Posts Tagged ‘Shoreditch’

March For Homes – 2015

Wednesday, January 31st, 2024

March For Homes: St Leonard’s Church to City Hall

Defend Council Housing, South London People’s Assembly and Unite Housing Workers Branch had called for a march to draw attention to the crisis in housing, particularly in London where council housing lists are huge and many councils are failing to meet their legal requirements to rehouse homeless families.

March For Homes

These requirements generally do not extend to single homeless people and in London alone over 6,500 people had slept rough at some time in the previous year with around one in twelve of 16-24 year-olds having been homeless at some point. Government figures comprehensively and deliberately underestimate the numbers.

March For Homes

It isn’t really a housing crisis, but a crisis of affordable housing. There are more than enough empty properties to house the homeless, but those who need housing are unable to afford the high rents or house prices being asked.

March For Homes

There has been a huge surge in building high-rise properties in London, with whole areas like Battersea and Nine Elms as well as elsewhere across inner and outer London being increasingly filled with them, but almost all are high-price properties, many sold overseas before the buildings are completed not as homes but as investments. Others are low specification student housing and also do nothing for the housing crisis.

March For Homes

What is needed is a crash programme of housing at social rents for family units of all sizes. Developers have become adept at evading what laws there are about providing social housing in new developments, fiddling the books to claim they cannot make sufficient profits which ridiculously lets them off the hook.

Much of the UK problems over housing go back to the Thatcher administration which both sold off council housing piecemeal under ‘right to buy’ but also stopped councils replacing what they had lost.

In earlier years both Tory and Labour councils had built generally high quality low cost housing though of course there were some examples of poor planning (often when councils were forced to cut costs) and shoddy work as well as unfortunate government encouragement of high-rise system building, which many of us were campaigning against in the 60’s and 70s.

But perhaps even more importantly under Tory administrations council housing became something just for what they regarded as ‘feckless’ and the ‘dregs of society’, those unable to fend for themselves. We got this ridiculous concept of the ‘housing ladder’ and very much it is a ladder that expresses “pull up the ladder, Jack. We’re alright“.

Municipal housing can provide housing for all at low cost and provided a rational approaching to providing decent housing for all, getting away from the poor conditions and high cost of private rented housing at much lower cost than owner occupation.

The March for Homes on Saturday 31st January was actually two marches, one from the Elephant in South London and the other from East London which I photographed at Shoreditch, calling for more social housing and an end to estate demolition and evictions. On My London Diary at March for Homes: Shoreditch Rally I published a very long list of some of the various groups which supported the march, as well as some of the speakers at the rally there. Eventually the march set off on its way towards City Hall, making its way towards Tower Bridge.

Class War left the march briefly to protest as it went past One Commercial St, where they had been holding a long series of weekly ‘Poor Doors’ protests against the separate door down a side alley for the social housing tenants in the block. They had briefly suspended the protests a few weeks early when new owner for the building had offered talks about the situation, but these had broken down.

Approaching the Tower of London the protest was joined by Russell Brand riding a bicycle. He had earlier lent support to a number of housing campaigns by residents in estates threatened by evictions.

By the time the march was going across Tower Bridge Class War had rejoined it, and their banners were in the lead.

The march was met on the other side of Tower Bridge by the South London March for Homes, a similar sized protest called by Defend Council Housing and South London People’s Assembly which had started at the Elephant, marching past the former Heygate Estate. The two marches merged to walk on to Potters Fields for the rally outside City Hall.

We had been marching most of the day in light rain, and this got rather heavier for the rally outside City Hall. Together with a large crowd being jammed into a fairly small space it made photography of the rally difficult.

While the rally was still continuing some of the protesters began to leave Potters Fields to protest more actively, led by Class War and other anarchit groups and accompanied by the samba band Rhythms of Revolution.

They moved onto Tooley Street and blocked it for a few minutes, then decided to move off, with police reinforcements who had arrived than taking over their role of blocking the road as the protesters moved off eastwards.

I watched them go, and later heard that after a brief protest at One Tower Bridge, a new development mainly for the over-rich next to Tower Bridge they had taken a long walk to join occupiers on Southwark’s Aylesbury Estate.

But I was cold, wet and tired, and my cameras too, having been exposed to the weather for several hours were becoming temperamental and I waited for a bus to start my journey home.

Much more on My London Diary:
March for Homes: After the Rally
March for Homes: City Hall Rally
March for Homes: Poor Doors
March for Homes: Shoreditch to City Hall
March for Homes: Shoreditch Rally


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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Shoreditch and South Africa

Monday, August 21st, 2023

Shoreditch and South Africa: Saturday 21st August 2004 was a fine day for a carnival parade in Shoreditch and a South African festival, part of the Coin Street Festival in Bernie Spain Gardens by the River Thames near Waterloo, just on the Lambeth side of the border with Southwark.

Shoreditch and South Africa

Here with a little correction and capitalisation (back in 2004 My London Dairy was firmly lowercase) and brief introductions is the text I wrote, which you can find some way down the August 2004 page. Below I’ll give links to the pages with more pictures from each event.


Shoreditch Parade, Hoxton

Shoreditch and South Africa

The parade was a part of the Shoreditch Festival and took place not in what we now normally call Shoreditch but a little to the north in Hoxton. Hoxton and Haggerston were historically part of Shoreditch and they were all part of the Shoreditch Metropolitan Borough until the 1965 reorganisation took them into the London Borough of Hackney. The park were the parade began is Shoreditch Park, off the New North Road just a short distance south of the Regent’s Canal.

Shoreditch and South Africa

Saturday turned out fine for the Carnival Parade in Shoreditch, starting from the park and going round through the Hoxton Street market. Apart from the shire horses from Wandsworth Brewery it was very much a community-based event, and had obviously generated a lot of interest and effort.

Shoreditch and South Africa

Part of the Shoreditch festival, its the first parade there for many years, and seemed to me to be a great success. Some of the kids really loved being photographed, and I was pleased I was using digital and didn’t have to worry about using up film.

More pictures from the Shoreditch Parade


Coin Street Festival: Viva South Africa – Bernie Spain Gardens

I left the parade as it left Hoxton Street market, and ran for a bus to points south, going to Bernie Spain gardens where there was a South African festival.

The music was great, but the wine was disappointing, really a waste of the chance to show what South Africa has to offer, and too expensive for the very little glasses that were on offer.

I had to leave before some of the more interesting sounding groups made the stage, but there were some nice dancers, and the audience was starting to join in.

More pictures from Viva South Africa


Veils, Ahava, Justice, Rentokill & A Walk

Sunday, September 25th, 2022

Veils, Ahava, Justice, Rentokill & A Walk - Fish on Regent's Canal
A fish on the Regent’s Canal

On Saturday 25th September 2010 I made a few pictures while travelling around London to photograph some rather varied protests and then took a walk mainly beside the Regent’s Canal in Shoreditch and Haggerston before going home.

Veils, Ahava, Justice, Rentokill & A Walk

My day in London began with a bus ride from Clapham Junction to Knightsbridge, where around 80 Muslim women from Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain had come with a letter to the French Ambassador protesting the French parliament decision to ban face veils.

Veils, Ahava, Justice, Rentokill & A Walk

Although the ban prohibits all face coverings, it is mainly aimed at Muslim women who wear the niqab or burkha. Both were then uncommon in France outside of Paris and some Mediterranean coast cities and some estimate they were only worn by around 2000 of France’s 2-3 million Muslim women, most of whom, like the great majority of women at the protest wear headscarves rather than face coverings.

Judging from the slogans, placards and speeches this was more a protest against ‘liberal values’ and “the objectification and sexualisation of women’s bodies in pornography, lap-dancing clubs, advertising, and the entertainment industry, all permitted under the premise of freedom of expression and driven by the pursuit of profit in Western societies.”

The French ban seems an unfortunate restriction of the rights of women to decide how they wish to dress, but is also a measure to oppose the power of clerics and others to limit the freedom of women by forcing them to wear face coverings, which seems to to be fully in line with the French tradition of liberty. And being a liberal and secular society doesn’t necessarily mean giving free rein to the exploitation of women or others for profit. We can oppose these without wanting to impose the kind of restrictions on others that groups such as Hizb Ut Tahrir advocate.

From Kensington I went on to Covent Garden where Pro-Palestinian demonstrators were holding another of their fortnightly demonstrations outside the Covent Garden Ahava shop which sells products manufactured in an illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

As on previous occasions their protest was met by a smaller counter-demonstration by supporters of the right-wing English Defence League (EDL) and Zionists. At previous protests there had been some attacks by the EDL on the protesters, but while I was present they were content with shouting.

The Ahava protests are part of an international ‘Stolen Beauty’ campaign organised by ‘Code Pink’, a women-initiated grass-roots peace and social justice movement which began when American women came together to oppose the invasion of Iraq. They say that Ahava “has openly flouted tax requirements by exploiting the EU-Israel trade agreement and violates UK DEFRA guidelines in respect of proper labelling.”

I walked down to the Embankment, pausing to photograph a rather fine Routemaster bus with vintage advertising, and a few boats taking part in the ‘Great River Race’. In Temple Place I met protesters from ‘Families Fighting For Justice’, members of families of murder victims, who were calling for tougher sentences for murder – with life sentences meaning life imprisonment.

Some of the stories I heard from them were truly heartbreaking and showed why many ordinary people have lost faith in our justice system. Although I don’t feel that their ‘Life 4 A Life’ campaign would actually do much if anything to solve the problem, clearly some action is called for, both in improving child protection by our social services and also in how we regulate behaviour on our streets. Part of this is better policing, but increased spending on youth services and community support is vital. Instead we got years of austerity cutting these and other essential services.

I left the march as it headed off towards a rally in Waterloo Place; it was smaller than expected and police insisted they march on the pavement rather than taking to the road, which reduced its impact.

I was on my way to Old Street where the RMT and other unions were holding a short demonstration outside the Initial Rentokil Offices in Brunwick Place as the start of a campaign against the company’s union-busting activities towards its cleaning staff.

The RMT say Initial Rentokil intimidates and bullies its members and deliberately employs workers whose immigration status is doubtful so that they can pay minimum wages and provide sub-standard working conditions, often requiring them to work without proper safety equipment or precautions. They allege that workers who question their rights or attempt to organise have been reported to the immigration authorities who have then raided the workplace. The protest was also supported by members of Unite and Unison.

It was still before 3pm when the rally ended and I decided to take a walk before going home. I walked roughly north to the Regent’s Canal.

On the Haggerston Estate I found flats bricked up as people have been moved out to redevelop the estate. They are said to be moving back when new social housing is built – along with some at market prices.

Shoreditch and Haggerston were both very much up and coming areas, with some expensive flats beside the canal.

One of the reasons to walk this way was to see a large art work on the long block of flats by the canal, ‘I am Here’, one of London’s largest art installations., with giant portraits of the residents.

But I was also keen to photograph other buildings in the area, including the Bridge Academy.

And, on Kinsgsland Road, the Suleymaniye Mosque.

Even when finally I got on the 243 bus I was still taking pictures, including a rather sad view of the former Foundry, a lively venue where I had been to a great photo show not long before, now boarded up and covered with a giant advertising hoarding,

More pictures from my walk and the protests on My London Diary:

Hizb ut-Tahrir Protest French Veil Ban
Protest Against Illegal Israeli Goods
Families of Murder Victims Call For Justice
Protest over Initial Rentokil Union Busting
Walking Around London


2015 March for Homes – Shoreditch to City Hall

Monday, January 31st, 2022

2015 March for Homes – Shoreditch to City Hall. A year before the march Against the Housing and Planning Bill featured in yesterday’s post there was another march about housing at the end of January, the March For Homes.

Outside Shoreditch Church

The event called by Defend Council Housing, South London People’s Assembly and Unite Housing Workers Branch involved two separate marches, one coming from Shoreditch in north-east London and the other from the Elephant & Castle in south London converging on London’s City Hall close to Tower Bridge for a final rally.

Max Levitas, a 100 year old communist veteran of Cable St

I couldn’t be in two places at once and chose to go to Shoreditch, partly because I knew people from several groups I had photographed at a number of housing struggles would be marching from there. The event was certainly enlivened by the arrival of activists who had marched from Bethnal Green, including supporters of Class War, Focus E15 and other groups.

Many couldn’t get into the churchyard

The Shoreditch Rally was held in a crowded area in Shoreditch churchyard at the front of St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, the ancient parish church of Shoreditch, and I took the opportunity to go inside and have a look at the church before the rally. The list of speakers there showed the wide range of community support for fairer housing policies, including more social housing desperately needed in London and included Jasmine Stone of Focus E15, Lindsey Garratt from New Era, Paul Turp, vicar of St Leonards, Nick from Action East End, Paul Heron of the Haldane Society of Socialist Laywyers, Max Levitas, a 100 year old communist veteran of Cable St, a speaker from the ‘Fred and John Towers’ in Leytonstone and Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman.

Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman

Tower Hamlets benefits from having been formed from some of the London Metropolitan Boroughs with the best records of social housing – such as Poplar, where in the 1920s councillors went to jail to retain more money for one of London’s poorest areas. Unfortunately Rahman, the borough’s first directly elected mayor was removed from office in April 2015 after he was found personally guilty of electoral fraud in his 2014 re-election. Many of the other charges made against him in the media were dismissed by police after investigation.

It was raining slightly as over a thousand marchers set off for City Hall behind the March For Homes banner.

As the march came to the junction with Aldgate High St, Class War split off for a short protest at One Commercial St, where they had held a lengthy series of weekly ‘Poor Doors’ protests against separate entrances for residents owning or leasing at market rates and the smaller section of social housing tenants who had to enter through a door down a side alley. Class War had suspended their 20 weeks of protest for talks with a new owner of the building a month or so earlier, but these had broken down without a satisfactory resolution and the protests there restarted the following week.

As the march approached the Tower of London it was met and joined by Russell Brand riding a bicycle,

and on Tower Bridge, Class War came up to lead the march.

I rushed ahead to meet the South London march as it turned into Tooley Street for the last few yards of its march.

The rally in front of City Hall was large, cold and wet. By now the rain was making it difficult to take photographs, with drops falling on the front of my lenses as I tried to take pictures, and my lenses beginning to steam up inside. But I persisted and did the best I could, though the rain-bedraggled speakers in particular were not looking their best.

The rally was still continuing when some of the activists, including Class War and the street band Rhythms of Revolution decided they needed to do something a little more than standing in the rain listening to speeches. They moved onto Tooley Street and blocked the road. More police arrived and blocked the road even more effectively as the activists moved eastwards to protest at One Tower Bridge, a new development mainly for the over-rich next to Tower Bridge and then left for a long walk to the occupied Aylesbury Estate. But I decided it was time to go home.

More on My London Diary:
March for Homes: After the Rally
March for Homes: City Hall Rally
March for Homes: Poor Doors
March for Homes: Shoreditch to City Hall
March for Homes: Shoreditch Rally


Around Old St

Saturday, November 6th, 2021
H J Brooks & Co, Old St, Islington, 1988 88-5n-22-positive_2400
H J Brooks & Co, Old St, Islington, 1988 88-5n-22

These pictures continue the walk around Finsbury and going back east along Old St to South Shoreditch. They are all in my album 1988 London Photos, but here I’ve put them in the order in which I took them. I also made some other exposures not on line, and the album only contains those images I now find more interesting and worth preserving.

H J Brooks & Co were at a number 136 on the south side of Old St, close to Tilney Court and the building is still there, now offering IT services and support. Henry Brooks was one of many companies in this area in the furniture trade, supplying the various fittings which can be seen in the window.

Kapital Kwickprint, Old St, Islington, 1988 88-5n-24-positive_2400
Kapital Kwickprint, Old St area, Islington, 1988 88-5n-24

I think Kapital Kwickprint was quite close to the Old Street roundabout at the junction with City Road which I’ve since photographed on various occasions. The premises appear to be shared with Sheet Metal and Wire Workers Malbot Ltd, and it was their notices including a hanging sign that attracted my attention as well as a rather curious doorway, firmly shuttered and with the message ‘LETTERS FOR MALBOT LTD’ and an arrow pointing to a postbox beside it.

It is hard to identify this location now, but I think it was in Mallow St, where the next frame on the film was clearly taken. At top left is the address 3TO4.

Warehouse, Leonard St, Paul St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1988 88-5n-12-positive_2400
Warehouses, Leonard St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1988 88-5n-12

This very sturdy-looking building is still present on the corner with Paul St and is now offices with the name ‘Victoria House’ and address 1 Leonard Circus. Like the warehouses further along the street it probably dates from the 1870s.

Warehouses, Leonard St,  Shoreditch, Hackney, 198888-5n-13-positive_2400
Warehouses, Leonard St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1988 88-5n-13

Part of an impressive row of warehouses on Leonard St dating from 1874-7 which have now been converted to office and residential use. C W Burrows at 69 describe themselves as House Furnishers – and this area was a great centre for furniture manufacture.

The business of J.Davis & Company (Machines) limited, now dissolved, was described at Companies House as “Wholesale of machinery for the textile industry and of sewing and knitting machines – Importing and distribution sewing machines.”

Great Eastern St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1988 88-5n-15-positive_2400
Great Eastern St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 198888-5n-14

Great Eastern St was constructed in 1876 and these buildings date from shortly afterwards. You can see a small part of No 42 at right of picture, which is Grade II listed and built with No 40 in 1877.

Great Eastern St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1988 88-5n-15-positive_2400
Great Eastern St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1988 88-5n-15

And this picture shows the Grade II listed building at 40-42 built in 1877 by J. W. Brooker for the cabinet ironmongers Edward Wells & Co. As the listing states it is “in an eclectic style with Gothic, Italianate and Venetian influences.” This building was only listed in 2006, and is currently occupied by a cafe and an estate agent. I’ve photographed the entrance on the corner at right on other occasions.

Christina St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1988 88-5n-16-positive_2400
Christina St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1988 88-5n-16

Christina Street looking east from close to Phipp St. The site at right now has a building on it, and the street looks considerably tidier.

City Road area, Shoreditch, Islington, Hackney, 1988 88-6a-02-positive_2400
City Road area, Shoreditch, Islington, Hackney, 1988 88-6a-02

Today’s mystery picture. A quite distinctive building but I can’t remember what it was or exactly where it was, though probably somewhere quite close to Wesley’s Chapel on the City Road where I was photographing on the same walk a couple of frames later. It has a vaguely religious feel and may well have been sold and demolished since 1988. I hope someone will recognise it and tell me in a comment.


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


Carnival Time 2005

Friday, August 20th, 2021

Years ago much of my photography was of public events other than protests, partly because there seemed to be fewer protests, or perhaps it was simply harder to find out about when and where they were taking place.

Although social media existed, back in 2005 few groups that were organising protests had began to make much use of it. There were some groups that had web sites on which they published information, and a few wider organisations, particularly Indymedia that had some listings but finding information was still largely a matter of reading printed newsletters and flyposted posters along with lengthy sessions on the web, going through a long list of web sites and searching – and back in 2005 Google had just begun to be the hugely dominant search engine.

But I was also more interested in cultural events, both traditional English events and those that had been brought to us by our migrant communities. And in London many events involved people from all across our now very varied communities, whether their roots were in this country or abroad.

Cultural events change more slowly than political events, and many, particularly religious events tend to follow a set pattern and become less interesting to photograph for me. Though I might still enjoy going, for example, to Notting Hill Carnival after perhaps a dozen times I found I had little new to say. Though it was a knee injury that prevented me from getting there in 2005. I dragged myself painfully to the station, but fell down in agony on the steps and decided it wasn’t a year for dancing and began the painful journey home.

Earlier in the month I’d accompanied fellow photographers to a couple of more traditional English carnivals in Hayling Island and in Hastings, as well as photographing the Shoreditch Festival Parade and the Latino Carnaval del Pueblo in Southwark. The pictures in this post come from those events. That month I also found time to visit Brian Haw and to cover another protest in Parliament Square over new protest laws and one calling for a tax on foreign currency exchange transactions.

Back in 2005, My London Diary was in a slightly less developed state. My comments were still all in lowercase and there are no links to individual events. And although all the pictures on-line are digital colour I also took some pictures in medium format on black and white film.


In 2008 I took part in a show with 3 other photographers, English Carnival, and the web site from this remains on-line. My pictures are a black and white set from Notting Hill in 1990-2001, but those by the others – Paul Baldesare, Dave Trainer and Bob Watkins – are from traditional English events, and include several taken at events I was also photographing.


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.


1987 Shoreditch

Saturday, August 8th, 2020
Great Eastern St, Curtain Rd, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987 87-3h-63-positive_2400
Great Eastern St/Curtain Rd, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987

Almost every picture I took in Shoreditch in 1987 seemed to have a ‘For Sale’ notice on a building in it.

The Mission, Shoreditch High St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987 87-3h-54-positive_2400
The Mission, Shoreditch High St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987

Shoreditch is an area just outside the City of London, and it was this position outside of the City’s jurisdiction that led to its being the site of London’s first theatres towards the end of the 16th century. These soon moved to other areas – such as Southwark – but people and trades continued to grow in the area. There was a massive increase in population in the Victorian era, with local industries particularly based on timber and furniture-making and upholstering. There are still many Victorian warehoused in the area, but almost all now put to other uses as the furniture trade lost out to cheaper mass-produced and often imported goods. The de-industrialisation was hastened by the shift under Thatcher away from manufacturing to service industries, and by the time I took these pictures in 1987 many warehouses and workshops were empty.

Andrews Office Equipment, Great Eastern St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987 87-3h-42-positive_2400
Andrews Office Equipment, Great Eastern St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987
Shops, Tabernacle St, Old St, Islington, Hackney, 1987 87-3h-24-positive_2400 87-3h-24-positive_2400
Shops, Paul St, Old St, Islington, Hackney, 1987

The fire at Butler’s wharf led to the many artists who had set up studios and often lived in them illegally in disused warehouses being given notice to quit in 1978/9. One of my artist friends being evicted got on his bike and cycled north looking for a suitable new home and got a flat tire on Curtain Rd. He stopped to repair it outside a furniture factory which was closing down and asked a man there if he could have a bowl and water to try and locate the puncture. They talked a little and he was told that the premises were to let – and he had his studio there for the next 20 years or more.

Old St,  Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987
Old St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987

Other artists also found cheap property to use as studios, and their presence kept the area alive and gradually made it a more desirable area. Developers moved in, rents increased and artists were gradually forced out of the area, as new clubs, restuarants and other leisure venues proliferated. From the mid-90s Shoreditch began to be a popular area to go for a night out, and is now one of London’s tourist destinations.

W A Hudson Ltd, Curtain Rd, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987 87-3g-12-positive_2400
W A Hudson Ltd, Curtain Rd, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987
Old St,  Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987 87-3g-43-positive_2400
Old St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987

There are still some artists with studios in the area, but most of its art is now outside on its walls as London’s prime graffiti area. In their place as well as the clubs and food outlets the area has also become home to many high-tech computer based companies, and an epitome of gentrification and hipster culture.

Rivington St,  Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987 87-3g-34-positive_2400
Rivington St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987
B Smiler & Sons, Rivington St,  Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987 87-3g-23-positive_2400
B Smiler & Sons, Rivington St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987

More from Shoreditch and elsewhere on Page 3 of my 1987 London Photos.


Back to 1986: Page 4

Wednesday, May 20th, 2020
Broadway Bakeries, Brougham Rd, Benjamin Close, Broadway Market, Hackney 86-6m-35_2400
Borough Market

Returning to my London pictures for 1986, and to page 4 of my Flickr album 1986 London Photographs.

The Oval, Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets 86-6m-65_2400
The Oval, Bethnal Green

1986 was the year I began to photograph London in depth, and the album reflects this, with 1370 black and white photographs, a fraction of the number I took that year. The hundred on page 4 are from the boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets and include pictures from Dalston, Shoreditch, Hackney, Bethnal Green, Wapping, Shadwell, Limehouse, Whitechapel and other parts east of the city. There is just the odd image from elsewhere in London.

War Memorial, Cyprus St, Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets86-6o-31_2400
Cyprus St, Bethnal Green

Unlike in some earlier years the routes for my walks around the area were carefully planned, with research from a number of published sources, though information was much less readily available than now before the days of the world wide web. Of course I didn’t always stick to my planned routes, but I did carry a notebook to write down where I actually went and even sometimes some details of what I was photographing.

Hessell St, Whitechapel, Tower Hamlets
Hessel St, Whitechapel

One of my major resources was of course maps, both new and old, not just for the streets but also for the other information included on them. Some marked industrial areas in brown, most showed churches and public buildings and some gave names of various features. The invaluable series of reprints of old 1:2500 OS maps was begun by Alan Godfrey in 1983, but few were available in 1986. I now have a very large collection.

Kingsland Basin, Regent's Canal, Hackney 86-7c-26_2400
Kingsland Basin

My aim was to not to walk along every street (as the woman who produced the London A-Z was sometimes said to have done) but at least to look down nearly all of them, and to photograph all buildings of interest as well as other things I found on my journeys. Later when I had bought a scanner I produced enlarged versions of the A-Z pages, printing them on a black and white laser printer and used highlighter pen after I came home to mark where I had walked. These both showed me any areas I had missed and helped me, together with the notebooks, to mark on the contact sheets where the pictures were taken.

Nuttal St, Hackney 86-7c-36_2400
Nuttal St, Hackney

I mostly travelled by train or underground so often several walks started from a particular station, and perhaps along the same streets close to them. There were also some areas that particularly interested me, either for simple visual reasons or because they were obviously changing, to which I returned.

I’ve posted some of the pictures on this page previously on >Re:PHOTO and I’ve tried to find others to put on this post. You can see all of the pictures – 100 on page 4 – on Flickr – where you can view them larger than on here – by clicking on the link or the image below.

Russia Lane, Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets 86-6l-66_2400

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.


July 1986 on Flickr

Wednesday, April 1st, 2020
Pipe Bridge, Regent’s Canal, Baring St, Islington

I had more time to take pictures in July as my teaching came to an end for the summer vacation around halfway through the month. This meant I could go up to London on some weekdays, though I still had two small boys to look after on days my wife was working. That usually meant staying at home, but sometimes I took them both out with me to London.

Regent’s Canal

I spent some time in Shadwell and Bethnal Green, but also further north in Shoreditch, Hoxton and Dalston, occasionally wandering into Islington. Though I obviously photographed on foot, I had to travel from my home outside London and then around London to the starting point for my walks, and the One Day Capitalcard, valid on all public transport in London after 9.30am made this much simpler after its introduction in June 1986 – the one-day Travelcard launched in 1984 had been for bus and tube only.

The Mission, Holywell Lane, Shoreditch, Hackney

Towards the end of the month I moved my focus to the City of London, even easier for transport then as the Waterloo and City line was still run by British Rail and my ‘London Terminals’ ticket was valid all the way to Bank.

Blackfriars Rail Bridges

When I began photographing London there were two railway bridges across the River Thames at Blackfriars, but all that remained of one of these by 1986 were the pillars that had supported it. And while these were rather a fine set of pillars they were (and remain) a rather curious river feature, presumably left in position simply to save the cost of removing them.

Queenhithe and the River Thames

Queenhithe, a small inlet on the City side of the river has a long history. The Romans built a quay here, and buried deep down in the wet mud some of the timbers they put here survive, as do remains of the dock contructed when Alfred the Great, King of Wessex re-established the City of London aroudn 886 AD. It got the name Queenhithe (a hythe is a small harbour) when Henry I gave the right to levy dues on goods landed there to his wife Matilda around the time of their marriage in 1100. Queenhithe was still a major harbour for the city hundreds of years later and remained in use, with lighters bringing skins for the fur trade which was based a short distance to the north until the Second World War.

Fur shops in Great St Thomas Apostle

Around 300 of the black and white pictures I took in July 1986 are now online:
Peter Marshall: 1986 London Photographs on Flickr.
July’s pictures start here.

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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.

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