Kirtling Street to Battersea Power Station & the Dogs continues my walk which began at Vauxhall on Friday 28th July 1989 with Nine Elms Riverside. The previous post was More from Nine Elms Riverside.
The riverside path still ends at Kirtling Street but Greenham’s aggregate wharf has now been replaced by the central site of the Tideway 25km London super sewer project underneath the River Thames due for completion in 2025, when it should prevent 95% of sewage spills in London entering the river. It was here that the two tunnel boring machines were lowered 50 metres below ground to make their way east and west to produce the central section of the tunnel between Fulham and Bermondsey.
This bricked up entry in a tall brick wall on the corner of Cringle Street was for many years all that remained of the 50-year-old glass, lead, paint and sanitary ware manufacturing company which had opened a large 4-storey factory here in 1884 with a frontage on Nine Elms Lane. The Farmiloe brothers had set up in business in Westminster in the 1840s as glass cutters and taken over the Island Lead Mills in Limehouse in 1885, and expanded with a brass foundry on Horseferry Road, a varnish works in Mitcham and this large warehouse in Nine Elms, producing everything a plumber could need. In the twentieth century their main business moved to sanitary ware and paint, including ‘Nine Elms’ white lead paint which was made at this white-lead factory built around 1910. I think the company which had trademarked ‘Nine Elms’ had long vacated the site before it was dissolved in 1988. The trademark passed to Akzo Nobel and expired in 2005.
Sleaford Street was on the eastern side of one of the earliest developments in the area, Battersea New Town, begun in the 1790s and was first developed on its west side the by Southwark butcher William Sleford. Apparently later “One side of Sleaford Street was formerly derided as Ginbottle Row, while the other was called Soapsuds Bay, presumably because it accommodated laundresses.”
I can find no signs of the building in this picture and most of the west side of Sleaford Street is now occupied by a large block of flats extending back from the corner with Nine Elms Lane completed around 2008. John Oswald and Sons had a foundry in the street from 1871 and this may be their building.
At the left of the picture you can see the Battersea gasholder, demolished 2014-7 and at right Battersea Power Station.
A slightly unusual view of the power station six years after its final closure. Planning permission was obtained for it conversion to a theme park, but the scheme was halted when money ran out in March 1989. By this time the roof had been removed, presumably by McAlpine whose name adorns the building, which led to considerable subsequent deterioration of the steelwork and foundations.
After various failed redevelopment plans the power station was eventually refurbished as an expensive tourist destination surrounded by new homes, a hotel, shops and restaurants and a new London Underground station. McAlpine was the construction manager for the final phase three of the development.
Another view of the wrecked power station, along with a rather unconvincing double at the right with a view of the abandoned scheme.
Then there was no way back to the riverside before reaching Chelsea Bridge at the north end of Queenstown Road. A long detour away from the river around the power station and gas works site took me past Battersea Dogs Home where I took this picture with one dog begging on the top of the wall and another emerging from the Exit to the building. There is now a rather larger building on the site and it has added ‘and Cats’ to its remit.
The description of my walk will continue in a later post.
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