western Bank. The Edmestons were a family of architects working in London, of whom the best known was probably James Edmeston Jr (1823-98). I think 71 may be a little earlier.

This walk will continue in a later post. The first post on this walk was Aged Pilgrims, Sceaux, Houses & Lettsom.

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Armistice Day Events & Canada Geese Protest, 2017

Friday, November 11th, 2022

Silent Remembrance Peace Vigil – Trafalgar Square, Sat 11 Nov 2017

I came up the steps from the Underground into Trafalgar Square just as the clocks struck 11am on Saturday 11th of November 2017, exactly 99 years to the minute after the end of fighting following the signing earlier in the morning of the Armistice in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiègne. Though actually an hour late, since it was 11.00 am Paris time, an hour ahead of GMT.

A revolt by sailors in the German Navy, beginning in Wilhelmshaven on 29-30th October 2018 had lead widespread actions across Germany with the proclamation of a Republic which forced the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm and made the end of the war inevitable – it had largely been a family quarrel between the ruling royals.

As I came up into the square a whistle marked the start of the two-minute silence, and at least one bus swerved to the side of the road and stopped, though much of the traffic continued around it. A few people in the square stood to attention, but many of the tourists continued as normal. And I stood for a few seconds then kept on walking to photograph a small group of Quakers on the North Terrace wearing white poppies and beginning a 45 minute silent remembrance peace vigil outside the National Gallery.

White poppies were first made in 1933 by the Co-operative Women’s Guild to hold on to the key message of remembrance, ‘never again’. The First World War, known at the time as The Great War, had been called “the war to end all wars” but by 1933 many were beginning to think that another world war was coming.

The white poppy remembers all victims or war, both civilians and military, and of all nationalities and has become more important as our official armistice events have over the past years become more and more militaristic celebrations. Sales of white poppies have increased greatly in recent years, with demand outstripping supply.

The white poppy challenges war and militarism and any attempt to glorify or celebrate war, and shows a committment to peace and nonviolent solutions to conflict. This year writer and poet Benjamin Zephaniah appears in a popular https://youtu.be/jtjCGCxT_PU video where he explains why he wears a white poppy and urges others to do the same to remember all victims of war and to work towards a world where there is no war.

Silent Remembrance Peace Vigil

Close Canada Goose for animal cruelty – Regent St, Sat 11 Nov 2017

Fur is Worn By Beautiful Animals and Ugly People!

Several hundred campaigners marched from a nearby square to protest outside the newly opened flagship Regent Street Canada Goose store where the protest continued for most of the day. Police struggled to clear a path through the protesters for customers to enter and leave.

Canada Goose was selling coats with fur trims using trapped wild coyotes, which may suffer for days in cruel traps, facing blood loss, dehydration, frostbite, gangrene and attacks by predators, some even trying to chew off their own trapped limbs to escape before a trapper returns to strangle, stamp or bludgeon them to death.

The down in their jackets is from ducks and geese that have their throats slit and are dumped into scalding hot water for feather removal while often still alive and feeling pain to make the down-filled jackets.

The London protests followed years of protests in New York and Toronto and continued weekly and at times more frequently. The shop gained an interim injunction restricting the activities outside the Regent St shop at the end of November 2017, but this was discharged in 2019 and their request to make it final refused, with the High Court saying the right to protest is an important legal right.

In June 2021 Canada Goose announced it would stop buying fur by the end of that year and no longer make products using real fur no later than the end of 2022. The protests backed by Peta for 15 years had eventually led to success, although the company denied that they had any part in its decision. The campaign to stop them using geese and duck feathers continues.

Close Canada Goose for animal cruelty

Remember Refugees on Armistice Day – Whitehall, Sat 11 Nov 2017

Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants hosted a a commemoration ceremony to lay a life-ring wreath in memory of the people who have died fleeing their war-torn countries to seek refuge over the past year.

The event began at the Ministry of Defence. Many feel that the official celebration of Remembrance Day has gradually become more militaristic and a celebration of our victories rather than remembering the deaths of many in all the wars that our country has played a part in.

Among those taking part were a number of refugees as well as some activists who had supported them in the camps at Calais and on Greek Islands.

After speeches on the steps of the Ministry of Defence people held up posters with the details known about some of the migrants who have died trying to cross to the UK, but for many the posters read ‘Name Unknown’ – all we know is their date of death.

Then people processed holding wreaths of orange poppies and burning candles to the Cenotaph where they laid these to remember those who died seeking sanctuary. There were 17 small wreaths, the average number of people who have died so far trying to migrate each day in 2017.

Remember Refugees on Armistice Day

Orange Lodges Remembrance Day parade – Whitehall, Sat 11 Nov 2017

As I was at the Cenotaph I heard the sound of a flute band and drums as the London City District No 63 and the Houses of Parliament Lodge marched up Parliament St with visiting loyalists on their annual Remembrance Day parade in central London.

I photographed them marching and laying wreaths, but didn’t go with them as they went to lay further wreaths at the Duke of York Column in honour of Prince Frederick, Duke of York, the second eldest son of King George III and a Grand Master of the Loyal Orange Institution of England and then to St James’ Square for the end of their parade, where they were to lay a wreath at the memorial to WPC Yvonne Fletcher. Although I had no problems in Whitehall on this occasion I have been attacked at some other Orange events in London.

Orange Lodges Remembrance Day parade

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Stop The Arms Fair – 2017

Thursday, September 8th, 2022

The world’s largest arms fair currently takes place in London every two years, at the Excel Centre, a large exhibition centre in Custom House, East Ham in the London Borough of Newham. Organised by Clarion Events, the Defence and Security Equipment International show is “fully endorsed” by the UK Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Trade, but condemned by London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan and most Londoners and opposed by a week of protests organised by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and supported by many other groups.

Sadiq Khan has failed to stop the arms fair taking place, lacking the powers to do so despite his repugnance. Amnesty International criticise it for selling weapons of torture and those that have been shown to have been used against civilians, and CAAT point out that it is attended by official military and security delegations from countries which are noted abusers of human rights, including those on the UK’s official list of countries subject to arms embargo.

Of course with the UK the high profits to be made on arms sales often trumps such listings; Action on Armed Violence points out that “five of the UK’s human rights priority countries feature on the DIT’s ‘key markets’ directory for potential arms sales (Bahrain, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia)” and that “UK export licences for small arms and ammunition have been approved to 31 destinations on the embargoed and restricted list” betwwen 2015 and 2020.

In September 2017 I photographed protests outside the DSEI arms fair on four days in the week before the fair as well as a related event elsewhere and a wreath-laying ceremony on the opening day. There are fuller accounts on My London Dairy – links at the end of this post.

No Faith in War DSEI Arms Fair protest – ExCeL Centre, London. Tue 5 Sept 2017

The second day of protests against the world’s largest arms fair held in London’s docklands was ‘No Faith In War’, a series of events organised by various faith groups.

Stop The Arms Fair - 2017

Quakers held a meeting by the side of the approach road to the East Gate of Excel, and some sat on the road to block it. Eventually police lifted this woman carefully and carried herto the side of the road. Some who persisted in blocking the road were arrested and taken to police vans.

Stop The Arms Fair - 2017

Four people abseiled from a roadway bridge to block the road. It took police a long time to find a safe way to remove them.

Stop The Arms Fair - 2017

People held a mass on the roadway – police waited until they finished then made them leave.

At the west gate people walked very slowly in front of the lorries. Eventually police pushed them off the road. Some were arrested. Others had come to support them and sing hymns and religious songs. There were various other activities at both gates.

Protesters block DSEI arms fair entrances – Wed 6 Sep 2017

Stop the Arms fair protesters carried out a series of lengthy lock-ons on the roads at both East and West gates blocking access to London’s ExCeL centre where preparations are being made for the worlds’s largest arms fair.

Police teams took quite a long time to carefully separate the people who were locked together to block the roads. There was also some street theatre from various groups. One pair of protesters managed to lock themselves on the roadway inside the centre gates – but police would not let journalists get closer to photograph them.

I went back to the East gate to find another pair locked on there. The protesters managed to block both entrances for several hours – and there were quite a few arrests.

Protest picnic & checkpoint at DSEI, London. Thu 7 Sep 2017

Veterans for Peace came to set up a banned weapons checkpoint. Police waved lorries on past their checkpoint, encouraging one lorry to drive through the protest at a highly dangerous speed, and removed protesters from the road with threats of arrest.

At lunchtime North London Food Not Bombs moved onto the road and blocked it to serve protesters with an excellent road-block picnic. After 15 minutes police moved in to clear the road, threatening the diners with arrest.

DSEI Festival Morning at the East Gate – Sat 9 Sep 2017

Several hundred people listened to a programme of speakers, workshops, spoken word, choirs and groups and stopped lorries bringing arms by walking in front of them until pushed aside by police.

Festival of Resistance – DSEI West Gate – Sat 9 Sep 2017

Things were a little livlier at the West gate, where cyclists in a ‘Critical Mass’ were arriving and Charlie X, a Chaplin clone who protests in mime had just been freed from the lorry he had locked on to but had been arrested and was being led away by a dozen police. They also arrested one of the cyclists for having a bike lock around his neck. He had it to lock the wheels to his bike if he had to leave it anywhere. If carrying a lock or chain for your bike was an offence, every cyclist in London would face arrest.

DSEI East Gate blocked – Sat 9 Sep 2017

I took the DLR back to the East gate, arriving to find the road blocked by a lock-on, with two people joined through a pipe which the police were struggling to remove. Finally they did and arrested to two involved. People were blocking the road and holding a religious service, but police forced them off the road – with at least one more arrest of a woman who refused to move.

While the police were removing the two locked on, a man had locked himself to the lorry – and he too was removed and arrested. Other people came onto the road to block lorries and there were poetry and musical performances. Then a group of seven people joined arms in a circle on the road and refused to move. They were still there when I had to leave, stopping off briefly at the DLR entrance to the Excel Centre to photograph a musical protest there.

#Arming The World -Woolwich Arsenal, London. Tue 12 Sep 2017

Ice & Fire theatre and Teatro Vivo with designer Takis, gave their first performance of #Arming The World, a satircial weapons catwalk show spreading information about Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) at Woolwich Arsenal with actors dressed as arms dealers, a Paveway IV Missile, a Eurofighter Typhoon and CS Gas.

Wreath for victims of the arms trade – Royal Victoria Dock, Tue 12 Sep 2017

East London Against Arms Fairs (ELAAF) held a procession carrying a white wreath with the message ‘Remember Victims of the Arms Trade’ around the Royal Victoria Dock on the day the DSEI Arms Fair opened, launching the wreath onto the water opposite the ExCeL centre.

More on all these events on My London Diary:
Wreath for victims of the arms trade
#Arming The World
DSEI East Gate blocked
Festival of Resistance – DSEI West Gate
DSEI Festival Morning at the East Gate
Protest picnic & checkpoint at DSEI
Protesters block DSEI arms fair entrances
No Faith in War DSEI Arms Fair protest

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Bow, Kingsly Hall, a Nursery, Grime, Quakers & more

Sunday, March 13th, 2022

This post continues from my previous post on this walk by me on 1st August 1988, Coventry Cross, Gandhi, Graffiti, Drag Balls …

Stroudley Walk, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-21-Edit_2400
Stroudley Walk, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-21

The buildings of the Diary and the Rose & Crown are still standing at the north end of Stroudley Walk where it meets the end of Bromley High St, but the closed diary became Hussains Convenience Store and then Jalalabad Grocers and half is now a mobile phone repair shop.

The Rose & Crown had opened here around 1720, as the Bowling Green Inn, though the building here is from the 1880s. It closed in 2007, was boarded up for some years before reopening around 2014 as a coffee bar and fast food restaurant.

This was formerly the north end of Devons Road, and a sign for this painted on the brickwork at the left of the pub had virtually disappeared when I made this picture in 1988. Later repainted it has now almost disappeared again.

Kingsley Hall, Powis Rd, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-25-Edit_2400
Kingsley Hall, Powis Rd, Bromley-By-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-25

I wrote more about Kingsley Hall and the sisters Muriel and Doris Lester in the previous post on this walk. They used a legacy from their younger brother Kingsley to set up a house where they lived in relative poverty and served the neighbourhood as well as campaigning for peace and justice across the world. A plaque on the building records that Mahatma Gandhi lived in a small cabin here during his three month stay attending a government conference as a representative of the Indian National Congress. You can read and see more about his visit and the sisters on the Muriel Lester web site.

This image gives a better view of the whole building, which dates from 1928. It faces the Devons Estate, built for the London County Council in 1949 and described by Pevsner as being in their ‘pre-war manner, but with all the drabness of post-war austerity‘. Those moved from slums into its maisonettes and flats would have taken a far more positive view and the estate was solidly built and well-designed to the standards of the day.

Clyde House, Bruce Rd, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-26-Edit_2400
Clyde House, Bruce Rd, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-26

Clyde House is still there at 46 Bruce Road, looking in rather better condition now. Built in 1884 it appears to have been built as a pair with its double-fronted neighbour at 48.

Children's House, Nursery School, , Bruce Rd, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-11-Edit_2400
Children’s House, Nursery School, Bruce Rd, Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-11

Sisters Muriel and Doris Lester helped to set up the Children’s House on Bruce Road 1923. Doris had trained as a teacher and they commissioned Charles Cowles-Voysey to design a building based on Maria Montessori’s ideal learning environment for young children. The school was opened in 1923 by H G Wells and is still a school, run by Tower Hamlets Council.

Inside there is a 12 metre mural painted in 1935 by Eve Garnett, the illustrator, artist and writer of the first children’s book about working class characters, The Family from One End Street, in 1937. There is now a campaign to save and restore the mural which is dirty and damaged and the web site is asking for donations to pay for this.

Regent Square, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-15-Edit_2400
Regent Square, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8a-15

The Crossways Estate, built in 1970 was apparently at the time known as the ‘Pride of Bow’, for its three 25 storey towers and a low rise block, Holyhead Close, built over the railway line. Later it was more prosaically referred to as the ‘three flats.’

It was here that Grime developed in 2003, after Rinse FM squatted in a flat and broadcast illegally from here, and it was also where Dizzee Rascal and others grew up.

Like many council developments the area around the estate was hard to navigate, with walkways and roads often not shown on maps. My contact sheet says ‘Regent Square and gives grid reference 375827 for the first of the five images I made. The three towers were Hackworth Point, Mallard Point and Priestman Point and are on Rainhill Way.

And also like many council estates, it was subjected to a policy of ‘managed decline’ and by 1999 was in a very poor state, so bad its demolition was under consideration. Tower Hamlets decided to retain and refurbish the estate which passed to Swan Homes after a residents ballot in 2005. Its towers now refurbished and clad more brightly this is now the Bow Cross Estate.

Bow Church, station, DLR, Crossways estate, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8b-56-Edit_2400
Bow Church, station, DLR, Crossways estate, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8b-56

The ‘three flats’ seen from Bow Road and Bow Church DLR station which opened on 31 August 1987.

Mornington Grove, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8b-61-Edit_2400
Mornington Grove, Bow, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-8b-61

Mornington Grove not only gets a mention in the London 5: East volume of Pevsner (p619) which describes these houses as “unusually grand for the area” but also has an extensive web site covering its history by Ken Ward, a resident in the street, from which this information is extracted – and which has far more detail. And it really is an interesting history – if you have the time do click the link and read more.

The land of a nursery here was bought by the Quaker meeting in Ratcliff in 1812, and houses on Mornington Road were developed by them from 1854-1889 – those on the east side in this picture being among the later development. Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington was the son of the first Earl of Mornington, and the fourth Earl lived nearby on the north side of Bow Road.

Many of the houses in Mornington Road were compulsory purchased and demolished for the Whitehapel and Bow Railway (later the District Line) and others by World War II bombing of what had in 1939 been renamed Mornington Grove. Under the Quakers, at least 5/7th of the rents of the houses went to the support of the poor.

Most of the houses in the street, by then under multiple occupation, were sold by the Quakers to a housing association in 1980, becoming social housing, though many have now been sold off.

More from Bow in the next post from my walk in 1988. You can see larger versions of any of these pictures by clicking on the image which will take you to my album 1988 London Pictures from where you can browse.

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