Posts Tagged ‘railway station’

Winged Lions, A School, Thameslink, Wine, Buses…

Tuesday, March 28th, 2023

My walk on Saturday 8th April 1989 continued. The first (and previous) part was Kings Cross, St George’s Gardens & More.

Carving, Willing House, Gray's Inn Rd, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-63
Carving, Willing House, Gray’s Inn Rd, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-63

Close to the north end of Gray’s Inn Road, at 356-364 on the corner with St Chad’s Place, is a remarkable early 20th century building in a style described as French Baroque, Willing House, built in 1909 as offices for Messrs Willing Advertising, architects Alfred Hart and Leslie Waterhouse. It’s Grade II listing is perhaps deserved more for the carvings on its facade by William Aumonier Junior, than its rather quirky style.

On the peak of its roof, not shown in these pictures, though appearing rather small on another not digitised, is Mercury, a sculpture by Arthur Stanley Young. According to Wikipedia, Mercury “is the god of financial gain, commerce, eloquence, messages, communication (including divination), travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery, and thieves“, most of which seem appropriate for one of London’s major advertising companies.

This bas-relief by Aumonier, one of a pair, shows one man blowing a long trumpet and another more obvious with a horse, though what he is supposedly doing to the poor beast is unclear. Above them is a highly stylized sun.

Doorway, Willing House, Gray's Inn Rd, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-64
Doorway, Willing House, Gray’s Inn Rd, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-64

This is the ornate main doorway to the building, with giant winged lions on the pilasters at each site. Above them is a frieze with one old man holding a globe and another blowing a trumpet, and Aumonier has thrown in a few cherubs for good measure.

London Details provides a great deal of information about Willing and Co, founded in 1840, and this building. There is also an unusually long description in its Grade II listing.

Winged Lions, Willing House, Gray's Inn Rd, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-65
Winged Lions, Willing House, Gray’s Inn Rd, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-65

A closer view of one of the two winged lions. In 1989 this building was apparently in use by Camden Council but has since been converted into a hotel. Mercury on the roof has also recently been given a comprehensive makeover, repainted to his original grey and his caduceus regilded.

King's Cross Thameslink, Railway Station, St Chad's Place,  King's Cross, Camden, 1989  89-4d-52
King’s Cross Thameslink, Railway Station, St Chad’s Place, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-52

The railway runs under part of Willing house and the unfortunate guests may get a room overlooking the lines, which carry Thameslink between Kings Cross and Farringdon. Railway nerds might welcome this but I hope for others the soundproofing is effective.

This site had been opened as King’s Cross Metropolitan in 1863, on London ‘s first underground line, and a second pair of lines added in 1868. The platforms for the Metropolitan, also serving the Circle and Hammersmith & City Lines, were closed and replaced by some a little nearer King’s Cross in 1940, but the station remained in use. It was rebuilt and opened here in 1988 as King’s Cross Thameslink. It closed for good in 2007 and Thameslink trains now stop at new platforms somewhere in the bowels of Kings Cross and St Pancras.

Former Church School, Brittania St, Wicklow St, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-41
Former Church School, Brittania St, Wicklow St, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-41

This Grade II listed Church School built in 1872, its architect Joseph Peacock who had previously designed St Jude’s Church, the first church to be constructed in London using monies from the Bishop of London’s Fund, which was consecrated in 1863. In June 1936 the parish was united with with Holy Cross, Cromer Street and the church was demolished with many of its memorials being moved to Holy Cross. The school became offices.

Brittania Wine Warehouse, Britannia St, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-43
Brittania Wine Warehouse, Britannia St, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-43

This building now has a sign in stone I think revealed by the removal of that for the Brittania Wine Warehouse ‘LONDON GENERAL OMNIBUS COMPANY LIMITED’. The company was founded in 1855 and remained the main bus operator in London until 1933. It was originally an Anglo-French company, the Compagnie Generale des Omnibus de Londres, and now we once again have many buses in the capital run by a French company, London United being a part of the French state-owned RATP ( Régie autonome des transports parisiens.)

This was the horse bus depot of the LGOC, and later their motor bus depot, and their last late horse-drawn bus ran in 1911.

Derby Lodge, Britannia St, King's Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-45
Derby Lodge, Britannia St, King’s Cross, Camden, 1989 89-4d-45

Derby Lodge, Grade II listed philanthropic flats from erected around 1865 for Sydney Waterlow’s Improved Industrial Dwellings Company with the help of builder Matthew Allen. Grade II listed. Listed in the 1990s and since refurbished.

Like other similar flats of the era their design was based on the model cottages erected for Prince Albert as a part of the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park and later re-erected in their current location in Kennington Park where they still are.


Down the Blue, Spa Road & Old Jamaica Road 1988

Thursday, June 16th, 2022

R & G Holden, Household & Fancy Goods, Southwark Park Road, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10j-31-Edit_2400
R & G Holden, Household & Fancy Goods, Southwark Park Road, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10j-31

‘The Blue’, the area around the market on Southwark Park Road and Blue Anchor Lane gets its name from the Blue Anchor Pub at the corner of the lane. The pub is on the site of an ancient hostelry, marked on the earliest maps of the area dating from 1695 as the Blew Anchor. The area belonged to Bermondsey Abbey and attracted many pilgrims, some on their way to Canterbury. The anchor is thought to have not been any reference to the later nautical links of the area but to the many Anchorites, many of them women who were enclosed in religious buildings having withdrawn themselves from secular society to lead a life of prayer. Pilgrims would visit them to join them in prayer and seek advice. It was a practice largely when Henry VIII broke away from the Pope.

The market was along Southwark Park Road until a separate market square was created in 1976, but shops like this still spilled out onto the pavement.

Spa Rd Station, Former Railway Station, S E & C R,  Priter Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10j-22-Edit_2400
Spa Rd Station, Former Railway Station, S E & C R, Priter Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10j-22

London’s first railway station was a short walk away. The London and Greenwich Railway opened its Spa Road station in 1836 before it had completed the line into London Bridge. Although little more than a temporary halt and at first without platforms it remained open until 1838. A second Spa Road station was opened after the line was widened in 1842 and operated until 1867 when a new station was opened 200 yards to the east with its entrance in the railway arches on what is now Priter Road. This closed as a wartime economy measure in 1915. Some of the buildings of the 1867 station including this can still be seen in the railway arches and I photographed several of them as well as this one. The initials are for the South Eastern and Chatham Railway which was only formed in 1899, and until 1923 ran all the railways in Kent and to the Channel ports.

Spa Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10k-62-Edit_2400
Spa Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10k-62

On my contact sheet I state that this remains of a former garage was on Spa Road and although I have no reason to doubt this the roads around here were confusing and the rail bridges all have a similar appearance. I took a number of very similar frames, obviously intrigued by both the broken boarding and the branches growing through it was well as the strange tower rising about a very tall brick wall on the other side of the road.

Rouel Rd, Frean St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10k-53-Edit_2400
Rouel Rd, Frean St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10k-53

The tower block in the background of this picture is Lupin Point on Abbey St, a 21 floor 61 m tall bock on Southwark’s Dickens Estate. This was made at the mouth of the bridge on Rouel Road, with Frean Street going off to the right. More recently this part of Rouel Road, was renamed Marine Street which previously had only started north of Jamaica Road (now Old Jamaica Road.)

This area has been redeveloped since I made this picture and the old housing replaced by a nine storey block so you need to go a little way along the road to see Lupin Point.

Old Jamaica Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10k-42-Edit_2400
Old Jamaica Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10k-42

These buildings on Old Jamaica Road are long gone. In 1988 clearly Robinsons Motorcycles Cycles Mopeds was still in business with a row of machines outside and bike parts in the shop window and curtains on the floors above, but much of the rest of the block was ready for demolition.

Enid Garage, Old Jamaica Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10k-43-Edit_2400
Enid Garage, Old Jamaica Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-10k-43

Enid Garage on the south side of Old Jamaica Road was clearly a very basic concrete structure, its skeleton of beams exposed at the left. Behind are the railway arches and a long gantry across the tracks, still there. Enid Garage has gone and this is now the Old Jamaica Business Estate.

I think my walk continued to Rotherhithe New Road, where I’ll begin the next post in this series.