Posts Tagged ‘Snowsfields’

A Mission, More Bermondsey St & Guinness

Friday, August 12th, 2022

This post about my walk on Sunday 13th November continues from Fellmongers, Kennels, Snakes and Thomas A’Becket 1988.

Central Hall, South London Mission, Methodist Church, Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-53-Edit_2400
Central Hall, South London Mission, Methodist Church, Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-53

A Mission, More Bermondsey St & Guinness

Bermondsey Central Hall, BCH has been on the corner of Bermondsey Street and Decima Street since 1900 and still boasts a thriving congregation. The Methodist South London Mission has been in the area a little longer, beginning in 1889 and still providing vital services for the community, supporting mothers and children and runnning a 32 room hostel offering low cost accommodation to both working people and students.

Central Hall, South London Mission, Methodist Church, Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-54-Edit_2400
Central Hall, South London Mission, Methodist Church, Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-54

Back in 1988 it was offering ‘Free Beef and Butter’ to those in need and it now is a partner and distribution center for the Southwark Foodbank PECAN, a local charity, based in Peckham.

Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-46-Edit_2400
Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-46

I walked again up Bermondsey St. It was earlier in the day than my previous visit and the low sun was shining obliquely on the properties on its west side, among them George, a hairdressers at 126 and The Three Day Service Ltd, Printers and Stationers at 124. A stone higher up on these buildings has the initials PD and date 1828 and they are Grade II listed. The gate at the right of the picture led to Black Eagle Yard with several workshops, but the gap in the street was filled in 2015 with a passable imitation of the listed frontages and is now called Renaissance Court, though seven years later the wide gate area still looks unfinished.

Morocco St, Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-32-Edit_2400
Morocco St, Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-32

The corner of Morocco St, leading off to the left of the picture and Bermondsey St, with the Grocery shop of M & K Co Ltd, trading as R E Dawson. On the left you can just see one of the horses heads on the frontage of the garage on Morocco St. This is another place where a gap has been filled in with a new building in a very similar styl. The two brick-filled windows are now actual windows – Window Tax ended in 1851 and this building, now called Lantern House, may date from before this. The hoarding, then with a cigarette advert, has also of course gone.

Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-35-Edit_2400
Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-35

I couldn’t resist taking more pictures of these fine listed properties – my favourite building on the street which I’ve written more about on an earlier walk.

Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-22-Edit_2400
Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11a-22

Ash & Ash Ltd are still listed in trade directories on the web at this address, and appear to have been printers, later moving into the sale of computer peripherals. But other companies have their offices in these buildings.

Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11b-53-Edit_2400
Bermondsey St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11b-53

I turned off Bermondsey St just before the railway and went west along Snowsfields.

Guinness Trust Buildings, Snowsfields, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11b-63-Edit_2400
Guinness Trust Buildings, Snowsfields, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11b-63

A little way along are these fine tenement blocks. There is an extensive history of the Guiness Trust online. In 1889, philanthropist Sir Edward Cecil Guinness, the great grandson of the founder of the Guinness Brewery, gave £200,000 to set up The Guinness Trust in London as well as another trust in Dublin. This was a huge sum of money, the equivalent of around £20 million allowing for inflation.

The money enabled them to build eight tenement estates in the first 11 years, providing 2,597 homes for London’s working class, or at least those working men who were earning around 20 shillings a week, although they wanted to make homes that even the poorest families could afford.

Their Snows Fields estate opened in 1898, with 355 tenements including 830 rooms and by 1900 there were almost 1600 people living here. They had cost around £78,000 to build, including tht cost of the land. The South Eastern Railway provided £4,000 as presumably some of its workers were to live there. The flats were modernised in the 1950s and 1970s.

My walk will continue in a later post.