Battersea Riverside. The short walk from Battersea Bridge to Wandsworth is one I’ve done quite a few times over the years. For most of the walk you can now keep to the riverside, with views across the Thames, though a few short detours are needed. It’s on of my favourite walks in London and only a couple of miles, though if you want a longer walk it is now part of the Thames Path so you can continue for many miles either upstream or down.
Lots Rd
When I first made this walk in the 1970s the riverside was lined with industry and I could only access the river at a few locations. By 2012 the industry had almost all gone and there were blocks of private flats along most of this length. But ‘planning gain’ meant a riverside path even if it was lined behind by planning loss.
Thames at BatterseaSt Mary’s BatterseaOld Swan Wharf
People have to live somewhere and London needed extra housing, though almost all of these new developments were the wrong kind of housing and not the social housing desperately needed by Londoners. Back in the early post-war years we saw social housing being built to provide mixed communities and promote social cohesion, but Thatcher changed all that, and social housing became something only for the poor and that stigmatised residents as failures.
Overground train on its way to Clapham JunctionDemolition at Fulham WharfNew Flats and Wandsworth Bridge
The loss of industry also meant the loss of jobs in the area, and took place at a time of increasing gentrification in Battersea, with people moving in who worked in wealthier parts of the city.
Looking upstream from Wandsworth Bridge
As I wrote in 2012, “Every time I walk it a little more has gone with a new block of flats or hotel or other luxury development. But a few things remain.”
Waste transfer station, Wandsworth
You can see the panoramic images larger by right clicking on them and choosing Open Image in New Tab’ More pictures on My London Diary at Battersea Riverside.
Rainham,Purfleet, Thurrock & Ponders End: On Saturday 11th December 1993 I took a train from Fenchurch Street to Rainham and then walked along by the river to Coldharbour Point. There the path stopped and I returned to Rainham and took the train to Purfleet where I could pick up the riverside path again and walk on to Grays. Probably I walked about 9 miles in all and by the time I finished it I think the light would have been fading, with sunset at around 4pm.
Tilda Rice, Rainham, Thurrock, 1993, 94-01-1-64
On this walk I made a little over 200 black and white images, a selection of which you can find on Flickr in my 1993 London album beginning here.
Purfleet, Thurrock, 1993, 94-01-1-65
Waste Paper, Purfleet, Thurrock, 1993, 94-01-1-51
There are more colour images from this walk, including a number of panoramas, mixed with pictures from other occasions starting here on the final two pages of my Flickr album of colour pictures from 1993.
Notices on Fence, Purfleet, Thurrock, 1993, 94-01-1-53
But today I found some more pictures from that walk at the start of my album 1994 London Colour and I’ll share these in this post. They will have come from a cassette of film which I took in 1993 but only developed a month or so later in 1994.
Waste Paper, Purfleet, Thurrock, 1993, 94-01-1-56
Works, Purfleet, Thurrock, 1993, 94-01-1-46
QEII Bridge, Dartford Bridge, Pipeline, River Thames, West Thurrock, Thurrock, 1993, 94-01-1-11
The final image in today’s post is something completely different on the same film, a shop window in Ponders End which I found it strangely weird. As it is on the same film as the others I think it was probably also taken in December 1993 although my caption stated 1994.
Purfleet & West Thurrock: Pictures taken on a ride along the Essex bank of the Thames on Tuesday 22 April 2003, the day following the Easter Bank Holiday.
Silver Jubilee Beacon at Purfleet and upstream view of the River Thames
I only put these pictures onto My London Diary around a year after I made them and wrote nothing about them when I did so.
But these are more pictures that I took on a ride mainly along a footpath beside the River Thames where I rode on my Brompton folding bike.
My ride started not at Purfleet which is just on the outside edge of Greater London, but at Rainham, which was the last station coming out from London where a Travelcard was still valid.
Part of my reason for coming to this area was the building that was taking place of the Channel Tunnel rail link, which tunnelled under the river at Swanscombe in Kent to West Thurrock in Essex. I had previously photographed on the Kent side, You can see some of the work on this high speed rail line in these pictures of this, particularly some from my return journey to Rainham where I followed its route as closely as I could.
The pictures were made with my first digital SLR, the Nikon D100 and a 24-85mm Nikon lens.
As well as riverside industry, including a detergent works at West Thurrock which overshadow an ancient church, there are also images of the QEII Dartford Bridge, container parks, oil storage depots and the CTRL viaducts as well as fairly desolate riverside and a giant pylon.
St Clement’s Church, West Thurrock was one of the four churches featured in the 1994 film ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’Channel Tunnel Rail Link, QEII bridge and a giant pylon
Dartford 1995 Again – Panoramas: Part 9 of my occasional series on colour pictures I made in 1995.
Victoria Industrial Park, Victoria Rd, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-252
I enjoyed another walk in Dartford on Sunday May 7th 1995, beginning by taking black and white pictures of buildings around the centre before walking out to the northwest along Victoria Road.
Philips Norman, Cash & Carry, Victoria Rd, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-251
I went on to photographing in the industrial areas between Burnham Road and the Dartford Creek – the tidal River Darent.
Here I was able to make my way down to the west bank of the river and make more pictures.
River Darent, Riverside Wharf, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-121
At this wharf there had once been a fairly small dock which had been filled in but its gates were still there. I think it had perhaps been a dry dock used for ship repairs,
Dartford, 1995, 95p5-133
I think this is a site cleared for the development of a large housing estate, now on Lawson Road and Eleanor Close.
Dartford, 1995, 95p5-153
This long, empty road was University Way, a northern by-pass for Dartford, named in hope of a university that never arrived. Bob Dunn had been a Tory junior education minister who had campaigned for this development. MP for Dartford from 1979 to 1997 when he lost his seat to Labour, he died in 2003, only 56, and the road was renamed in his honour.
The bridge that takes Bob Dunn Way across the Darent was not built with navigation in mind, and makes it difficult for boats of any size to proceed up to Dartford. There has been for some years work being carried out to encourage navigation here, but boats have to look carefully at the tide tables to pass under the bridge. The Dartford and Crayford Creek Trust was founded in April 2016 to work to improve the navigation.
Roundabout, Hythe St, Victoria Rd, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-363
I walked back much the same way to this roundabout and went up Hythe Street in the centre of this picture.
River Darent, Nelsons Row, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-243
Hythe Street tok me to Nelson’s Row where I was able to cross the River Darent. There is also a public slipway here, cleared in recent years by volunteers.
Pipe Bridge, Riverside Path, River Darent, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-232
A few houses on the opposite bank are in Kenwyn Road. Past them you can see the derelict half lock which keeps some water in upstream when the tide flows out. Volunteer have put in considerable work to improve this lock in recent years and to revive navigation on Dartford Creek. In the distance is the Dartford Paper Mills site – closed in 2009 the site has been redeveloped.
Half Lock, Riverside Path, River Darent, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-223
Boats can navigate through the lock when the tide is high enough for them to get over the cill of the lock which holds back sufficient water for the river to be navigable upstream to the centre of Dartford.
Dartford Fresh Marshes, Dartford, 1995, 95p5-361
I turned around here and walked back to Dartford and the station. I’d made an early start to the day on the first train into London and there was still time to stop off on the way home and take a few pictures in Woolwich where I intended to return the following week.
More around the Meridian – It’s seldom possible to actually walk for more than a few yards actually on the Greenwich Meridian in London and while planning my Meridian Walk I often wandered around considerably, having to make detours and also looking for the more interesting routes. So not all these images are exactly on the Meridian, but most were taken within a short distance from it.
When I began this project the Meridian was not marked on the Ordnance Survey or Street maps, and one of may first tasks was to get a ruler and pencil it on to them. In 1999 it was added to the OS maps of the area, but does not seem to be on the latest versions. In 1995 there were no smart phones with online maps and GPS which would have made things so much easier.
The Greenway was the recently rebranded path above the Northern Outfall Sewer which rans across East London from Hackney Wick to the sewage treatment plant at Beckton, going under the road here close the the bridge over Abbey Creek on the Channelsea River, where Abbey Lane becomes Abbey Road. You can see the bridge at the left of the picture.
Greenway, Channelsea River, Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-1153
The Greenway is a great traffic-free cycle route for pedestrians and cyclists, running straight and level and this picture gives some evidence of that.
Channelsea River, Long Wall, Stratford, Newham, 1995, 95p4-1111
I’m not sure what this pipe was for, perhaps for taking gas across the river. Not far away on the other side of this tidal creek was one of the largest gas works in London – and you can still see its listed gasholders, though the view is likely to change soon with the site being redeveloped.
But behind me when I made this picture was the Abbey Mills sewage pumping station and on the edge of the creek below were the storm outfalls where sewage would be released after heavy rains. With the changing tides it would flow downstream a little and then could be taken miles upriver along the Prescott channel and the River Lea.
Flats, East India Dock Rd, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1321
I think the Meridian went through the centre of the taller gas holder at Poplar Gas works.
Flats, East India Dock Rd, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1321
Another view with the gasholders in the background.
Clove Crescent, East India, DLR, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1273
My pencilled line for the Meridian shows it going through both the water in the dock and the brick building at left which was the former Blackwall Power Station in both of these pictures.
Clove Crescent, East India DLR, South Bromley, Tower Hamlets, 1995, 95p4-1263
South of the East India Docks the line crosses the River Thames above and between the two bores of the Blackwall Tunnel, closer to the original western tunnel now used by northbound traffic. I couldn’t take photographs in the tunnel – though it was possible for those on foot to take a bus across, but these would have been rather boring in any case.
This picture shows the southern entrance to the tunnel with its 1897 Grade II listed gatehouse by the London County Council’s Superintending Architect Thomas Blashill. In front of it a less ornate red and white striped arch with heigh and weight restriction signs and hangers to hit any overtall vehicles and hopefully prevent damage to the gatehouse.
One picture not I think actually on the Meridian but not far from it, taken from the long footbridge over the Blackwall Tunnel Southern Approach.
Riverside Path, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1762
My path continued south along the riverside path, with the Meridian going into the River Thames on the extreme left of this picture.
Riverside Path, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1742
I kept to the land continuing along a path I’ve walked many times and making a few more pictures.
Riverside Path, Greenwich, 1995, 95p4-1743
Like much of London’s riverside almost all of the industry has now gone, but some relics remain, though most of this part of my route is now lined by rather boring flats.
Battersea Park, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-12
I’m not what was happening in Battersea Park, and perhaps I had arruved too early.
Battersea Park, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-21
A tree close to the tent had a rather odd piece of fencing around it and I also photographed this, both with the tent and on its own, though I’ve not put that on-line. I walked on to the Peace Pagoda and took another three pctures – again not posted online, because it was rather better in colour – I think there are eleven images in the colour album for 1989.
Insect, Battersea Park, London, 1989 89-8c-73
And I still can’t tell you what was happening in the park, but here is a picture I think I took a little later before I decided to leave and continue my walk.
Josie 4 Arnie, Battersea Church Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8b-55
I returned west towards the centre of Battersea. Back in 1989 the riverside at Battersea was still lined with industry and there was no path west beside the river and I had to go back from the park along Parkgate Rd and then cross Battersea Bridge Road and walk along Battersea Church Road.
There my eye was caught by this rather odd graffiti – back then there was far less on walls in London. I couldn’t decode what the drawing on the wall was meant to represent and I still can’t. On one side of the dark box in the corner was a cartoon rabbit with two terms of affection ‘Hun’ and ‘Snoocums’ with more the more comprehendible message across its door with a heart and ‘JOSIE 4 ARNIE’. At right was an open gate and there were also some interesting shadows.
Rank Hovis Ltd, Battersea Church Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8b-42
On Battersea Church Road was the still busy factory of Rank Hovis Ltd although much of the other industry including the Morgan Crucible Company had already gone and its site replaced by housing, beginning at Morgan’s Walk estate in 1984.
The mill here had begun in 1788 with an unusual horizontal windmill built by Thomas Fowler to crush linseed for the oil for paints, but a few years later became used for grinding corn and barley. Around 1825 the mill was taken down and replaced by a steam engine. The mill grew and was eventually taken over by the Mayhew family in the 1890s as Mark Mayhew Mill.
Rank Hovis Ltd, Battersea Church Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8b-44
In 1914 the Mayhew’s business was bought by Joseph Rank and became run by Rank’s second son Rowland who used his father’s Hull architects Sir Alfred Gelder and Llewellyn Kitchen to reconstruct and enlarge the site. They managed to get the LCC to waive regulations on building heights to construct the largest grain silos in London so that a whole lighter full of grain could be unloaded at a time.
In 1962, Ranks acquired Hovis McDougal, becoming Rank Hovis McDougal, though by 1989 the McDougal seems to have disappeared. The mills were updated and produced up to 10 tonnes of white flour an hour, using mainly UK wheat delivered by lorry, though some came from Canada and was delivered by barge from Tilbury Docks.
The mills only finally closed around 1992, and were demolished in 1997; the site is now occupied by the tall triangle of Richard Roger’s Montevetro riverside flats, covered at some length by the Survey of London.
Dimson Hall Social Club, Battersea Church Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8b-46
Across the road to the south of the road in 1989 was the very different triangle of the Dimson Hall Social Club, part of the extensive Somerset Estate begun by the GLC in 1962 and completed by the London Borough of Wandsworth. This community centre was named after GLC councillor Gladys Dimson who was the GLC housing chair from 1973-77. A colleague of Ken Livingstone, she was also involved with both Shelter and the settlement of Toynbee Hall in East London.
Currently flats on the Somerset Estate are advertised at around almost couple of a million pounds less than their near neighbours in Montevetro.
The riverside developments on the river in Battersea although often controversial do mean there is now a riverside path along virtually the whole length. Back in 1989 there was I think no access for the public between Battersea Bridge and St Mary’s Church where the next post on this walk will begin.
Greenwich Walk: On Thursday 18th October 2018 I walked with two or three other photographers from North Greenwich Station to the centre of Greenwich and made the pictures in this post. You can see many more of them in a post on My London Diary, Greenwich Walk.
Recently on >Re:PHOTO I’ve published a series of posts about my walks in London back in the 1980s, along with some of the pictures I took then which are now in my albums on Flickr. The most recent walk I’ve featured has been in Brixton and Stockwell and began with Stockwell Park, Bus Garage, Tower and Mason, and I’ve still to finish the posts on this, and will do so shortly.
But I’ve continued to walk around London, if less frequently than before in recent years. My walks now are rather shorter in length and duration and are mostly together with a few friends, other photographers who sometimes lure me into pubs on the way (I’m easily tempted.) And we almost always end up with a meal together in one.
Photographically things are rather different too. I don’t even always take any photographs and am no longer working on the kind of extended projects which I had back in those earlier days, recording the fabric of the city and in particular those areas undergoing substantial change – such as the whole of London’s docklands.
Back in the 80s and 90s I always worked with at least two cameras, one with black and white film and the other with colour. So far I’ve included very little of the colour work in those posts here, in part because I was working on a different project with the colour. You can see more of the colour work in the online project initially put together as a dummy for an as yet unpublished book in the early 1990s, ‘Café Ideal, Cool Blondes & Paradise‘.
More recently several web sites have published features using mainly these colour pictures from my Flickr albums sometimes along with some of the black and white. The most recent of these is on Flashbak, ‘34 Photos From A Walk Around Tooting, South London In 1990‘. It puts together images from several visits to the area and includes a few black and white images of people on the streets, In the introduction Paul Sorene comments “What we love about Peter’s pictures is that he shows us the everyday things we saw but didn’t much notice. Now that we get to look again, things looks strangely familiar.” I think this is about the 12th set of my pictures on that site.
But now I only take one camera on my walks, and always work in colour as the camera is digital. I could easily switch the images to black and white, but have only done so extremely rarely.
The other large change for me is the ease with which I can now make panoramic views, no longer needing to carry a separate camera for these, just the right lens. Many of the images from my walk on Thursday 18th October 2018 are panoramic with a horizontal angle of view of around 145 degrees even though they have a ‘normal’ aspect ratio of 3:2 as they also have a large vertical angle of view. Just a few are cropped to a more panoramic format.
Finally, here is the paragraph I wrote about the area in 2018:
I first walked along here back in 1980, and have done so a number of times since, though in recent years much of the riverside path has been closed as the old wharves are being replaced by luxury flats. It is still an interesting walk, though it has lost virtually all of the industrial interest it once had. A River Thames that is rapidly becoming lined by new and largely characterless buildings is at times a sad state, but there still remain some liminal landscapes and surprising vistas.
Purfleet & West Thurrock: 20 years ago, on 22nd April 2003 I was still recovering from a heart attack and a little minor surgery. Delays and cancellations in the NHS are not new, and I’d spent several weeks in hospital waiting for the op, with three or four cancellations as emergencies bumped me off the list at short notice – one time I was even on a trolley on may way to theatre. Back then the major shortage, and one that seldom made the news, was of doctors and it still is, with the government still committed to doing little or nothing about it, even refusing to discuss the junior doctors claims.
My actual operation, when finally it happened, went well, but 24 hours later I was an emergency too, collapsing the the ward toilet as my blood pressure dropped spectacularly thanks to a large dose of a exotic drug through a cannula incorrectly inserted by a junior doctor (the nurses were extremely scornful) and I was still far too weak when they released me home to join the million or more (including my son and wife) the protesting against the Iraq war the following day. I think I was more upset about that than my heart attack.
My GP signed me off work for a few weeks (though most of my work was freelance and from home, and I was able to continue this) and prescribed aspirin and exercise along with a few other drugs to deal with my blood pressure, which I’ve been taking daily ever since, along with insulin for my diabetes, also diagnosed when I went into hospital. And thanks to the NHS, all this has cost me absolutely nothing. And after I was signed off as fit for work in March, though I was still very weak, I managed to go and photograph a couple of protests.
Walking was still for the first month or two just a little taxing, but after a couple of weeks I was fine on my Brompton, where I could take it easy later I went on some longish rides. And as it was a folding bike I could put it on trains and the underground to take me away for more distant starting points. And in April 2003 I went on rides from Dartford, Rainham and, on 22nd April 2003, to Purfleet, where I cycled along beside the Thames to West Thurrock and back.
When I posted pictures of this and other rides on My London Diary, I noted “I didn’t get around to adding these other pictures from April 2003 until very much later, and haven’t got around to giving them captions.” And I wrote nothing about the ride at the time. All were taken on a Nikon D100 with a Nikon 24-85mm lens.
I travelled up to London on a Travelcard which covered a journey to any station in Zones 1-6, which meant the closest I could get to Purfleet was actually the station before, Rainham. Then it wasn’t possible to follow the riverside path from Rainham to Purfleet, which then ended at Coldharbour, so I had to cycle along the road to Purfleet through Wennington. The map now shows a riverside cycle path.
This part of the ride had little interest, other than passing some of the works for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, where I took a few pictures before going down Tank Hill Rd to reach the riverside close to the Purfleet Armada Beacon.
Navigation from there to West Thurrock (and on to Grays and the edge of Tilbury Docks on other occasions) was simply a matter of following the riverside path. But it was then an extremely interesting path, past various industrial sites and under the Dartford Bridge (and less noticeably over the Dartford Tunnel.
This is a wide and interesting stretch of the river, also crossed by a 400kV high voltage power line from Swanscombe, with the two 623ft pylons on each side being the tallest in Britain. The distance between the two towers is apparently 4,501 feet, around 0.85 miles or 1.37 km.
Pilgrims en route to Canterbury crossed the river from close by St Clement’s Church, taking to boat across to Swanscombe where the path up from the river is still the Pilgrims Road. But there was no boat available to me, so I turned inland into West Thurrock.
St Clement’s Church was Grade I listed in 1960 and parts at least are 13th century. It was used by a a youth unemployment scheme after regular services closed in 1977 and the interior was gutted, and after the project closed it was badly vandalised.
Dominating the church is the Procter & Gamble detergent factory begun here in 1940 and in 1987 when they were celebrating the company’s 150 years in business they took over the upkeep of the church which took 3 years to restore. The church, which was the location of the funeral in ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ is now open to the public once a month from April to September.
I can’t recall my route back along various roads to Rainham station, but there are a few pictures I took, mainly of the A13 and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link on My London Diary.
Isle of Dogs and Class War: The weather was fine on Wednesday September 3rd 2014, with some nice clouds which made it a good day for some more panoramic photographs, and I went up earlier in the day to continue my pictures around the Isle of Dogs before covering an evening protest by Class War in Aldgate.
Isle of Dogs – Island Gardens to South Quay
Back in the 1980s I set out to photographed extensively in London’s docklands, part of a wider project on the de-industrialisation of the city, partly a response to changes in technology and globalisation, but greatly accelerated by the Thatcher government which saw great opportunities for their supporters profiting by a switch from manufacturing to service industries.
The government policies perhaps made some sense at the time – and certainly made some large profits for the friends and supporters of the Tories, but in many ways we are paying for them now, particularly for their ‘selling off the family silver’ by privatising utilities and other publicly owned activities.
In the docks the main changes were due to containerisation and other efficient ways of handling cargo. Much larger vessels came into service and the long journey up the River Thames to London’s Docks was difficult or impossible, as well as adding significantly to turn-around times. Only Tilbury, miles closer to the sea remained viable.
The changes to Docklands could have been managed for the benefit of the existing populations to the area, with development being carefully planned and managed locally. Instead we got the London Docklands Development Corporation which overrode local interests to benefit those of corporations but did produced a more rapid development than would otherwise have taken place. But it was a huge give-away to private developers, resulting in dramatic changes, and one that the area will continue to suffer from for generations.
Many of my pictures from the 1980s in colour as well as black and white are now available on Flickr in a https://www.flickr.com/photos/petermarshall/albums number of albums and there are also a number of books available on Blurb (in print and as PDF) with the Isle of Dogs being included in City to Blackwall ISBN: 978-1-909363-09-0 which has a working preview.
My walk in 2014 began at Island Gardens DLR station, where I had finished a previous walk, and I continued along the riverside path to the Blackwall Entrance, across to Poplar Dock and Blackwall Basin, down Prestons Rd and Manchester Road to East Ferry Road, and then up and around a little on my way to South Quay Station.
In 2014 I was mainly making digital panoramic photographs, with a horizontal angle of view of around 145 degrees – much greater than can be achieved with a normal rectilinear perspective. These pictures use a projection which keeps vertical edges straight and also gives a straight horizon line (so long as the camera is kept level) but other lines and objects away from the centre of the image curve. Similar projections were used by artists such as Canaletto. These images here have a aspect ratio of 1.9 to 1.
There are two posts on My London Diary with many more panoramas and a few ‘normal’ views from this walk: Isle of Dogs Isle of Dogs Panoramas
Class War ‘Poor Doors’ picket Week 6 – Aldgate
I got back a few minutes early to where Class War were to stage their sixth weekly protest against the separate doors for the wealthy residents and social housing tenants in the block ‘One Commerical St’. The entrance for the rich is on Whitechapel High St next to Aldgate East station while the poor door is down an alley on the west side of the building.
Unlike in previous weeks there were police already there and waiting for the protesters, a sign that the police were taking a firmer stance against the protests here. Almost certainly they were responding to pressure from the owners of the building, and their activities against the protesters were to heighten further in later weeks.
When the protesters arrived, officers immediately came and talked to them, making it clear that they were not to block the doorway for people entering or leaving the building.
More police arrived, outnumbering the small group of little more than a dozen protesters who had come to hand out leaflets to people on the street outside. Many passing expressed surprise that this kind of segregation of rich and poor was allowed to happen in London and showed support for the protest.
It was perhaps the smallest of the series of thirty or so ‘Poor Doors’ protests outside this building. There were quite a few arguments with police officers but no arrests on this occasion.
