Yet More from Stoke Newington: This is the final post about my walk on 8th October 1989 going down Stoke Newington High St towards Dalston with some minor detours. The previous post on this walk was Cemetery, Synagogue & Snooker.
I wondered about the history of these three shops at 75-79 Stoke Newington History with the three-story Golden House Chinese takeaway at its centre. The first-floor brickwork on either side didn’t quite seem to match suggesting to me that the central building may have been a post-war addition to an existing building, or that these first floors may have been a later addition.
This central shop is still a Chinese takeaway but under a different name.
Hovis Bread, Victorian Grove, Stoke Newington High St, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10f-55
The Cinema Treasures site states that The Vogue Cinema at 38 Stoke Newington High St opened as The Majestic Electric Palace on 15th December 1910 and was closed on 21st June 1958 as a protest by Classic Cinemas against the landlord’s rent rise.
It remained shuttered and closed for 42 years until in November 2000 the foyer was converted into a Turkish restuarant with housing behind, described to me on Flickr as the “best Turkish restaurant ever.” The restaurant owners restored the Vogue sign.
My picture with the Hovis Bread ghost sign was taken from a few yards down Victorian Grove looking towards the cinema across the High Street. The block at right of the picture has now been replaced by a large building with a Tesco Extra on its ground floor.
House, Victorian Grove, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10f-56
This street was originally called Victoria Grove, but its name was changed some time in the middle of the last century. Much of the area was redeveloped in the 1970s but these houses dating from the early years of Victoria’s reign in the 1840s or 1850s remain.
This Grade II listed pair with the unusual curved bays and balconies have the name ‘BRIGHTON VILLAS’ on a plaque between the first floor windows, hidden by the curvature of the nearer bay in my photograph. The nearer balcony roof has been replaced since I took this, matching the one on its neighbour.
Works entrance, Victorian Grove, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10f-41
The wall beside 3 Victorian Grove is still there, but now has only graffiti on it. There are still some industrial units behind the villas of Victorian Grove, though surely they will soon be replaced by expensive flats, but access to these is now thourgh a gated vehicle entrance further down the street.
Posters, Stoke Newington High St, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10f-42
Should you Google – as I did – ‘Trevor Moneville‘ – you will find he was a 33-year-old from Hackney, was found dead at HMP Lewes on April 18, 2021 from Sudden Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) because of insufficient and unacceptable management of his care.
But this was a case of history repeating itself. A copy of the poster at top right is also in the collection of Hackney Museum, where the web site notes:
“Trevor Monerville went missing from Stoke Newington police station after being taken into custody on New Year’s Eve, reappearing after several days on the other side of London in Brixton prison. He had multiple injuries and later underwent emergency surgery in Maudsley Hospital. The case highlighted existing concerns about alleged institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police and led to the formation of the Hackney Community Defence Association in 1988.”
And in the centre of the picture is a poster for another, better known case of police brutality. Blair Peach was a young teacher murdered by the police Special Patrol Group who went beserk when policing an anti-racist protest in Southall on 23 April 1979.
Further south Stoke Newington High Street becomes Stoke Newington Road, and back in 1989 I found myself confusing the two. Andy’s Fashions was at 141 Stoke Newington Road. No longer Andy’s, the shop is now Stitch “N” Time offering tailoring, alterations, repairs. and no longer has its wares on the pavement outside or partly blocking the entry to the Stoke Newington Estate of the Industrial Dwellings Society (1885) Ltd.
The IDS was established as the Four Per Cent Dwellings Company in 1885 by “Jewish philanthropists to relieve the overcrowding in homes in the East End of London” and changed its name in 1952. They opened the Stoke Newington Estate in 1903.
Another shop somewhere on Stoke Newington Road, with a fine formation of net curtains for sale, though in my book ‘1989’ I imagined them rather differently, perhaps as the front of a vast army of angels, “Or a phalanx of klansmen or some strange voodoo creatures about to burst out onto the streets of London.“
The texts in that book were intended to explore the question of why some scenes grabbed my attention enough to make me fix them as photographs, and why they continue to excite my imagination and I hope that of other viewers.
Street Market, Shoreditch High St, Tower Hamlets, Hackney, 1989 89-10f-33
My walk had ended and I got on the bus to take me to Waterloo for the train home. I almost always sit on the upper deck on double-decker buses and enjoy the views from the windows. As the bus went slowly along Shoreditch High Street close to the junction with Commercial Street it passed the informal market on the pavement where I had time to take three frames through the window. The area looks a little different now, but the last time I went past on a Sunday there was still a rather similar market there.
This is the final post about my walk on 8th October 1989. You can find more pictures from London and elsewhere on Flickr, with both black and white and colour images in albums mainly arranged by the year I took them, such as 1989 London Photos and 1989 London Colour.
Ninety from Narbeth:Narberth (Arbeth to Welsh speakers) was until recently a place I had never hear of, a small town in Pembrokeshire with ancient origins. I spent a week staying there with a small group of friends at the start of September 2024, returning last Saturday.
Narbeth apparently grew up around the palace of a Welsh king and in the great collection of ancient Welsh stories preserved by oral tradition until first written down around 1350, the Mabinogion, is the chief palace of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed. There were ancient camps nearby and the Romans came – and went.
But it was the Normans who, having invaded England in 1066, a few years later turned their attention to Wales and left a great mark on the area, building more than 50 massive castles to invade and occupy the area. Thee wars here were a complex and changing situation and other castles were built by the Welsh to defend their land.
A castle was first built at Narbeth by the Normans around 1116, but rebuilt in stone in the following century. It formed a part of what is now called the Landsker Line, defending the territory they controlled against the Welsh. The castle is now in ruins but open to the public, though the buildings are fenced off for safety reasons.
The Landsker Line divided the largely English-speaking area of south Pembrokeshire, dominated by the Normans from Welsh-speaking Wales, and the area to the south of it was often called ‘Little England’.
Now only around a fifth of the roughly four thousand residents of Narberth are Welsh-speaking. For a town of its size it has a remarkable number of independent shops and particularly at weekends the place is crowded. Ten years ago The Guardian called it “a gastronomic hub for West Wales” and named it as “one of the liveliest, most likeable little towns in the UK.“
I can’t comment on the gastronomy, though I did help to cook some interesting meals for our small group staying there, but it does have a very fine shop making artisanal ice cream with some unusual flavours. And I only visited one of its many pubs, which was a very friendly place, though I just missed the live music there.
As well as more traditional shops, the town also has more than its share of arty shops and some with a hippy or ‘New Age’ vibe. And its certainly a very friendly place compared to suburban London and one of a number of locals we met in a pub shook my hand when I revealed one of my Grandmothers had come from Wales. I’m not surprised that Narberth was “named one of the best places to live in Wales in 2017“
It has an excellent local museum and of course a number of churches and chapels, though some now in other uses. These are among its 70 listed buildings, most of which I think are in the pictures I took, though many of the more interesting are unlisted.
It isn’t far to drive to many other attractions of the area – more castles, mills, the rugged coastal path and more sedate seaside resorts with some fine beaches. Friends took me to some of these but there were many more.
Perhaps the most disappointing thing about Narberth is the railway station, around three-quarters of a mile from the centre of town. On the map the railway seems useful, but in reality there are too few trains to be of much use. The station building is now a joinery though Platform 1 (and only) still stands, with an announcement telling us that this was a request stop, and we should indicate clearly to the driver as the train approached that we wanted to board. Fortunately it did stop when we began our journey home.
All the pictures here are from Narberth town centre, and there are more on Facebook in the album ‘Ninety From Narbeth‘. I’ll make some later posts about some of the places in the area we were able to visit during our holiday.
Stoke Newington Shops: Continuing my walk on Sunday 8th October 1989 which had begun at Seven Sisters Station from where I had walked south down the High Road and the previous post, Church of the Good Shepherd, Synagogue & Stamford Hill had ended on Stamford Hill.
Star Mews, Cafe, Windus Rd, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10d-15
I continued walking down Stamford Hill, taking a brief look down each side street, but nothing particularly attracted my attention until I reached Windus Road. Some way down this I came to the entrance to Star Mews.
The archway to Star Mews is still there between 52 and 54 Windus Road but there is no longer a cafe, the property is now residential with a small walled front garden. Star Mews is one of two mews in the street and leads to two single storey (now with roof windows) in the area behind which were presumably once stables.
The houses here are not grand, and I think these were probably built for small businesses who will have had horse-drawn carts for delivery rather than the carriages of mews in grander districts.
I went back to Stamford Hill and at the entrance to Stoke Newington Station turned into a small pedestrian side-street, Willow Cottages with this row of three shops, one of them Marshall’s School of Motoring so had to take this picture. These are still there beside the new station building, and G’s Car Service is now Ron’s Car Service. – the old station was almost invisible at street level – but this small area has altered so much I can’t be sure. The jewellers is now a hair salon and Marshalls have left the building, now occupied by Ria money transfer and a takeaway.
I crossed the busy A10 Stamford Hill and went down Manor Road opposite where there was this row of shops on the north side. These three shops are single storey buildings, at the end of the two storey buildings of Manor Parade, but seem to have been built in the same style, probably like their larger neighbours in 1906, according to an ornamental date on their gable.
The site with two large advertising hoardings at right is on the side of the railway line, here in a cutting, and there is be little level land behind these shops.
This noticeboard without notices on the top of what was until fairly recently a private hire service office, Hill Cars, is another of the pictures which I used in my web site, exhibition and self-published book ‘1989’, ISBN: 978-1-909363-01-4, still available, and this picture is from those. The first paragraph refers to the page before this one in ‘1989’.
The house here is still at 16 Manor Road and is now residential and without the clutter and signage. Andora’s builders yard is now commercial premises on the ground floor with flats above and a vehicle entrance to more in the yard behind.
L T Locking, Estate Agent, 18, Manor Rd, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10e-65
This short row of shops was just beyond the builders yard, all at 18 Manor Road, although they seem to have been built at different times. Locking’s estate agency is in a taller and more elegant four storey tower, and the closer building at right was, according to a ghost sign under its first and second floor windows, the DEPOSITORIES of T HARRIS, though his name is not clear. This industrial warehouse is now an events and filming venue and was the birthplace of the original TV “Dragons Den” where the first season was shot in 2005.
Also now I think a filming location as ‘The House Next Door‘ (or possibly a part of The Depository’ and that is the next shop.) Earlier it had been home to the curiously named Balloon Lagon (lagon is French for lagoon), which sold odd balloons and then a property agency.
The post at left looks like a lamp post, perhaps for a gas lamp, but could also have simply held an advertising sign. Srill on the pavement it has now lost its upper half.
Back on the A10, I walked down to the end of Stamford Hill at Cazenove Road, where it becomes Stoke Newington High Street, and went briefly down Cazenove Road and photographed a couple of the shops there. I’d previously photographed Madame Lillie on a walk in July 1989 so haven’t digitised the picture I took this time, but this one of Rabinowitz, Kosher Butcher & Poulter and The Metaqphysical & Inspirational World Universal Book Shop at 2 and 4.
I returned to the main road and crossed it to the gates of Abney Park Cemetery where the next post on this walk will begin.
Highbury to Stoke Newington Church Street: Continuing my walk from Sunday 1st October 1989 which had begun at Finsbury Park and continued to the Nags Head before returning to Finsbury Park. The previous post ended on Blackstock Road.
Blackstock Road continues south into Highbury as Highbury Park and I walked some way down this before turning east into Northolme Road. Highbury Park was developed in the 1870s but the houses in Northholme Road date from the 1890s. This and neighbouring roads were built on the Holm Estate and the LCC applied for permission to develop these roads in 1890.
North Holme is near Helmsley, North Riding of Yorkshire and although it has been described as a “township” is a small cluster of buildings, more a farm than even a village close to the River Dove. “The Revd Joseph Parker, DD (1830-1902) … lived in 1866 at a house in Highbury Park he called ‘North Holme‘. The sites of Northolme Road, Sotheby Road and Ardilaun Road were on part of the grounds of his house.” He was the “Minister of the City Temple, 1869-1901, author, preacher and twice Chairman of the Congregational Union“.
This house is at the eastern end of Northolme Road, where it meets Kelross Road and is a detached villa rather larger than the terraces along long the rest of the road.
Clissold Park, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10b-35
From here Kelross passage leads to Highbury New Park, a street with villas built from around 1850. But I pressed on across it into Collins Road, making my way towards Clissold Park and Stoke Newington Church St.
Clissold House was built as Paradise House for Quaker City merchant Jonathan Hoare, a noted philanthropist and anti-slavery campaigner and brother of banker Samuel Hoare Jr. The water here was a stretch of the New River which brought clean drinking water from Hertfordshire to London, but I think at some point the river here was culverted, although the bridge taking Stoke Newington Church St across it remained until the 1930s.
The park was first created as grounds for this GradeII listed house. Hoare got into financial difficulties and lost the house and grounds, which passed through several owners before being owned by Augustus Clissold. When he died in 1882 the estate was bought by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners who intended to make money from developing it as housing, but the Metropolitan Board of Works were persuaded in 1887 to buy it to be a public park.
By 1989 the house and park were in a poor condition and Clissold House was put on English Heritages ‘at risk’ register in 1991. Since then both park and house have been restored with the aid of lottery money.
Park Crescent, Spensley Walk, Stoke Newington Church St, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10b-23
Grade II listed Park Crescent at 207-223 Stoke Newington Church Street was built in 1855, but by the 1980s was in a very dilapidated state and became home to around 90 squatters alongside only a handful of legal tenants. The houses were then owned by Hackey council who planned to sell them to housing associations.
Park Crescent, Spensley Walk, Stoke Newington Church St, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10b-11
Three motorbikes parked outside one of the houses of Park Crescent. You can clearly see the poor state of the buildings which need Acrow props to support the porches, with the steps at right being roped off to block access to the unsafe building.
Park Crescent now looks very neat and tidy compared to this.
The building at 185 Stoke Newington Church St had been sold when I made this picture in October 1989, but The Modern Man, a hairdressers, was still alive in another shop on the street, shown in my next picture.
This row of buildings with ground-floor shops is still there and like the rest of the area has become rather better kept and is now that epitome of gentrification, an estate agents which has also expanded into 187.
Perhaps surprisingly the 5 Star Cleaners at 189 is still a dry cleaners, though under a different name.
The Modern Man, Stoke Newington Church St, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10c-52
I found The Modern Man still in business at 121 Stoke Newington Church St at the corner with Marton Road. It didn’t survive the gentrification of the area and the shop has passed through several hands as ‘frere jacques’, ‘search and rescue, ‘Ooh Lou Lou Cakery’ and ‘The Caffeine Fix’.
I don’t know how long Tanya’s Cafe-Diner Take away lasted but around 2009 it became Lydia Cafe Restaurant and retained the name Lydia until recently becoming ‘The Tiffin Tin.’.
My walk was almost at an end, but I’ll share are few more pictures in a later post.
Blackstock and Brownswood: Continuing my walk from Sunday 1st October 1989 which began at Finsbury Park and continued to the Nags Head before returning to Finsbury Park. The previous post to this ended on Blackstock Road.
The buildings at the right of this picture are those on the left of the final picture in my previous post. Here I wanted to contrast the deco style of the Gillespie Neighbourhood Office at 102 with that of the solid Victorian house next door and its more utilitarian infill at 98.
The border between Hackney and Islington runs here along the centre of Blackstock Road and this is on the Islington side, though I was standing in Hackney to take the picture. I was in Hackney’s Brownswood Conservation Area, but the more interesting side of the road here is not in a conservation area and this Art Deco office does not even appear on the local list.
House, Brownswood Rd, Wilberforce Rd, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1989 89-10b-52
The development of this area was delayed by the setting up of the park in the area as in the early years of its planning the actual boundaries were not fixed. So much of the area was built up in the 1870s, giving it a unusually homogeneous architecture.
Brownswood Road runs though the area with two peculiar staggered junctions and this picture was made at one of these.
Frinton Metal Ltd, 145a, Brownswood Rd, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1989 89-10b-53
I think the house number is from Blackstock Road – the scrap metal and Gold and Silver buyer was in the back yard of the house at the left, 145 Blackstock Road. Although there were no ‘TO-DAYS PRICES’ listed for Gold & Silver and the shop was closed on a Sunday, there is a light on inside and I think it was still in business.
Google Maps labels this section of Brownswood Road as Lydon Row and there is no sign that there ever was a business here.
Mountgrove Garage, 115, Finsbury Park Rd, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1989 89-10b-56
I walked a little further on down Blackstock Road and then turned down Mountgrove Road. The house at right is on Mountgove Road and that on the left – along with the garage – in on Finsbury Park Road. Rather to my surprise Mountgrove Garage is still there, now offering ‘MOT Tyres Servicing Bodywork’ and claiming ‘ALL VEHICLES REPAIRED HERE’, though all of the notices in my picture have been replaced. I think it looks rather less impressive now.
Shops, 162-176, Blackstock Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10b-41
Back on Blackstock Road I photographed this nicely detailed row with ground floor shops and facing more of the same on the opposite side of the street. I chose this one for the sign which I think at the top read OFFICIAL BOOKING OFFICE with MOTOR COACHES between the first and second floors and lower down ALL ROAD ROUTES and RAIL SEA AIR.
That sign has I think been restored since 1989 and is clearer now, but the uppermost word, already difficult to read in my picture has disappeared. Rather than a booking office the shop is now a book shop.
Head, 198-200, Blackstock Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10b-42
A little further down Blackstock road was this head above BESTOCK FURNISHING, a secondhand furnishing shop, the kind of place we bought chairs and tables when we were poor, and on the shop front of RITEMARKS LTD FOOTWEAR MANUFACTURERS a variety of symbols – a sunflower and two leaping fish. I think the window between these is a reflection of the building in my next picture.
217, Blackstock Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10b-43
Built as Highbury Fire Station by the LCC in 1906 it was one of many closed in 1920 after the replacement of horse-drawn engines by motorised fire engines meant that stations could serve a wider area.
As a young man around 1920 my father worked for a short time at Dennis Brothers Limited in Guildford. He was (among other trades) a carpenter, having grown up working with his father making horse-drawn carts, and they were then still making wooden fire engines, as well as ‘charabancs’ – open motor buses. Cutting the curved doors for these was a tricky three-dimensional job and he did it freehand.
Since I photographed it this Edwardian Arts & Crafts locally listed building has been converted into the Little Angel Day Nursery with flats above.
Seven Sisters Road: on Sunday 1st October 1989 I took the Victoria Line tube to Finsbury Park (a couple of pictures here) and walked through the park to its most easterly corner, the junction between Green Lanes and Seven Sisters Road at Manor House.
Finsbury Park, The Manor House, Manor House, Haringey, Hackney, 1989 89-10a-53
A view from beside the wall to Finsbury Park by the gate. This area was know as Woodberry Down before the Manor House Tavern was first built here on 1830-4 at the crossroads with Green Lanes, a turnpike or toll road, after a 1829 Act of Parliament had allowed the building of Seven Sisters Road. Local builder Thomas Widdows had owned and lived in a cottage on the site and saw a business opportunity, though it is unclear why it was given the name Manor House – probably because it sounded posh.
It opened as a ‘public house and tea-gardens’ in 1834 and its first landlord advertised it, writing “The Grounds adjoining are admirably calculated for Cricket, Trap-ball, or any other amusement requiring space. There is likewise a large Garden and Bowling green, good Stabling, lock-up Coach-houses, &c. Dinners for Public and Private Parties.
The original pub was demolished in 1930 when the road was widened and the Piccadilly line Manor House station built here, and replaced by this attractive Flemish style building with just a hint of Art Deco. The pub and tube station led to the area becoming known as Manor House, with the name Woodberry Down being revived for the large post-war housing estate built a little to the east by the LCC from 1948-62.
You can learn more about its interesting history and varying clientele – including its time as a major Blues venue in the 1960s – in the Wikipedia article cited. The pub closed around 2000 and its ground floor became a supermarket in 2004.
Shops, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-42
Finsbury Park was a rather run-down area in 1989 and some friends were worried about my safety as I walked around the area carrying a bag full of expensive camera equipment, but I had no problems. People were friendly though sometimes clearly thought I was mad to be taking photographs of their streets and shops.
At left is KYPRIAKON KAFENEION, shown more clearly in my next picture. Between the shops are decorated pillars and above them rather odd decorated stone balls. I think the shops were probably added a few years later to the mid-Victorian houses behind.
Cypriot Social Club, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-43
You can still see this row of shops on Seven Sisters Road, in the parade between Yonge Park and Medina Road*, and I think this Cypriot cafe is now a dentists. In 1989 there were many Cypriot businesses in the area, but the area is now more diverse and has a large Muslim community. None of the businesses in my previous picture are still present.
* I have now decided that these shops are those at 218-230 Seven Sisters Road which can clearly be seen in a photograph I took later on this walk. They were very similar to those further down the street but have been more altered since 1989, and some demolished.
Sisters Gowns, a few yards down Coleridge Road was also clearly a Cypriot business, and one of many clothing manufacturers in the area, which has now become one of London’s most vibrant fashion areas, particularly around nearby Fonthill Road.
This doorway could still be seen iin a derelict building n 2008, but the whole corner site was demolished soon after, although the site was still empty in 2022.
Shop Interior, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-31
I think this busts and bodies were for wale along with other pieces of equipment for use in shop displays, but it looked to me like some kind of kinky torture chamber. Though shopping for clothes is often a torture, particularly when accompanying others who are looking for them. I’m not sure what the football is doing here.
Shops, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-32
An extremely motley assortment of buildings from different periods, including BANGS, established in 1907, but I think the frontage at least is from the 1930s.
Rather to my surprise, these buildings are still there, though the shops have changed and below BANGS rather than JANE CAST LTD is now a Tesco. Even the building at the right of the row which appeared in my photograph to have no visible support is still there as well as the pub surrounded by scaffolding have survived. The Eaglet, built in 1869, was apparently badly damaged by a Zeppelin in 1917 but recovered and is still open.
North London Drapery Store, Axminster Rd, Seven Sisters Rd, Holloway, Islington, 1989
Built in 1938 as North London Drapery Store this Art Deco store was damaged in the war. In 1989 it was used by a variety of businesses including London International College. It has recently been converted to provide 118 expensive flats, with shops on the ground floor.
According to ‘Streets With A Story‘, “Robert Enkel from 1830-49 owned property and occupied the nursery until 1834 when Cornelius Crastin and his family took over and continued as nurserymen until at least 1890. The street name disappears by 1975.” Enkel’s family came from Holland and his name was given to the street which dated from around 1875-6. As you can see the street name was actually still there in 1989.
There is still an Enkel Arms pub a few yards away on Seven Sisters Roadm but Enkel Street disappeared with the development of the Nags Head Shopping Centre in 1992. And there is a Nags Head Market indoors at 22 Seven Sisters Road, apparently since 1975.
Schools, Warner Estate, Baptists & Art Deco: My motivation for this return to Walthamstow was I think to photograph the building whose pictures end this post. On a previous visit I had – for the only time I can remember – lost a cassette of exposed film. I’d realised this later in the same morning and had gone back on my tracks to search for it to where I changed films, but without success. And there had been one building I had photographed that I was keen to have pictures of as Art Deco was one of my particular themes at the time, working for a never published book, London Moderne. But I’d decided to walk around some other areas again before going to take those pictures.
Markhouse Road Schools it tells us on the building were ‘REBUILT 1907’. Walthamstow was forced by the government Education ministry to set up a school board 1880, before which there were“5 Anglican schools, 5 run by Protestant nonconformists, and 3, including an orphanage and an industrial school, by Roman Catholics.” The school boards provided elementary education for 5-13 year olds. Mark House Road board school opened in 1891 with infants, boys and girls departments.
Unfortunately the schools burnt down a few days before Christmas in 1906 and were almost completely destroyed. Walthamstow Urban Distric Council who had been running elementary schools in the area since 1903 rebuilt them and they reopened in 1908.
The school became a secondary modern school in 1946 and closed in 1966, though the building remained in use for various educational purposes for some years until it was finally demolished a few years after I made this picture.
Nat West, Bank, 10, St James St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-66
The rather fine entrance to the NatWest bank in St James St; the building on the north of the corner with Leucha Road, is still there, one of the two blocks built by the Warner Estate featured in the previous post on this walk, but the doorway, now for a food store, is sadly bereft of dragons and decoration.
Leucha Road, one many streets built as part of the Warner Estate in Walthamstow got its name from one of the family, Leucha Diana Maude who was the daughter of Clementina and Cornwallis Viscount Hawarden Earl de Montalt, a Conservative politician with an Irish peerage. Clementina was a noted amateur photographer and had ten children, eight of whom survived infancy, so there was no shortage of names for streets around here.
This was one of the earliest to be developed on the Warner Estate in 1895 and the buildings on it are two storey maisonettes, called “half houses” by the Warners.
Leucha Road was acquired by Waltham Forest Council in the late 1960’s and they repainted the doors which had been green like all other Warner properties in what the Conservation Area statement describes as “a pale and inappropriate “Council-house” blue“. The Warner Estate sold off 2400 of their properties to Circle 33 Housing Trust (now part of Circle Housing Group) in 2000 and of these 600 still had outside toilets.
Shops, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-52
Another picture of some of the Warner estate shops in the High Street with at the left a rather strange ‘streamline’ feature which I think must have belonged to a building to the left demolished in some road-widening scheme.
A curiously barn-like structure dated 1932, Walthamstow (Blackhorse Rd) Baptist Church. This building replaced a ‘tin tabernacle’ in which the congregation had been meeting since 1898. The church is still a “friendly multi-cultural church in Walthamstow.”
Not dated but also obviously from the 1930s was this building for Hammond & Champnesss Ltd on Blackhorse Lane.
Hammond & Champnesss Ltd was established as in 1905 by cousins Ernest Hammond and Harold Champness to make hydraulic water-powered lifts. They were joined by Ernest’s brother Leonard and for some time the company was Hammond Brothers and Champness Ltd.
Hydraulic lifts are raised and lowered by a piston inside a long cylinder with fluid pumped in to move the piston which is connected either directly or by ropes and pulleys to the lift cabin. They can be used in buildings up to five of six stories high.
Hammond Brothers and Champness Ltd went bust in 1932 and the company was taken over by E Pollard & Co. Ltd who renamed it to Hammond & Champnesss Ltd but kept it operating as a separate company. This was taken over by US company Dover Corporation in 1971 but they continued to make lift components in Walthamstow until that company was taken over by Thyssen in 1999.
The building became Kings Family Network. It was refurbished in 2014 and is now Creative Works Co-Working office space.
This wasn’t the end of my walk that day, but after taking three pictures of this building I made my way to Blackhorse Road station and took the train to Crouch Hill.
Shops, Warner, Marx, English & A Lighthouse from my walk on Sunday 24th September 1989.
Shop Window, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-36
I wasn’t quite sure what I thought about this window display with at right a dress with pictures with rear views of three mice as PRODUCER, DIRECTOR and EDITOR sitting in their directors chairs holding megaphone, script and clapper-board for TAKE 1.
To the left is a mannequin in some kind of underwear and holding another item of lingerie, with other items draped over what looks like a deckchair without its canvase. Behind the two is the larger face of a woman photographed in similar underwear.
I’m not sure how I would describe the faces and hair styles of the two mannequins; perhaps “imperious”?
La Three Shoes, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-23
I’m unsure if ‘finial’ is the correct architectural term for these decorative features at the division between the shop fronts on the substantial block on the north side of the High Street between Pretoria Avenue and Carisbrooke Rd, I think at 19-35.
This block was developed by The Warner Estate Co. Ltd, registered in 1891 and responsible for much of the development of the area between the 1880s and the First World War, and it probably dates from the early 1890s.
Quite what the significance of the dragon, the flower and the grotesque devilish face are I leave to you. But I took four photographs of this, and another between 27 and 29 in the row.
Clock, Apollo, 4, St James St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-25
I tuned south down St James’s Street where on the right are two more blocks of Warner properties with more of the dragons and flowers but without the grinning gargoyles between the shops. Between the first and second floor buildings are mouldings with winged cherubs holding an ornate a bowl of fruit, surrounded by swirls of oak leaves. There is a flower at each bottom corner and in the centre, below the bowl what could be a mushroom or toadstool.
Shops, 2-10, St James St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-11
Apollo Dry Cleaners are still I think in the shop at 4 St James St and you can see them in this picture of the row of shops. The clock which was above the Opticians at Number 6 has now gone, although I think two strips of wood which held it are still in place.
These shops – and those on the High Street in the top picture are not even locally listed but they are in the Walthamstow St James Conservation area, with these Warner properties on St James St marked for possible future local listing. There are also desciptions of these and the High Street properties.
Alfred English, Funeral Directors, St James St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-14
Funeral Directors Alfred English are still at 70 St James St, but the extension at he side of their large detached house is no longer a shop window and the large sign on the wall to its left and reflected in the window has also gone.
Alfred English have been funeral directors in Walthamstow since 1896, for many years as a family owned firm. It has become a part of Dignity Group which includes 795 Funeral Directors across the UK.
I was rather disappointed to find that Marx House had no connection with Karl, but was named after Marx Gross its first occupier. But while that may be so, I think it may also have a connection with the street name, Markhouse Rd, which apparently derives from an early Marck Manor House. Mearc apparently meant boundary and the estate was on both sides of the boundary between Leyton and Walthamstow.
This was on Markhouse Common which was enclosed in the 1850s and development of this area then started with railways serving the area around. Until 2002 there was a pub at the junction of Markhouse Lane and Queen’s Road, which over the years had various names including the Commongate Hotel, JD’s, Couples and the Sportsman, but is now a hotel with its old name.
This local landmark was built in 1893 and was for many years a popular church in the area. Bullard King & Company, Limited had been founded in 1850 by Daniel King and Samuel Bullard with a fleet of sailing ships trading between London and Natal as The White Cross Line, and they moved to steam vessels in 1879, adding services to carry labourers from India to South Africa.
In 1889 Captain King donated the site on Markhouse Road and paid for the building, begun in 1892, making clear what he wanted to architect J. Williams Dunford. Apparently originally the church had a revolving light shining during services.
The light perhaps helped to attract worshippers and in 1903 it had congregations of over 1,500. The building was Grade II listed in 2007, and the listing text contains an unusually lengthy description including the following: “The lighthouse turret is distinctive, particularly given the church’s inland location, and is an uncommon feature of the design. Despite the obvious link between Christian imagery of Jesus as the Light of the World and the function of a lighthouse, there are no known examples of church designs which use a lighthouse architectural feature. “
The building is still in use as The Lighthouse Methodist Church though I imagine congregations are now considerably smaller.
More pictures from Hull General Cemetery and Princes Avenue that I took on walks in the area in August 1989. You can see more pictures of the cemetery in 1989 at Hull General Cemetery – 1989.
Quaker Burial Ground, Spring Bank West, Hull, 1989 89-8d-42
According to the article by Chris Coulson on the Friends Of Hull General Cemetery web site, the Quakers bought a 999 years lease on a 0.23 acre plot, about 55 yards by 20 yards and burials took place there from 1855 until 1974.
The graves in this plot, still there, include those of many of Hull’s leading Quaker families and include some whose family names gained international recognition for there products including members of the Reckitt family and engineer William Priestman.
The graves in the foreground of my picture have stones recording seven members of the Reckitt family and there are some others in those behind. All except one of the burials and some whose ashes were scattered here have the same simple design for their memorials.
Hull General Cemetery, Spring Bank West, Hull, 1989 89-8d-41
Back in 1989 the cemetery was home to a number of feral cats who I think scrounged for food in the bins and at the back doors of some nearby houses, though I did see (but not photograph) old women bringing scraps into the cemetery for them. The cats generally scrambled away when I approached, but I caught one clinging to the trunk of a tree.
In the background you can see a grassed largely cleared area of the cemetery, then kept mown short by the council.
Fallen Angel, Hull General Cemetery, Spring Bank West, Hull, 1989 89-8d-55
I don’t know what happened to the many headstones that the council removed from the cemetery, though when the work was taking place there were quite a few piles of them and many had been broken as much of the work was done by unskilled and poorly supervised youth labour.
Vandalism continued in the cemetery after the council had done their worst, and many of the more ornate memorials were damaged and some completely destroyed by youths who roamed at night in the unfenced cemetery.
Dr William Atkin Thompson, Ely House, 149, Princes Avenue, Hull, 1989 89-8d-52
Princes Avenue was only a country lane at the start of the nineteenth century and the first significant development on it were the ornate gates of Hull General Cemetery close to Spring Bank West. A few years later the railway branch to the Hornsea and Withernsea lines was constructed with a level crossing across Spring Bank and a station, Cemetery Gates, later called Botanic, opened in 1864. Further down the road, Pearson Park, Hull’s first public park, was opened in 1862.
Dr William Atkin Thompson (1978-1961) qualified at Owens College, Manchester in 1899 and became a GP in Hull in 1907. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1914, and after the war continued in service in the army and later the Territorial Army while also practising in Hull. There is a profile of him on the RAMC in the Great War site. He was one of Hull’s most distinguished doctors, continuing to practice well past normal retirement age.
Houses, Princes Avenue, Hull, 1989 89-8d-65
Princes Avenue was laid out to lead to the Westbourne Park Estate, now known as The Avenues, and opened in 1875, with the houses facing the Park at its north some of the first built on it.
Shops, Princes Avenue, Hull, 1989 89-8d-64
Further south on Princes Avenue most of the development took place between 1890 and 1910, but the cemetery entrance was still on the west side at the southern end. I think these shops are on the long parade south of Welbeck Street which probably dates from around 1900, but those on the corner with Spring Bank West, which later housed one of Hull’s most internationally famous shops, Gwenap, were only added after the cemetery gates were moved to Spring Bank West.
Gwenap is said to have opened in 1903, though it was rather a different business back then and I think may have been in other premises as I think the shop the business occupied until 2013 was probably only built in the 1920s. The windows where it used to be are now of no interest.
Battersea was one of the most progressive areas of the country in the late nineteenth century and in 1886 Battersea Vestry came to the decision that the parish should itself erect working class dwelling on the site of the Latchmere allotments, themselves enclosed from Latchmere common in 1832 to provide allotments for the poor.
But, as the Survey of London which recounts the development of the area in some depth states, the Local Government Board told them that they did not have the power to build houses. The Vestry put forward a bill in parliament to enable them to go ahead but it met wide opposition and had to be withdrawn.
Things began to move again in 1898 when Fred Knee, a member of the UK’s first organised socialist party, the Social Democratic Federation and of the Co-operative Society, moved to Battersea and founded the Workmen’s Housing Council to campaign for better housing for workers to be built by public authorities on a non-profit basis. He tried to get the London County Council involved as they had the powers to build homes. But this shortly became unnecessary as the 1899 London Government Act replaced the Vestry with the Metropolitan Borough of Battersea which under the 1900 Housing Act was able to apply for the power to build housing itself. Knee continued to play an important role in the development by the council.
In 1901 Battersea Council set up a competition for plans asking for designs for five house and flat types, and prizes were eventually awarded to five of the 58 entries, and work began by Borough Surveyor, J. T. Pilditch and his architectural assistant William Eaton on finalising the designs and estate plan.
The Survey of London states that the final plans included “eight five-room houses, 69 houses with a three-room flat on each floor, 73 houses with a four-room flat on each floor and six odd houses of four or five rooms“. The competition-winning designs were simplified with their more picturesque features “expunged in the interests of economy” which perhaps makes them more aesthetically pleasing to modern eyes.
Where expense was not spared was in the internal facilities for the new tenants, with electric lighting (and slot meters), unusual at the time and “patent combined kitchen range, boiler and bath … fitted in all the houses at the high cost of £18 10s apiece.”
Battersea is cut through by the railway lines from two of London’s major termini, Waterloo and Victoria with junctions, goods yards, engineering works and a number of branches creating an incredible maze of tracks, viaducts, and bridges, now only slightly simplified.
Culvert Road predates the Shaftestbury Estate and was important as an entrance to Poupart’s market garden on which that estate was built. It originally had a level crossing over the railway line here – four tracks leading from Clapham Junction and from the rail bridge over the Thames at Battersea to Wandsworth Road – but this was closed and a narrow footbridge reached by slopes on each side provided in 1880. This footbridge provided may vantage point for this picture.
Culvert Road continues to the north in a tunnel out of picture to the left under around 13 more tracks leading to Victoria or Waterloo. Over the railway viaduct you can see the blocks of the Doddington Estate.
The history of the Shaftesbury Park Estate, developed by the the Artizans, Labourers and General Dwelling Company between between 1873 and 1877 was roughly based on workers cities (cités ouvrières) built earlier in France.
Its development was overshadowed by one of the era’s largest scandals which resulted in the entire board of directors being replaced in 1877 and its secretary/manager William Swindlehurst and chairman Baxter being jailed for conspiracy and fraud, and another director fleeing the country. You can read more of the details on the Survey of London.
When the disgraced board of the Artizans, Labourers and General Dwelling Company was replaced in 1877 their architect, the self-taught Robert Austin was sacked. His more conventionally qualified assistant was also dismissed the following year to save money. But the work of the pair has stood the test of time with a remarkable overall unity about the estate, planned on a grid system, enlivened with some minor and varied decorative features.
Despite its board’s fraud, the estate was generally well-built and houses provided with good ventilation and an improved system of drainage, though this was a cause of arguments with the local authority which favoured traditional methods. There were also various community buildings, but the estate is best-known for not including a single pub, influenced by the temperance movement of the times. William Austin, usually thought of as the founder of the company, was a poor and illiterate navvy before taking ‘the pledge’ and becoming a successful drainage contractor and builder. He set up the company as largely a business enterprise, aimed at making an annual profit of 6% rather than for any great philanthropic intent. He was voted off the board before the scandal with The Survey of London quoting him as later explaining ‘I was too honest for them’.
Houses, Broughton St, Park Town, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7n-52
Broughton Street runs from the end of Eversleigh St east parallel to the railway lines before turning to cross Queenstown Rd and ending on Silverthorne Road. I think I was probably standing on the end of Eversleigh Street to photograph this long terrace on the north side which according to the Survey of London were built by partners Robert Lacy and James Flexman shortly after an agreement they made in 1867.
This block of over 20 virtually identical houses (that nearest the camera has a carriage entrance, as No 1 still does) is followed past a narrow entrance road leading to a tunnel to the London Stone Business Estate between railway lines by another long block much the same. The houses here along this side of the road are numbered consecutively from 1-52.
The houses in these terraces are quite substantial, three floors each with two main rooms and rather than their front doors opening directly onto the pavement all except the two end houses have vestigial front gardens.
Shops, 56-64, Lavender Hill, Battersea, Lambeth, 1989 89-7n-56
I walked down Prairie Street to Queenstown Road taking a couple of pictures there before turning down Lavender Hill where I made another three, only this one on-line. I’d photographed this row of shops earlier but took this second picture showing the multiplicity of signs – a cinema poster with dinosaurs, Ice Cream, the two posts with signs for the off licence and vegetarian food. the shop fronts and a large JEANS up one of the curved ends of the houses. The area in front of the shops looks very different now.
This was the end of my walk on Friday 28th July but I returned to Clapham the following day to take more pictures – in a later post.
