Open House, Sewol, Iran, Sabah, Sarawak & Orange Order: Saturday 16th September 2017 was another busy and varied day for me in London, beginning with two visits on Open House Day and continuing with four protests.
Open House – Banqueting House – Whitehall
Though I’d often walked past the Banqueting House in Whithall, usually on my way to protests at Downing Street or Parliament Square, I’d never before been inside the building. But when I came past on Open House Day there was only a short queue and entrance was free. I had time to spare as a protest I’d hoped to photograph had failed to materialise, so in I went.
Inigo Jones designed (or copied from Andrea Palladio) the Banqueting House for the Palace of Whitehall, built 1619-22, and it is the only remaining building from the palace. It was the first neo-Classical building in England.
I went to Peckham to see a few things in the Peckham Festival including the Open House showing of the Old Waiting Room at Peckham Rye station which was housing a photographic exhibition of old pictures of Peckham.
The building itself turned out to be more interesting than the exhibition which lacked any real examination of the more recent past of Peckham. But there were other things to see in Peckham, and a short walk around Rye Lane and the Bussey Building is always interesting.
Back in Central London, my first protest was in Trafalgar Square where a small group mainly of SOuth Koreans was continuing their series of monthly vigils in memory of he Sewol victims, mainly school children who obeyed the order to ‘Stay Put’ on the lower decks as the ship went down.
They continue to demand the Korean government conduct a thorough inquiry into the disaster, recover all missing victims, punish those responsible and enact special anti-disaster regulations.
Overthrow the Islamic Regime of Iran – Trafalgar Square
Also in Trafalgar Square the 8 March Women’s Organisation (Iran-Afghanistan) were protesting on the 29th anniversary of the massacre of political prisoners in Iraq following a fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini calling for the death of all Mojahedins and leftists as ‘fighters against God’ and ‘apostates from Islam.’
The fatwa led to over 30,000 political prisoners, mostly members of the main opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) being executed, largely hanged in groups of six and buried in mass graves.
The protesters call for the overthrow of the Islamic regime as necessary for the ‘litigation movement’ can achieve justice and build a society where such executions cannot occur and no one is suppressed, imprisoned or tortured for their ideas.
A short distance down the road at Downing St, Sabahans and Sarawkians were protesting on Malaysia Day, which they say is a ‘Black Day for Sabah and Sarawak’, calling for a restoration of human rights and the repeal of the Sedition Act and and freedom for Sarawak and Sabah.
Among them was Doris Jones, the leader of the Sabah Sarawak Keluar Malaysia secessionist movement in London.
When Malaysia was founded on 16th September 1963 the two independent countries in North Borneo joined with the Federation of Malaya and Singapore and were given promises, assurances and undertakings for their future in the federation. These included ’20 points’ of an Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) Report, which the prrotesters say have been cast aside, and anyone raising them is being detained under a draconian Internal Security Act.
The annual Lord Carson Memorial Parade, one of several annual parades by lodges of the Orange Order came to the Cenotaph for wreaths to be laid. As well as various lodges dedicated to the Apprentice Boys of Derry there were others remembering the Ulster regiments that fought on the Somme. As well as members of lodges in the Home Counties and London, these parades also include some who come from Ulster and Scotland.
Lord Carson (1854-1935) was a leading judge and politician in the UK becoming Solicitor General and First Lord of the Admiralty. He had joined the Orange Order at the age of 19, and in 1911 became the leader of the Ulster Unionists, determined to fight against home rule for Ireland by “all means which may be found necessary“, becoming one of the founders of a unionist militia that became the Ulster Volunteer Force.
But in later years he warned Unionists not to alienate the Catholics in the north, something which parades such as this clearly do in some areas of Northern Ireland. In London they are much less controversial, although I have at times been threatened by those taking part for photographing them. But on this occasion I received just a few hard stares and even some faintly welcoming grins from some who recognised me.
The day after my walk around King’s Cross, in part on a walk led by GLIAS, on Sunday 9th April 1989 I was back in London on my own, south of the river for a walk beginning in Peckham.
People have often asked my why I photographed the areas of South London, and although I tell them I also photographed the North, East and West, my interest was certainly was certainly inspired by a remarkable book, London South Of the River, by Sam Price Myers, published in 1949, illutstrated by some fine wood engravings by Rachel Reckitt.
Back in 1989 there was relatively little graffiti in the area, but much of the walls in the 1930’s building at the centre of the picture where an arcade leads left towards Rye Lane was covered fairly colourfully last time I visited. You can just see a little of the station at right through the first arch. The second arch on Station Way leads to Blenheim Grove,
Myers does not have a great deal to say about Peckham, but has an engaging enthusiasm for the subject matter. His short section on the area does, like me start at Peckham Rye Station, though I had probably not arrived by train but on a bus to Peckham from Vauxhall. The book also contains some decent photographs, though greatly weakened by the rather pallid reproduction of the era, by a number of photographers including Ursula Hartleben and Bernard Alfieri.
My copy, bearing the stamp of the Illustrated London News Editorial Library, was certainly £4 well spent, and I find a copy in rather better condition now offered for sale on the web for £555; the advert shows several of Reckitt’s illustrations, and another was posted by a friend on Twitter. You can still find copies of the book in similar condition to mine for a rather more reasonable price.
This picture is looking north up Station Way from outside the station entrance towards Holly Grove. My interest on this occasion was obviously rather more in the 1930s building than the Victorian station,
Shop, Blenheim Grove, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-21
This was another part of the 1930s development in front of the station between it and Rye Lane, here with shops and flats above. I walked the few yards east into Rye Lane and continued south down this, taking few pictures as I had photographed this area on previous walks.
Continuing south, Rye Lane merges into Peckham Rye, and I often confused the two. The numbers on the door frame here are 257-261 and this was a part of the former Co-Op building at the bottom of Rye Lane, now demolished and replaced.
The giant lock with its legend YALE LOCKS was became labelled the entrance to Ezel Court (which I think was just the flats above the shops), but I assume that at one time either 56 – here dealing with pets – or the shop to the left had sold locks. In recent years these have become a Mini Super Market and a restaurant. I had photographed this earlier in the year and another picture appears in my post Peckham Rye to Goose Green – 1989.
Houses, Kelmore Grove, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-13
I continued down Peckham Rye to the junction where I turned to the west along East Dulwich Road. In 1879 this there were really substantial villas along the south of East Dulwich Rd, but by the early 90s Oakhurst Grove, Kelmore Grove and The Gardens at the back of these had been laid and lined with substantial family homes.
These beautifully decorated late Victorian houses are on the south side of Kelmore Grove, with slightly plainer examples on the other side of the road. Although only two storey, these are substantial semi-detached houses with a wide frontage with a large room on each side of the central hallway.
Houses, Oakhurst Grove, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-4h-14
The houses in Oakhurst Grove have alternate bays and rather curious towers in what are semi-detached three storey houses. The two doors in each pair are adjacent with only a room on one side and although taller they are less grand than those in the picture above. But they also have some fine brickwork and decorative elements.
Earlier this week I took a walk with a couple of friends in Peckham, one of my favourite parts of south London, and currently on this site I’ve been making a number of illustrated posts about walks I made there back in 1989, the latest, a couple od days ago being Bird in Bush, Wood Dene, Asylum and a School. But I’ve also photographed other events in Peckham, including the first Peckham Pride, seven years ago on Saturday 20th February 2016.
Peckham Pride
LGSMigrants and Movement for Justice organised the event to put the politics of resistance which has for many years been sidelined by the growing commercialisation of Pride marches and events back into Pride.
Peckham’s FIRST EVER Pride march is for everyone with and without citizenship, papers or no papers. We REFUSE to accept stigma or discrimination over the colour of our passports, the colour of our skin, our gender, our sexuality or our ability.
They had chosen to come to Peckham for this event as the area had become a major target for anti-immigration raids, racist go-home vans, and street harassment by the Home Office.
The are has a large Nigerian and Ghanaian community which makes it a convenient target for racist raids leading to brutal deportations on cattle-like charter flights to Nigeria and Ghana. But its residents have also made it a focus of growing popular resistance on the streets to these illegal and immoral activities.
Several hundred supporters of the event met on the square by Peckham Library – now threatened along with the Peckham Arch by Southwark Council who are eager to build on much of the area – and perhaps to end the community events which gather there, sometimes critical of council activities.
At a rally there were speeches calling for refugees to be welcomed in Britain and to find here a safe haven where they can enjoy freedom, oppourtunity and education. Instead they are faced with a government which is increasingly making the country a hostile environment both for them and for the majority of citizens. The speakers emphasized the need to organise and act together to oppose and defeat these polices.
From the arch on Peckham High Street Peckham Pride marched down the major shopping street of Rye Lane, attracting attention and some encouraging gestures and comments with some loud chanting and a samba band.
They stopped again a little past Rye Lane station where there were more speeches, including by another former Yarl’s Wood detainee who told how they had organised and held together to stop a fellow detainee being forcibly deported. A local shopkeeper came to talk about the Border Force raids, including one on his premises and the community opposition close to them, and there was a powerful speech from a local resident about the need to organise resistance and oppose these raids.
Local resistance is both effective and appropriate, as the Home Office employees who carry them out are generally acting in abuse of the law. I had to leave before the end of the march and missed the performances which were to follow it at the Bussey Centre at the centre of Peckham.
Houses in this row on Queen’s Rd were being renovated and turned into flats. Many of these properties were still in a fairly poor condition in 1989. Although these houses all seem of rather similar quality and are all I think “Early to mid C19”, number 52, just out of my picture on the left has been singled out for listing, despite it and others having had significant rebuilding in the 20th century.
It was only listed in 1998. Perhaps it was then under threat of demolition. Most of these houses were being converted into flats at the time I was photographing them.
There is still a Quantock Laundry, but in Weston-Super-Mare, where the name seems rather more appropriate.
Houses, King’s Grove, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-14
25 and 27 King’s Grove are part of a long terrace on the west side at the Queen’s Road end of the street. The face a rather grander row of joined semidetached villas on the opposite side of the road.
The view across Brimmington Park towards the three tower blocks of the Tustin Estate on the Old Kent Road. The park was created when a number of terraced houses and small factories were demolished in the 1970s. Perhaps the name was a reference to the rather grander Royal York Crescent in Clifton, Bristol.
Clifton Crescent was built in 1847-51. It was saved from demolition by Southwark Council by local campaigners in 1972-4, when the properties were in a poor condition after years of neglect. It was the fight to save this crescent that led after demolition had begun to the formation of the Peckham Society, a Civic Trust affiliated society which continues to argue the case for conserving what remains of Peckham and making new developments acceptable to residents. The society also had a more militant wing.
Clifton Crescent was an unusually large Victorian development for this area and unlike most other large crescents was built in red brick. Grade II listing in 1974 helped to ensure its survival and in 1977 the facade was restored and the houses converted to flats by the London Borough of Southwark.
My next pictures appear to be taken on Rye Lane, and I can no longer remember whether this was on the same walk or on another a week or two later. But since I was still in Peckham I will continue with them here.
On the west side close to the Peckham High Street end of Rye Lane. The shop has been recently refurbished, but the facade above remains much the same, though the long box which I assume once carried the name of a shop has long been removed.
What She Wants, Rye Lane, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-64
What She Wants at 26 Rye Lane later became Atlantic Clothing, was briefly Solo then around 2014 became FAS Hair & Cosmetics. The upper floor windows have long been bricked up and the first floor of the wall above the shop front graffitied, making the decoration on the frontage difficult to see.
The Halifax is still there at 22-4, its single storey shop, along with that of Vodaphone next door still hiding the considerably more elegant building above it. You can still see the upper floors from the opposite side of the road on the corner with Hanover Park.
Following an evangelical campaign at Peckham Wesleyan Church (Methodist) in 1887 a group of young men began to hold meetings and services in this deprived area of Peckham. They met in the open air, and in various other places including the disused Blue Anchor pub and a cottage in an row know as The Orchard close to here.
In 1893 they moved into Batchelors Hall, but in 1904 the Ragged School Union (later known as the Shaftesbury Society) bought a site in Blue Anchor Lane (now Mission Place) and built this building, which opened in 1906 and is still there, considerably restored.
The Peckham Settlement, Goldsmith Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-52
A couple of the lime trees here have gone, but building work in 2016 has transformed this short row into 44-50 Goldsmith Road, four separate houses, adding three new front doors with steps up to them, more imposing doorways and windows and a fence alongside the pavement – and a price tag around £900,000 each.
This building was a part of The Peckham Settlement, established in 1896 and led by the head mistress of Wycombe Abbey, a girls public school in Buckinghamshire, Miss Frances Dove to alleviate the social problems of the area. It was an innovative project, setting up the first children’s nursery in London and pioneering ‘meals on wheels’ and an unemployment insurance scheme and in 1987 the first government sponsored ‘job club’. It moved to this area in Goldsmith Rd in 1930. A financial crisis in 2012 meant it had to sell the buildings to pay its debts, with a surplus providing investment income to make grants for local charities and community groups.
It was March 1989 before I had time for another walk in London after my walk on 12th February. I was still then teaching full-time and and this kept me busy, and the weather wasn’t always good at the weekend. If it was forecast to pour with rain most of the day I stayed home, and there were some weekends too when the trains were not running and getting to London took too long to be worth doing. But I did manage two walks in march, the first a long wander around from Peckham to New Cross and the second in the City and Shoreditch.
From the metal shutters on these shops you can see that this walk was on a Sunday. I preferred working on Sundays, particularly for busy shopping centres such as Rye Lane as the streets would then be empty with few shops opening. This allowed me to concentrate on the buildings without the distraction of people in the picture or walking in front of my camera.
In the morning the sun was shining on the buildings on the west side of the street and you can see long shadows from the lights projecting in front of ‘Lipstick’. Film of course didn’t have EXIF data but I suspect that ardent meteorological detectives could tell be exactly the time and day from the shadows, but I think it was likely to have been around 10 am. Back then I often caught the first train to London on Sundays, which left a little after 8am, so could be in Peckham after catching a bus perhaps by 9.30. And I will have got off the bus quite close to here, before walking east along Peckham High Street and Queens Road.
My next stop to take a picture was in Lugard Road, where just a few yards to the south of Queens Road I found the premises of Evan Cook offering Export Packaging, Removals and Storage with some interesting girders above their wide gates and linking these to the factory building. I was puzzled by these and could not work out what purpose they served.
This works has since been demolished and replaced by flats, and there is now also Evan Cook Close. From my photograph I thought the business was called Evan Cooke with an ‘e’ and I can’t understand what the final character is. The company, first incorporated in 1903 was dissolved in 2015 but the works had gone long before.
I continued down Lugard Road, turning into Hollydale Road and making my way to Dundas Road where I found these pre-fabs, which I think are LCC temporary housing. In 1963-4 the LCC designed temporary housing together with the Timber Development Association as a temporary solution to the then acute housing problem.
Designed to last 15 years these homes came as two boxes which were craned onto piles of paving slabs and did not need dug foundations. The two boxes were than bolted together. The walls were asbestos covered with plastic and both roof and floor were made from plywood sheets sandwiching polystyrene insulation. They had a hall, living room, two bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom.
Some were still being lived in 50 years later, but these in Dundas Road have long been removed and replaced. I walked along Dundas Road to St Mary’s Road, pausing to take a picture of St Mary Magdalene Church which I have not digitised as I think I took a better picture of this now demolished building on another occasion.
R E Sassoon House, St Mary’s Rd, Belfort Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-65
This block of workers flats were commissioned in memory of amateur jockey Reginald Sassoon, whose mother was a friend of housing reformer Elizabeth Danby who was working with architect E Maxwell Fry and doctors Innes Hope Pearse and George Scott Williamson on the Peckham Experiment in the neighbouring Pioneer Health Centre. Fry was responsible for the building but collaborated with Denby over the interiors.
R E Sassoon House, St Mary’s Rd, Belfort Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-52
The flats, opened in in November 1934, were designed to provide an ultra-modern well equipped living space for families, with 3 three-room flats and one four-roomed flats on each of the five floors. The curtain wall to the plate glass staircase tower was decorated with a glass mural of a horse and rider by Hans Feibusch. The interior was considerably altered in the 1980s when it was taken over by Southwark Borough Council. Surprisingly this block by one of the UK’s most distinguished modernist architects only got its Grade II listing in 1998.
Pioneer Health Centre, St Mary’s Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-53
Doctors George Scott Williamson and Innes Hope Pearse ran the Pioneer Health Centre in Queens Rd, Peckham from 1926-9, signing up 950 local families at 1s (5p) a week and offering various exercise activities, games and workshops and regular medical checkups as well as other medical services. The positive results led them to open a larger purpose-built centre a short distance away in St Mary’s Rd, designed by Sir Owen Williams, Grade II* listed as ‘Southwark Adult Education Institute’.
Pioneer Health Centre, St Mary’s Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-55
The centre was too comprehensive in its approach to fit in with the National Health Service and too expensive to keep going outside the NHS and it closed in 1950. When I took this picture it was a leisure and adult education centre for Southwark Borough Council, who sold it in the 1990s to be converted into luxury flats. But the Peckham Experiment remains a superb example of what a proper national health service could and should provide, with truly holistic approach to keeping the people fit and healthy.
I continued up St Mary’s Road to Queens Road, where the next post on this walk will begin.
I was almost at the end of my walk on 12th February 1989. The previous post on this, Almshouses, Relief Station, Flats and a Viaduct had ended on Copeland Road, and I walked down this turning into Bournemouth Road to take me to Rye Lane.
This brought me out opposite the imposing gateway of the Tower Cinema at 116 Rye Lane, designed by architect H. Courtenay Constantine and opened in 1914. In 1989 this was in a poor condition and had an ugly archway fronting the street at pavement level, which I’m pleased to see has now been removed. This wasn’t a part of the 1914 building and was perhaps from the ‘modernisation’ of its frontage in 1955, the year before the cinema closed in 1956. When built the tower had another tower on top and dominated Rye Lane. Although the frontage was narrow it lead to a large cinema behind. There have been various plans for the redevelopment of the site, but it was sold to the council and the building behind the gateway demolished for a car park, and remains in that use, with the tower empty and used to connect this to Rye Lane.
The window immediately above the archway, obscured in my picture now is a large eye, and the large window in the upper storey is filled by a colourful design with a tree, the sun and birds, while, as the video linked above shows, the car park is a home for a number of wild cats.
This short row of shops is still on the corner of Atwell Road and Rye Lane, though the shops have changed hands and the buildings look more run down and decidedly less attractive with new windows – the ‘Rising Sun’ has gone – and large ‘Chicken Cottage’ signs part cover and replace those of Just 4 U Continental Greengrocers. During the week the pedestrian area of Atwell Road now has various market stalls.
Back in 1989 the area was clearly a cosmopolitan one – as well as the continental (which?) greengrocers the next shop was a Oriental Supermarket (I think the name is Vietnamese) followed by Tuan Ladies Wear. The one business that remains is R Woodfall, Opticians, its sign at extreme right, still at 183, though more recently D Woodfall, proudly “serving Peckham since 1922.”
This was the last picture taken in Peckham on my walk, but I took a few more on the Blackfriars Road on my way home.
Sons of Temperance Friendly Society, Blackfriars Rd, Southwark, 1989 89-2f-11
So much time has passed that I’m not sure whether my visit to this part of Southwark was intentional or if I simply got on the wrong bus and decided after I realised that it would take me close enough to walk to Waterloo and I found a few things to photograph on my way. I think I saw this building from the top of the bus, rang the bell and jumped off to photograph it.
The Sons of Temperance Friendly Society building at 176, Blackfriars Road was to let in 1989 when I made this picture. Designed by A C Russell and built in 1909-10 it was only listed in 2013 after it had been sold. It was built on a grand scale in a deliberately similar style to some public houses and banks of the era and perhaps offered something of a similar experience but without the alcohol. Owned by the Sons of Temperance until 2011 it then became an architects offices.
The Sons of Temperance, according to Wikipedia “was and is a brotherhood of men who promoted the temperance movement and mutual support. The group was founded in 1842 in New York City” and it came to the UK in 1849 gaining a charter from the US parent organisation in 1855. From 1866 women were allowed to join as full members. As well as social activities it provided support for sick members and burial grants at a time when there was no welfare state. Like most similar organisations it had “secret rituals, signs, passwords, hand grips and regalia“, though these were modernised in 2000. “There were 135,742 UK members in 1926” but in 2012 it stopped providing life insurance and saving plans for its members and the UK society was dissolved in 2019.
On the opposite side of the street close to the junction with The Cut is this Grade II listed late 18th century house with a ground floor shop, in 1989 occupied by a builder and contractor, Gordon North. The decoration with herms and urns is probably 19th century, and a board above the doorway read ‘Established 1839‘.
According to British History Online, originally published in the Survey of London in 1950 “No. 74 was occupied by Charles Lines, coachbuilder, from 1814 to 1851 and by the terra cotta works of Mark Henry Blanchard & Co., from 1853–80. The figures on either side of the doorway were probably installed during this period. Since 1881 John Hoare & Son, builders, have been the occupiers.” So perhaps John Hoare had established his business on another site in 1839.
By the time I next photographed it, three years later, the builders name had gone. Later the sign above the entrance went and the site is now a restaurant.
This was the last time in February I was able to go on a walk taking photographs, but in March I returned to Peckham for another walk – which I will post about later.
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, 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.
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
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
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
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
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.
From Blenheim Grove I turned into Choumert Grove. George Choumert (1746-1831) was a Frenchman from Lorraine, a tanner who married into a wealthy Bermondsey family. When he became a British citizen in 1796 he probably didn’t have to pass a silly exam asking questions that few British people could answer. People could just come and live and work here as foreigners but it isn’t too clear that there was any real way for foreigners to become British back then, though they could become a British subject by a process known as denization, which granted them all the rights of citizens except political rights.
Choumert Grove, Choumert Road and Choumert Square are all named after him. Before his wife’s death he was responsible in 1815-1822 for building part of Rye Lane and Holly Grove, then called George Street. When Choumert’s wealthy wife died in 1825, he inherited her estates which gave him a very healthy income.
The grandly named Choumert Square is a later development, a narrow lane with no vehicular access, infill in the extensive back garden of a house in Rye Lane, but accessed from Choumert Grove. IdealHome ran an interesting piece on one of the small one-bed houses in it in 2018 under the headline Would you be brave enough to buy this London house of horrors for £525,000?
I turned left into Choumert Road to photograph Girdler’s Almshouses, also known as Palyn’s Almshouses. The Grade II listing begins “Row of 5 almshouses. 1852. By Woodthorpe.” The 2018 Trustees Report of the THE WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF GIRDLERS BEESTON’S, ANDREWES’ AND PALYN’S CHARITY informs us “Palyn’s Almshouses were built in 1980 to replace six almshouses built in 1852 in Montpelier Road, now known as Choumert Road, Peckham, which themselves replaced the original six almshouses founded in 1609 in Pesthouse Row, St Luke’s, Finsbury, as a result of a bequest from George Palyn, Citizen and Girdler.“
Girdlers were makers of belts and girdles and the Worshipful Company of Girdlers were granted the right to regulate trade in these items in the City of London in 1327 – and could seize and destroy any such items that did not meet their craft standards. Palyn was a Master of the guild and his will left money for the Finsbury almshouses.
I walked up Choumert Road to Rye Lane turning south down it. The rather impressive frontage of No 213, previously Bonanza stores was the site of an “EXCITING NEW DEVELOPMENT’ retaining the frontage but with an arcade of 10 shops.
Later it became the London Seafood Superstore and was renamed LOBO House. More recently it has again been redeveloped, along with the fish factory behind.
Co-operative House proudly had its name across the top of the building, along with the dates 1868 and 1932. 1868 was the date when 20 workers at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich formed the Royal Arsenal Supply Association which a few years later became the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society with branches across south-east London, including this large store in Peckham, presumably built in 1932, though replacing an older store on the site.
Co-operative societies had stores like this across the whole country, and they played an important part in getting decent products including foodstuffs to working people. We shopped at the Co-op when I was a child and my mother’s six-digit Co-op number which we had to recite at the till is still deeply etched in my memory. Every year we got a ‘divi’ based on the amount we had spent, and I think it paid for us to have a few treats and presents at Christmas which our family could not otherwise have afforded.
There is now a new block here, with ground floor shops and flats above and it carries three large dates, 1862, 1932 and 2008.
Sternhall Lane is a turning off Peckham Rye opposite the north end of Co-operative House. Timber yards like this were common in 1989, but most like this one have since been redeveloped. About all that is left from this picture is the lamp post. Buying timber now usually means driving to the outskirts rather than finding it in town centres. The wall sign COOPER’S TIMBER AND intrigued me slightly though I think the stacked timber might only be obscuring the letters D.I.Y which are on the boards on the front of the premises. Appropriately this range of buildings appeared to me to have something of a D.I.Y quality.
Nigel Rd also leads off Rye Lane just a few yards to the south of Sternhall Lane. The buildings on the opposite side of Rye Lan in the centre of this picture are still there, but at the left of the row is the end of the Co-op buildings replaced in 2008. The buildings on the corner of Rye Lane at left are still there, but there is no longer a careers office out of picture whose notice is shown here.
The road layout has changed a little and the triangle in the foreground with its keep left signs, one toppled presumably by a driver who failed to obey has gone. It was hard to see what point it had back in 1989, opposite an un-named street leading to a block of council flats, built in the early 1950s.
Grove Park changes to Chadwick Road on a bridge across the railway which separates Camberwell from Peckham and continues on, with a considerably less wealthy vibe, one side with long terraces of two-storey two bed working-class houses which now sell for around £900,000.
The north side was more varied, with an industrial estate but nothing attracted my photographic interest until this printers and its multiple signs on the corner with Bellenden Road. The sign on the wall is still there but the rest have gone and the ground floor frontage on Bellenden Road looks very different.
The building is now home to MOCA London, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Londonfounded in 1994 as a project based museum which opened a project space here in the Bellenden Renewal Area in 2004.
Front Garden, Ady’s Rd, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2b-33
I turned south down Bellenden Road, made a couple of pictures on Maxtead Road and then went down Oglander Road and into Adys Road where I found this front garden. I couldn’t resist the two donkeys and the gnome in a small car in front of those net curtains. You can see the decorations by the windows of these late Victorian houses which also have fairly impressive rusticated doorways paired together down the street.
Back on Oglander Road a little south of Adys Road was Padwick’s Crash Repairs at the end of a terrace of small houses. Those beyond the garage further down the street are larger and semi-detached. I particularly liked the faces on the two archways and the truncation of both archways, the decorage element at each end of the shopfront suggesting it might have been originally built like this rather than a later addition.
Coach entrances like this were common to many businesses in the days of horse-drawn vehicles – and this certainly predates the era of motor transport. This was once a diary and had large associated buildings in a yard behind. The ‘Old Diary’ was demolished in 2020 and I think is being rebuilt as a new gateway to a mews development behind.
Oglander Rd, Maxted Rd, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2b-35
The junction of Oglander Road with Maxtted Road, with Wingfield Street more or less opposite, and shops on the street corners. There is still a shop on the other corner of Oglander Road but this Auto Electrics and the ‘Bottle & Cork’ are now residential.
I went up Maxted Rd to Bellenden Rd where I photographed this chapel on the corner of Danby St. Previously this was Hanover Chapel, but was bought by the Pentecostal Faith Chapel in 1978 in a “grossly dilapidated condition, which took nearly a year to renovate.”
The church was built as a United Methodist Free Church and opened in 1885, eight years after its memorial stones had been laid. It had been planned with a spire which was never built. It was sold in 1920 to Hanover Chapel, the oldest non-conformist worshipping community in Peckham, Congregationalists with a history going back to 1657 when the dispossessed Vicar of St Giles, Camberwell the Rev. John Maynard founded a chapel or meeting House in Meeting House Lane.
Blenheim Grove, Rye Lane, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2b-23
I continue up Bellenden Road to Blenheim Grove, walking down this almost to Rye Lane where I photographed the rather fine building at 133 housing Murrays Meat Market and Ralph Haeems & Co Solicitors. Considerable renovation of this building, the entrance to Copeland Park, took place around 2018-9 and it is now ‘MARKET PECKHAM’, whose developer responded to public pressure to drop plans to turn it into luxury flats.
In earlier years from 1908 to 1915 this was the Electric Theatre – and after I took this picture the first floor became home to The Redeemed Christian Church of God-House of Praise.
Ralph Haeems, Blenheim Grove, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2b-24
I walked back down Blrenheim Grove, and made this picture of another building of Ralph Haeems & Co Solicitors at No 9. This early 19th century villa was Grade II listed in 1998 and was acquired by Southwark Council for use as offices in 2002. They ceased to use it in 2010 after the council acquired its new offices in Tooley St in 2007 and the council decided to sell it in 2011.
The building is now two residential properties, 9 and 91/2 Blenheim Grove.
My account of the walk in Peckham in 1989 will continue in a later post.
I Still Quite Like Peckham. Every time I visit Peckham I’m impressed by the vibrancy of Rye Lane, though perhaps if I lived there I might sometimes want to get away from the music, both live and recorded that assailed me from almost every street corner and some places between when I walked down to the Peckham Rye Station a few Saturdays ago.
I didn’t take any photographs then – I was hurrying to catch a train, nor on my previous visit a few weeks earlier on my way to Nunhead Cemetery, but I have on some previous occasions, particularly on Saturday 11 Aug, 2007 when things were rather different and the ‘I love Peckham’ festival was in full swing. Here’s the piece I wrote about this on My London Diary and just a few of the pictures I also posted – you can see many more on the web site. The links I’ve left in the piece are all to other posts on that site, and I’ve kept the lower case only style I then used, but have corrected the odd typo.
I Love Peckham
Peckham, Saturday 11 Aug, 2007
‘i love peckham’ is a festival backed by southwark council and based around the centre of peckham. although peckham has had a bad press – particularly over the murder of young damilola taylor in november 2000, and more recent violence on the streets, many parts of it are pleasant streets and vibrant shopping areas. recent investment – particularly since the murder – has led to a number of improvements.
one of the more succesful regeneration projects has been in the bellenden road area which is home to a number of artists including tom phillips and antony gormley, both of whom have been involved in brightening up the streets.
but there are still estates with corners that can hide dangers, and times when its wise to cross the road to avoid the dealers in their cars. it’s an area where it pays to be streetwise.
as well as the activities in the square by the library and at the top of rye lane i photographed on saturday there were also other events, including a series of shop window displays.
Like the other folks carrying built-in cameras on their latest mobile phones i did photograph some of these, but often felt that some of the other windows which had their normal displays were more interesting. but then i’ve always had an interest in shop windows, which feature strongly in projects such as ‘ideal café, cool blondes and paradise.
Kensal Green, 1988 from Ideal Café, Cool Blondes & Paradise
on the main stage by peckham library were performances by indian musicians, a samba group and some young dancers from peckham. around the square were a number of sofas specially decorated for the occasion, many of which were greatly appreciated.
this was the third annual i love peckham festival, but the previous ones had been blighted by british weather; today the sun shone on us at least most of the time, and the beach at times looked almost tropical.
The Human Rights Jukebox at Camberwell Green, 16 June 2007
i stopped off on the way home at the south london gallery, where the installation of isa suarez‘s human rights jukebox was coming to an end. i was pleased i’d stopped by to watch the video of the event and to have a beer and talk to a few of those involved with the project, including isa herself. i still find it mildly amusing to see myself on film, and there were glimpses of me (mainly my back) taking pictures, walking in the march, generally scurrying around and rather too lengthy a shot as i munched on a wholemeal sandwich.
despite these few moments, it was interesting to see the event again and from a different viewpoint. i was sorry i had to rush off to be home with friends. more pictures
