Posts Tagged ‘shop window’

Coldharbour, Atlantic & Brixton Rd – 1989

Sunday, September 10th, 2023

Coldharbour, Atlantic & Brixton Rd: My walk which began in Clapham on Sunday 4th June 1989 continues in Brixton. It began with Light & Life, Pinter and Stockwell Breweries and the previous post was Bon Marche, Police, Acre Lane and Tate.

Shops, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-45
Shops, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-45

After taking a near-identical image of Electric Avenue to that I posted earlier I moved on to Coldharbour Lane. Rather to my surprise this row of shops is still there, close to the corner with Electric Lane on the south side of the road.

Clifton Mansions, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-46
Clifton Mansions, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-46

Clifton Mansions, 22 flats at 429 Coldharbour Lane were built set back from the road in 1896 to house workers at the nearby Brixton Theatre, now the Ritzy Cinema and are still reached by a archway between shops at 427 and 431.

They attracted a wide range of squatters in the 1990s, including the Pogues and Jeremy Dellar. The flats were refurbished in 2012. Flats there can now be rented for around £2,500 a month.

Matlock House, Rushcroft Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-32
Matlock House, Rushcroft Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-32

Matlock House looks in rather better condition now and the blocked doorway covered with fly-posting has now been restored. I think the date on the tile above that doorway is 1892. These properties were refurbished in 2015-6 after some 75 squatters living in Rushcroft Road were forcefully evicted in July 2013. You can read about the eviction and see photographs on Brixton Buzz.

Lambeth Council had owned the flats since around 1975 when they had bought them for the constuction of the Innner London Motorway Box, plans for which fortunately were abandoned, as it would have been disastrous for Brixton. Like Clifton Mansions these flats had been built to house artists and technicians from Brixton’s theatre and music halls. The council abandoned the flats and left them to rot, with squatters moving in.

One resident was able to claim “ownership in the House of Lords under the so-called ‘twelve year rule.’ Five Law Lords threw up their hands in exasperation, took a flat away from Lambeth Council and gave it to him, gratis, after more than a decade of Council mismanagement, incompetence, irresponsibility and neglect.”

The squatters formed a neighbourhood association to defend the flats against sale by the council to property developers in 2002. But slowly, despite great public support for the residents the council pressed ahead, destroying a successful community and hugely accelerating the gentrification of Brixton. Flats here are now for sale at around £750,000.

Continental Foods, Coldharbout Lane, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-33
Continental Foods, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-33

Home in 1989 by Continental Foods, this Grade II listed building at 411-417 Coldharbour Lane, was built around 1914 to the designs of of T R Somerford as one of the chain of Temperance Billiard Halls. The company targeted south London in particular because many new pubs were built here around the end of the 19th century.

Since I made the photograph, there have been some changes with the ground floor now divided into a number of shops, including a community police station. Lambeth Council granted planning permission for it to be turned into a hotel in the 1990s, and the rest of the building around 2005 became a hostel with the name London Hotel, but has since been refurbished as flats named Billiard Lodge.

Shops, Atlantic Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-34
Shops, Atlantic Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-34

This row of shops with housing above is between Kellett Road and Saltoun Road on Atlantic Road and includes the Frontline Off Licence. The area around the north end of Railton Road which continues Atlantic Road south of here gained that name after the 1981 clashes with police which became known as the Brixton Uprising or Brixton Riots started here.

Vote Rudy Naryan, Shop Window, Brixton Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-36
Vote Rudy Naryan, Shop Window, Brixton Rd, Brixton, Lambeth, 1989 89-6a-36

Rudra (Rudy) Narayan (1938 – 28 1998) was a barrister and civil rights activist who migrated to Britain in the 1953 from Guyana, spending seven years in the British Army before studying at Lincoln’s Inn to become a barrister.

A blue plaque now marks the building at 413 Brixton Road where he had a law practice from 1987-94. Erected by the Nubian Jak Community Trust and the Society of Black Lawyers it remembers him as ‘BARRISTER, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTION, COMMUNITY CHAMPION AND “VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS’. A heavy drinker who was thrown out of chambers for assaulting his head of chambers, he died of cirrhosis of the liver in Kings College Hospital in 1998 following a lengthy battle with alcoholism.

In 1989 Narayan who had been a Labour councillor and once been selected as Labour candidate for Birmingham Handsworth, but then deselected for allegedly anti-Semitic remarks in his books stood as a candidate in the Vauxhall by-election arguing that a largely black area should have a black MP. His campaign failed to attract much support and Labour’s Kate Hoey was elected.

The plaque is above the San Marino coffee shop on the corner with Brixton Station Road. From there I returned to the area around Ferndale Road where a further post will continue this walk.

Hanover, Belgrave, Chapel, Shops, Taxis

Sunday, June 18th, 2023

Hanover, Belgrave, Chapel, Shops, Taxis: Two days after my previous walk, on Sunday 6th May 1989 I was back on the streets with my cameras, this time getting off the bus at Oval station in Kennington.

Hanover Arms, House, Hanover Gardens, Kennington Park Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-64
Hanover Arms, House, Hanover Gardens, Kennington Park Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-64

A few yards down Kennington Park Road from the Oval Station is Hanover Gardens, and on the corner the Hanover Arms. The pub has been here at least since the 1850s and is still open, getting rather more custom when there is cricket at the Oval a short walk away. Its Grade II listing calls the house ‘Early-mid C19’ but describes the ground floor pub as early C20. I’ve never been inside, but used to walk past it occasionally when a friend had a flat in Hanover Gardens in the 1970s.

The six monarchs of Britain from George I in 1714 to Victoria were known as Hanoverians, but after Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha they took over his family designation, changing the name to Windsor in 1917.

My interest was more in the splendid house of the same period on the opposite corner, 324 Kennington Park Rd. I don’t think this is listed, though much of Hanover Gardens is.

Hanover Arms, Belgrave Hospital for Children, Kennington Park Rd, Clapham Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-52
Hanover Arms, Belgrave Hospital for Children, Kennington Park Rd, Clapham Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-52

Turning around from almost the same spot I made a photograph of the pub sign with its coat of arms and beyond, on the opposite side of the road, the fine Grade II* listed Belgrave Hospital for Children.

This voluntary hospital was founded in 1886 in Pimlico, and moved to this building in 1903, though the building, begun in 1899 was only completed in 1926. Part of the money for its building came in a donation by music hall star Dan Leno of £625 made after his last show and a few days before his death in 1904.

Belgrave Hospital for Children, Clapham Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-53
Belgrave Hospital for Children, Clapham Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-53

The building is in red brick by Henry Percy Adams and Charles Holden and bears some resemblance to a Scottish castle. Its foundation stone was laid by the oddly named Princess Henry of Battenberg in June 1900. It became part of Kings College hospital on formation of the NHS in 1948 and closed in 1985. Left empty it was squatted for some time and then converted to expensive flats in the 1990s.

The building was designed in a roughly cruciform plan with separate ward wings that could be isolated in case of an outbreak of a highly infections disease.

Belgrave Hospital for Children, Clapham Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-54
Belgrave Hospital for Children, Clapham Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-54

Kennington Park Road changes its name to Clapham Road at the junction just north of the hospital, something which has often confused me. The two previous pictures were taken from Kennington Park Road, but this was definitely made on Clapham Road.

The lettering in the sign ‘THE BELGRAVE HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN SUPPORTED BY VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS’ has a playful Arts & Crafts font, very much of the time the building was commenced and perhaps more suitable for a children’s hospital than the more stern architecture

Claylands Road Chapel, Claylands Road, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-55
Claylands Road Chapel, Claylands Road, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-55

Claylands was a mansion built in the area of marshy land often flooded by the River Effra aournd 1800 by brick merchant John Fentiman who drained the land around. In 1836 he let his son, also John Fentiman, erect this excellent example of a Congregational Chapel on the corner of Claylands Raod and Claylands Place.

It prospered for some years and in 1899 a Sunday School was built behind it. Both went out of use, probably in the 1930s and were being used to store building materials when it was bought in the late 1960 by a firm of architect who restore it to use as their offices, renaming it ‘Old Church Court’.

Shop Window, Brixton Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-42
Shop Window, Brixton Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-42

I walked though from Clapham Rd to Brixton Road along Handforth Road, taking this picture of a shop window on Brixton Road. I was attracted by the clutter of tools and other objects, but also by two posters in the window.

One showed a dynamic young woman and was advertising dance workouts, but the other had the stark word ‘MURDER’, a poster from the Metropolitan Police asking for assistance in a recent murder outside a public house.

Works, Kennington Park Estate, Cranmer Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-43
Works, Kennington Park Estate, Cranmer Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-43

This 1906 factory building on the north side of Cranmer Road has since been converted as part of Kennington Park Business Centre with Salisbury House, Norfolk House, Worcester House and Winchester House.

The buildings on the northern part of this site were once the garage for London’s first motor taxi fleet, the General Cab Company Ltd, with 1,500 taxis based here, and I think these buildilngs may have been workshops for the company. Some time in the 1990s I took a very small part in the industrial archaeology recording of this site, but can’t find the details.

Shops, Brixton Rd,  Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-43
Shops, Brixton Rd, Kennington, Lambeth, 1989 89-5c-43

From the corner of Cranmer Road I made this picture of the terrace of shops at 26-36 on the west side of Brixton Road. The River Effra once ran along the centre of the road here – and possibly still does in a sewer.

The central shops seem to have been built first first with those on both ends being added with a different design later. The houses at 22-4, beyond the shops, are Grade II listed.

My walk will continue along Brixton Rd in a later post.


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Peckham Rye to Goose Green – 1989

Sunday, December 18th, 2022

More from my walk in south London on Sunday 5th February 1989. The previous post was Around Rye Lane Peckham 1989.

Antiques, Lock, Peckham Rye, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2c-62
Antiques, Lock, Peckham Rye, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2c-62

There is still a doorway here between 56 and 58 Peckham Rye, but the lock above it has gone and it now has a sign for Ezel Court at 56 A and B and 58 A and B. The Antique shop was for some years Delta Tavern, an Arfican Restaurant, then a café called Pedler and most recently a bar and restaurant Good Neighbour. The building building to the right of the doorway is also now a bar.

At top left of my picture who just get a glimpse of the rather finely decorated upper storeys of the two late Victorian buildings at 58 and 60, though for some reason I didn’t bother to cross the road to photograph these.

Shop Window, Peckham Rye, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2c-64
Shop Window, Peckham Rye, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2c-64

This window was just a few doors further down at No 64 and I liked the symmetry of its display, though broken by the two identical photographs of a woman looking in the same direction. I don’t think I was at all clear as to what was behind this window – or what the woman in her strongly patterned dress and gloves was meant to represent. And at the centre of the window display is a thick book on a table, a Thesaurus.

The attractive grille above the door is no longer there, and was probably salvaged and sold when the shopfront was updated. In more recent years this has been occupied by an estate agent, a pizza takeaway and beauty salons.

In the reflection you can see the extensive premises of G Austin & Sons Ltd offering secondhand furniture and antiques, now I think replaced by a three-storey block of flats.

Man, Regency Carriage Company, Peckham Rye, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2c-65
Man, Regency Carriage Company, Peckham Rye, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2c-65

I was always happy to photograph people who saw me taking pictures and wanted to have their picture made, though I very seldom took down details so I could give them pictures. So this young man, posing for me in 1989 will not have seen this picture, unless he has visited the page on Flickr only since January 2021 – it has never been published elsewhere.

The Regency Carriage Company has long gone from this site, though the building remains, rather altered. It was for some time an estate agents but has for around ten years been Rye Cars. But the yard in which the cars for sale were neatly aligned is now covered by flats.

St John the Evangelist, East Dulwich Road, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2c-66
St John the Evangelist, East Dulwich Road, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2c-66

St John the Evangelist was built in 1865 to the designs of local architect Charles Bailey, but was badly bombed in 1940. Reconstruction began in 1947, incorporating the remaining apse and tower which dominate my picture and was completed in 1951.

House, East Dulwich Road, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2c-52
House, East Dulwich Road, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2c-52

126 East Dulwich Road faces the west end of Goose Green on the corner of Grove Vale and I liked the uncompromising stare of the head above its simple but impressive doorway.

Houses, East Dulwich Road, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2c-53
Houses, East Dulwich Road, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2c-53

A pair of doorways with heads, with a simiilar design and I think on the same row of houses facing Goose Green as the previous image.

Goose Green School, Grove Vale, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2c-54
Goose Green School, Grove Vale, East Dulwich, Southwark, 1989 89-2c-54

I walked a few yards north up Grove Vale to photograph this fine Grade II listed example of a school built as Grove Vale School for the School Board for London in 1900 to the Baroque Revival designs of T J Bailey

I turned around here and walked down to Lordship Lane where my next post on this walk will begin.


My account of this walk from 5th February 1989 began with A Pub, Ghost Sign, Shops And The Sally Ann.


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A Mixed Day: 23 Nov 2019

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021

Brixton

Bon Marché, the first purpose-built department store in the UK closed in 1975

I can’t remember why I went to Brixton on Saturday morning two years ago, though there must have been some reason. My events diary has nothing relevant in it and neither the text or pictures in My London diary contain any clues as to why I should have decided to take a walk up Brixton Road. I suspect I may have had a tip-off about something which was supposed to be taking place outside Brixton Police Station which turned out to be inaccurate.

It isn’t unusual to arrive at the time and place I had been told something would happen to find I am the only person there. It’s rather better for those things with an events page on Facebook which tells you how many people have said they will be going, though these are often wildly inaccurate. After walking up and down the road I left for central London.

Carnaby Street Show

Three of my Notting Hill pictures in a Carnaby St shop window

I’m not quite clear either about my next movements, as I seem to have taken the tube to Charing Cross and looked for another event in Trafalgar Square, where again I clearly didn’t find what I was looking for and only made two pictures. I was on my way to Carnaby Street where I wanted to see how three of my pictures were being used in ‘A retrospective on the musical footprint of an iconic sneaker‘ in a window display and screens inside the shop.

Stand With Hong Kong

After a brief look at the shopfront in Carnaby Street I hurried down to Parliament Square where protesters were gathering for a march to Downing St calling on the Prime Minister to act over China’s breaches of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. They called attention to Hong Kong’s humanitarian crisis, widespread injustices and erosion of autonomy and called for the Hong Kong protesters 5 demands to be met.

Some carried yellow posters stating these demands: complete withdrawal of the Extradition Bill; a retraction of characterising the protests as riots; withdrawal of prosecutions against protesters; an independent investigation into police brutality; the implementation of Dual Universal Suffrage.

Unfortunately even if Boris Johnson could be persuaded to lift a finger it would not attract the slightest notice from the Chinese authorities.

March Against Fur 2019

A short walk took me to Leicester Square, where several hundred were gathering for the annual march against fur, a tour of the West End and stores selling fur products, calling for an end not just to using fur in clothing but against all exploitation of animals of all species, whether for meat, dairy, wool, leather or other products.

Using fur in clothing has a very long history, but it is a practice that should now be in the past. We now have so many alternatives and there is abundant evidence of barbaric cruelty in the trapping and farming of animals for their fur. Most in the fashion industry and most shops have been persuaded by various campaigns over the years to abandon fur, but too many still sell clothes with fur trims or use animal skins or down fillings. There are long-running campaigns against stores such as Canada Goose.


More pictures and details in My London Diary

March Against Fur 2019
Carnaby Street Show
Stand With Hong Kong
Brixton


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Another Chelsea Walk – 1988

Monday, October 4th, 2021

Church Of The Ñazarene, Grant Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-5j-54-positive_2400
Church Of The Ñazarene, Grant Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-5j-54

I returned for another walk in Chelsea, taking the train to Clapham Junction and taking a few pictures on my short walk to the bus stop of the Church Of The Ñazarene close to the north entrance to the station on Grant Road. The church, a twelve-sided building by Green Lloyd Adams was built in 1970 on the edge of the Winstanley Estate, developed by Battersea Council in the 1960s. The lettering on the ramp ‘JESUS SAID I AM THE WAY’ is designed for maximum size rather than typographical nicety.

Currently extensive building work is being carried out to considerably extend the church, though its future may be threatened if Crossrail 2 goes ahead. Of the two pictures I made I preferred a view across the small area with seats to a cleaner architectural view also included in the album.

Falcon Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-5j-55-positive_2400
Falcon Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1988 88-5j-55

On the bus I took advantage of an unusually clean front window on the upper deck to take a photograph of Falcon Road with the Queen Victoria pub. Also apparently known as ‘Spikey Hedghog’ the pub which had been there since the 1860s closed permanently in 1999 and was demolished to build the 8 flats of St Luke’s Court.

The picture also includes a falcon – both image and text on the side of a lorry. Elsewhere you can read a short post Falcon Road – a Memory of Battersea by someone who grew up living in the pub which gives an idea what the area was like, probably in the 1950s.

Beaufort St, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5j-45-positive_2400
Beaufort St, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5j-45

I got off the bus in Beaufort St in Chelsea and photographed this doorway there before walking along Cheyne Walk. Although the door is on Beaufort St, this is Belle Vue Lodge with the address 91 Cheyne Walk. It gets a lengthy mention in the Survey of London, first published in 1913 which suggests it dates from before 1771. It states that in 1829 it was occupied by “Luke Thomas Flood, who was a great benefactor to the parish. He was evidently a friend of the historian, for he addressed some lines to him, which conclude with the halting line ‘Sweet Chelsea shall ever live in thee.’ Flood Street was named after him, and his benefactions are celebrated at the parish church by a service on January 13th,—’Flood’s Day.'”

Houseboats, River Thames, Chelsea Embankment, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5j-32-positive_2400
Houseboats, River Thames, Chelsea Embankment, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5j-32

I walked across Cheyne Walk to make a photograph over the roofs of houseboats at the moorings, looking towards Chelsea Harbour and at left the Rank Hovis flour mills at Battersea and the Battersea Rail bridge. Then I think only used by goods trains this now carries frequent services of the London Overground as well as Thameslink trains.

Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5j-33-positive_2400
Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5j-33

I took a picture of houses in Cheyne Row. That at left is No 104 with two blue plaques, for the artist Walter Greaves (1846-1930) and Anglo-French ‘Poet, essayist and historian’ Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) whose poem Jim (who ran away from his Nurse and was eaten by a Lion) ends with the famous lines:
‘And always keep ahold of nurse
For fear of finding something worse.’

No 104 doesn’t get a mention in the Survey of London, but No 100 at right of the picture is part of Lindsey House which it suggests was “rebuilt much in its present external form by the third Earl of Lindsey in 1674” but then divided into separate houses as 95-100 around 1775. It gets a very long entry.

Beaufort St, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5j-22-positive_2400
Beaufort St, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5j-22

I walked back up Beaufort St, passing a long row of frontages with identical garden ornaments which I think is Beaufort Mansions, though the gardens now have hedges. I think these mansion flats probably date from around 1890.

Shop window, Kings Rd, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5j-23-positive_2400
Shop window, Kings Rd, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-5j-23

I was on my way to take a few more photographs on the King’s Road, including a several shop interiors. I think the name of the shop is on the wall at left, part hidden, Pineapple.

More pictures from this walk in a later post.


Click on any of the images above to go to a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos from where you can browse other images in the album.


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Kings Road & Chelsea Common 1988

Thursday, August 19th, 2021

Anderson St, Kings Road, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-21-positive_2400
Anderson St, Kings Road, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-21

It was the eye on the billboard that particulalry caught my attention on the corner of this long block of rather distressed looking shops and accomodation on the Kings Road, though I now have no idea what it was advertising and rather doubt if I did then. The long terrace has been considerably smartened now, with both advertising hoardings gone and the building has a smooth unblemised finish.

Royal Ave, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-22-positive_2400
Royal Ave, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-22

Royal Avenue was first laid out as a part of a scheme connecting the Royal Hospital Chelsea with Kensington Palace which was apparently approved by Sir Christopher Wren in 1681, but only ever got as far as the King’s Road. At first it was planted with two rows of horse chestnut trees and grass and was known as Chestnut Walk, then it got white ladder stiles over the walls at each ends and became known as White Stiles. The terraces on each side date from around 1840 and are Grade II listed. The chestnuts were replaced by lime and plane trees and the grass by gravel around the same time, and it was renamed Royal Avenue in 1875. In 1970 the road access to King’s Road was replaced by a broad area of pavement. It still looks much the same as when I made this picture in 1988.

Kings Road, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-23-positive_2400
Kings Road, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-23

Another view of the King’s Road that is relatively unchanged, although there is now a florists stall which would have obscured this view. Strangely the council have replaces the plain but elegant bollards here with rather more ornate versions which seem rather less in keeping with the elegant white stucco architecture of Wellington Square, behind me as I made this image. The square was developed around the time of the death of the Duke of Wellington in 1852 and was named for him.

The Pheasantry, Kings Road, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-13-positive_2400
The Pheasantry, Kings Road, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-13

The Pheasantry got its name from Samuel Baker who bred new breeds of pheasants and other species there in the nineteenth century, though the present building is thought largely to have been built and embellished after the building was bought in 1880 by Amédée Joubert & Son, upholsterers and sellers of furniture, tapestry and carpets. In the early 20th century it also housed artists and a ballet school, and from 1932 when Felix Joubert retired the basement became a bohemian restaurant and drinking club with a host of famous actors and artists among its patrons. The club closed in 1966, the basement becoming a nightclub and the rest of the building flats. Now it houses a branch of Pizza Express and a cabaret club. Wikipedia has more.

The Pheasantry, Kings Road, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-24-positive_2400
The Pheasantry, Kings Road, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-24

The listing text describes this as “Central entrance with split segmental pediment supported by 2 male caryatids.”

Shop window, Elystan St, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-33-positive_2400
Shop window, Elystan St, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-33

Elystan Street runs from the miniscule remains of Chelsea Common and was originally called College St. Here in 1913 the William Sutton Trust built 14 red-brick blocks of model dwellings, designed by E C P Monson, with 674 dwellings for around 2,000 working-class residents of Chelsea. Another large estate was also begun close to this in 1913 by the Samuel Lewis Housing Trust, with eight blocks of model dwellings completed after the First World War to house 1,390 people. (British History Online.)

Elystan St, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-35-positive_2400
Elystan St, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-35

Elystan St is better known now as the name adopted by a restaurant at No 43 with a Michelin star.

Monkeys, Restaurant, Cale St, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-36-positive_2400
Monkeys, Restaurant, Cale St, Chelsea, Kensington and Chelsea, 1988 88-5a-36

Monkeys in Cale St, also leading from the residual Chelsea Common, a small triangle of grass in a road junction looks more my kind of restaurant. It faces that triangle and still looks very similar, but now claims to be “London’s best Neapolitan pizzeria”.

Click on any of the pictures to see a larger version and to browse other images in my album 1988 London Photos.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.


More West End 1987

Tuesday, September 8th, 2020
Dover St, Mayfair, Westminster, 1987 87-5l-35-positive_2400

I can offer little explanation for this rather sad looking bust, odd cup and plates which my contact sheet says I photographed in Dover St. I think the odd cup in the foreground is actually an extremely naff clock, with the lower snake’s head pointing to the hour and the upper head to a disk showing minutes. In the unlikely event it was working I took this picture at around 11.58. What it lacks is a rod coming out of the top with an arm holding a small bird or fly whizzing around for the seconds.

I guess the guy in the background could be Titus or Vespasian; most of the other Emperors had fancier hair, at least in their busts. This one looks around life-size and could well be the sculptor’s grandfather but more likely a copy of an older figure. From the number of similar busts around I have a picture of circles of student sculptors around a bust in a gallery at perhaps the V&A, each chipping away at a block of marble as an exam piece. Whoever did this one would have deserved a decent grade.

Berkeley St, Mayfair, Westminster, 1987 87-5l-56-positive_2400

More sculptures with two young stone ladies pretending to hold up a porch in Berkeley St. It looks a rather boring job. But although both seem to be scratching their heads they don’t appear to be putting a great deal of effort into it.

Ukrainian RC Cathedral, Duke St, Mayfair, Westminster, 1987 87-5m-24-positive_2400

Whenever I see this building it amazes me that this gaudy and extravagant edifice was built as a Congregational Church, the King’s Weighouse Church, built in 1889-91 to the designs of Alfred Waterhouse, better known for his Natural History Museum in South Kensington. Congregationalists are Puritans, tracing their heritage back to the Brownists and the London Underground Church of the 1560s. Rejecting the ecclesiastical trappings at the centre of the Anglican Church – cathedrals, bishops, vestments, formal liturgies, priests, the sign of the cross and more – they espoused a simple austere faith based on the priesthood of all believers.

Of course over the years there was some back-tracking. But most Congregational church buildings remained suitable austere, often with at least a hint of the Classical – and some did it very finely but without great ornament. Sadly their practices deteriorated to the extent of allowing church choirs, though these consisted of adult members who considered they could sing, and organs. But as someone raised in the tradition (though no longer involved) I still fine the ornate nature of this building surprising.

Perhaps it was becuase the King’s Weighouse came from an older – and Royal tradition, tracing its ancestry back to Queen Matilda’s ‘Free Chapel’ at the Tower of London, founded by her in 1148 and not subject to the rule of any bishop. When the 1662 Act of Uniformity made the Book of Common Prayer and other aspects of Anglican practice compulsory almost the entire congregation left and shortly after began to worship as an independent congregation in an ancient building on Cornhill where foreign goods coming into London were weighed – the King’s Weigh House. They kept the name when they built their own chapel where Monument station now is, and later in other buildings, bringing it to Mayfair where they combined with a congregation already on this site and then built a new church.

Perhaps it was the influence of this building which in the 1920s led the church, then led by Rev Dr W. E. Orchard to moving towards Rome and developing what became known as ‘Free Catholicism’. The church never really recovered from wartime requisition and bomb damage and closed in the 1950s. Since June 1968  it has been the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of he Holy Family of Exile, which seems a far more suitable use for the building. You can read more about it on the Cathedral web site, from which much of the above comes.

Air St, Piccadilly, Westminster, 1987 87-5m-33-positive_2400

In Air Street we could almost be inside a cathedral. The rebuilding of the area around Piccadilly Circus was a subject of various proposals, plans and debates from around 1886 until 1928 which you can read in some detail in British History Online and possibly make more of than me. It involved many of the UK’s leading architects of the era, including Richard Norman Shaw and Sir Reginald Blomfield. I think that this section was built to Blomfield’s designs in 1923-8, but by that point in the text my eyes were fully glazed.

Regent St, Westminster, 1987 87-5m-34-positive_2400

In Regent St I was faced with the problem of photographing something which I find rather bland and boring – like most of the more monumental architecture of that period.

I found another curve to go with the two of the street, but I think it is no longer there – and many other details of the shops etc have changed. Bus Stop C is still there, but no longer served by Routemasters.

Christ Church, Cosway St, Marylebone, Westminster, 1987 87-5m-36-positive_2400

Christ Church in Cosway street, Marylebone was no longer a church when I took this picture having been made redundant in 1978 and converted into offices. This Grade II* church was built in 1824-5 by Thomas Hardwick and his son Philip Hardwick, one of the more interesting of the many cut-price Commissioner’s Churches built from 1820-1850 to cope with the rapid expansion of the urban population.

Despite the appearance it is a largely brick building with stone dressing. It was altered in 1887 by Sir A W Blomfield but I think this did not affect the portico or tower, a rather unusual construction, “3-stage tower with square Ionic peristyle with cylindrical core rising into octagonal cupola with volutes.”

More on page 4 of my album 1987 London Photos.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.


Mayfair & St James’s 1987

Monday, September 7th, 2020
St George St, Mayfair, Westminster, 1987 87-5n-52-positive_2400

J C Wells Ltd at 12 St George St, founded in 1829, were one of a number of small tailors in this and surrounding streets not far from Saville Row, and already served an international clientèle, selling suits in the USA since 1927 when they merged with Cooling Lawrence and Wells and Cordas and Bright to become ‘Wells of Mayfair’ around 1976. For a while there were one of Saville Row’s most succesful tailors, but went out of business in 1992 and were acquired in Davies & Son.

The photograph is of Wells of Mayfair’s premises around the corner at 47 Maddox St. I was attracted particularly by the map of the world showing the many places where their suits dressed the wealthy. Their bespoke tailoring did not come cheap, but it was certainly not ‘fast fashion’ and some are still worn – and sold – fifty years after they were made.

Conduit  St, Mayfair, Westminster, 1987 87-5n-53-positive_2400

I found empty windows like this rather more interesting than when they were full of goods, and they had a rather eerie quality, emphasised here by what appears to be the ghost of a necklace on the central stand. I’m not sure if that was really visible when I took the picture – either where a necklace has shaded the material from being darkened by the sun or as a reflection in the window through which I made the picture. It could even be a fault caused in the film processing. But whatever it was caused by it adds to the image.

I took a second frame of another of the shop’s windows with a similar empty jewellery stand, but with what appears to be a ghostly hand and arm in the picture (presumably for displaying bracelets, watches and rings.) You can find this, along with other pictures, in my album 1987 London Photos – linked here.

Conduit  St, Mayfair, Westminster, 1987 87-5n-55-positive_2400

Although my contact sheet states Conduit St, I think this is Jack Barclay on the corner of Bruton Place and Berkeley Square, part of H R Owen who also deal in Rolls Royce, Ferrari and other expensive gas guzzlers.

John “Jack” Donald Barclay was one of the wealthy British motorists who drove Bentley sports cars in the 1920s to victories, though his career was cut short as his mother would only settle a huge gambling debt he had run up in Le Touquet on condition he stopped racing. He had previously been selling Vauxhalls as Barclay & Wyse and in 1927 opened the shop named after him, dealing in both Bentleys and Rollers. It moved to Berkeley Square in 1953 and is the world’s oldest and most famous Bentley dealership.

King St, St James's, Westminster, 1987 87-6a-22-positive_2400

I think this part of King St has since been demolished with a new prestige office block in place of both Silks cocktail bar and the art dealer next door.

I felt an immediate sympathy with the running man at right, trying to get away from the West End and its conspicuous wealth, though doubtless on sale for some obscene sum, but it was the jockey walking into the cocktail bar, his arm outstretched, that made me take two more or less identical frames. I’d made the first when another man, possible a waiter, came to stand in the doorway and watched me around the corner. I’m not entirely sure he improves the scene.

Crown Passage, St James's, Westminster, 1987 87-6a-25-positive_2400

Crown Passage, also in St James’s, was more my kind of street, one where you could actually buy something of use, with a sandwich shop, an ironmongers, Early Birds Fine Foods, a tobacconist and sweet shop and a pub and more.

The Red Lion is still there, but I think most of the other shops have changed hands and the street has been rather tidied up.

Jermyn St, St James's, Westminster, 1987 87-6a-41-positive_2400

Wiltons restauarant, begun by George William Wilton as a shellfish-mongers off Haymarket in 1742, is still at 55 Jermyn St and reopens after COVID-19 on Monday 7th September, coincidentally the day I intend to publish this post.

In the early 19th century the stall changed its name to Wilton’s Shellfish Mongers and Oyster Rooms and set up in a series of locations in St James’s having to move as the area was redeveloped. By 1868 it was established in King St where the Prince of Wales was a loyal customer and it received 868 its first Royal Warrant as Purveyor of Oysters to Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales.

The family sold the shop in 1889 and it moved larger premises, and there were several later owners and moves. On Wilton’s site you can read the story of how the then owner Mrs Bessie Leal got so fed up with wartime bombing that she “folded her tea towel, unpinned her apron and then proclaimed that she no longer wished to live in London during the War and wished to sell Wiltons”. The only customer dining at the time, a regular, Mr Olaf Hambro told her to “put the restaurant at the end of the bill!”

Under Hambro’s ownership and the manager he appointed, Jimmy Marks, Wiltons became a world-famous institution, moving in 1964 to Bury St, and in 1984 to this shop in Jermyn St, dressing its waitresses like nannies who treated the aristocratic customers like children in a nursery.

You might like to book and try a half dozen Loch Ryan Natives No2 for £30, or perhaps 30g of Beluga Caviar for £180, washed down perhaps with a glass of Taittinger “Comtes de Champagne” 2006 at £45.00

Sculptures, Economist Plaza, St James's St, St James's, Westminster, 1987 87-6a-43-positive_2400

The buildings for the Economist group in 1960-64 are the only remaining London buildings by Alison and Peter Smithson, two of the UK’s most influential post-war architects. They were listed Grade II* the year after I made these pictures. The plaza was refurbished in 2018 and renamed as Smithson Plaza.

The plaza has exhibited a wide range of sculpture by prominent sculptors over the years. I’ve forgotten who these were made by.

Economist Plaza, St James's St, St James's, Westminster, 1987 87-6a-46-positive_2400

From the Plaza, and below, from St James’s St.

Boodles Club, Economist Building, St James's St, St James's, Westminster, 1987 87-6a-54-positive_2400

The Economist site is next door to Boodle’s, perhaps the most ludicrously named of London’s clubs for wealthy men. Often called ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ though many of the members were not. Boodle’s, a Private Members’ Club was founded in 1762 by the Earl of Shelburne, later the Marquess of Lansdowne and Prime Minister. Originally at 49-51 Pall Mall, it moved to 28 St. James’s Street in 1782. It got its silly name from its Head Waiter, Edward Boodle.

Boodle’s owned a part of the land needed for the Economist site and released it being given a part of the new building and now has its entrance in the Economist Plaza. Among former members have been Beau Brummel, Winston Churchill, Ian Fleming, Edward Gibbon, David Hume, Adam Smith, the Duke of Wellington and William Wilberforce.

More from 1987 London Photos later.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.