Bird in Bush Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-21
I spent some time exploring the area around Malt Street and Ossory Road, now on the other side of Asda, where some demolition was taking place but took few photographs, none on-line, and then walked back along along the Old Kent Road to Peckham Park Road, going down this to Green Hundred Road. I found myself in a large area of council housing, much of which was fairly standard LCC five storey blocks dating from the late 1930s, solidly built, their height limited back then by the lack of lifts.
The foreground flats in this picture are from the late 60s and are on Bird in Bush Road, part of the GLC designed Ledbury Estate, and as well as these 4-storey maisonette blocks there were also four identical 14 floor H shape tower blocks, including this one, Bromyard House, which has its entrance on Commercial Way.
Bird in Bush Road, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-22
This picture was taken from close to the east end of Bird in Bush Road, and the building cut off at extreme left of the image is the former Arthur Street Board School (now Camelot Primary School.)
The design dates of these flats, also on the Ledbury estate, is from the early 1960s and was replicated across London by the GLC, using the prefabricated Danish Larsen-Nielsen system. After one at Ronan Point suffered a disastrous collapse following a gas explosion flats built using this system should have been strengthened, but somehow Southwark Council failed to do so on this estate. I’m not sure whether this had now been put right. but none have yet collapsed.
This semi-detached residence dating from 1836 which was Grade II listed together with the neighbouring Doddington Place around nine years after I took this picture.
The name possibly comes from Doddington Hall in Cheshire, built by Samuel Wyatt for Sir Thomas Broughton in 1777-90 and its parkland landscaped by Capability Brown. There is also Doddington Place at Doddington near Sittingbourne in Kent, but this was only built around 1870.
Tustin Estate, Old Kent Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-11
The Tustin Estate is on the north side the Old Kent Road immediately west of Ilderton Road. It has three 20 storey towers, Windermere Point, Grasmere Point (in the centre here) and Ambleside Point, each with over 70 flats which were approved by the GLC in 1964. There are also six low-rise blocks on the estate.
According to Southwark Council, “In March 2021, residents voted in favour of demolishing and rebuilding the low-rise buildings in a residents’ ballot. This will include replacement council homes, additional council homes and key worker housing, shared equity homes and homes for private sale. There will also be a replacement school building, new commercial spaces and a new park. All existing residents will be able to move to a new council home in the first phase of the scheme.” I’m unsure how far this scheme has so far progressed and it remains to be seen whether the council will keep its promises, which it almost completely failed to do on some earlier schemes.
I returned to Clifton Crescent which I had photographed earlier and too a rather better and closer picture of this magnificent curved terrace. As I explained earlier, it was Southwark Council’s decision in 1972 to demolish this crescent that led to a local action group which became the Peckham Society in 1975. Fortunately they managed to stop the demolition when only No 1 had been lost. They convinced the council that retaining and restoring the properties was a cheaper option, and the lost house was rebuilt and the entire crescent, Grade II listed thanks to their efforts in 1974, was restored by 1977. The Crescent was built in 1847-51 and represents an interesting transition between earlier Regency styles and the simpler Victorian terraces.
Car spares, Loder St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-15
From there I made my way east, going under the railway on Culmore Road or Clifton Way and then south to Loder St. This whole area has been redeveloped since I made these pictures in 1989 and is now covered with low-rise housing. I made two pictures of this car breaker’s yard (you can see the other on Flickr).The tower blocks are those of the Tustin Estate.
Hatcham Liberal Club, Queen’s Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1989 89-3d-61
I walked down to Queen’s Road, I think along York Grove, stopping briefly to photograph a street corner. On Queen’s Road before catching a bus I photographed the Hatcham Liberal Club, built in 1880 in Queen Anne Dutch style and Grade II listed ten years after I took this picture. It was one of the largest of a number of late Victorian working men’s clubs and became a popular venue with a large hall at the back available for hire for parties and gigs and also for until it closed in 2006. In 2009 most of the interior was converted into flats.
Shops, John Ruskin St, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-3d-62
I changed buses in Camberwell, where I made a slight detour to make another visit to photograph the row of shops on John Ruskin Street as the final picture of the day and this walk.
I stepped a few feet inside the Caroline Gardens Estate to photograph No 79A, which was one of two identical lodges at the ends of the main site. This one is at the north end and the plaque above the doorway has been restored and can now easily be read, ‘THIS LODGE ERECTED 1849 HENRY ENGLAND CHAIRMAN’.
The corner of this lodge occupies most of the right half of the picture, looking down the rather uneven pavement with some vintage street lamps to more of the Asylum buildings. I didn’t go further into the estate as I think I felt this and the earlier pictures of it were enough. The buildings of the Licensed Victuallers’ Benevolent Institution (Caroline Gardens) in Asylum Rd are Grade II listed and as my previous post mentioned were acquired by Southwark Council in 1960.
Lorry Park, Asylum Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-55
The lorry park on Asylum Road was something of a contrast to the elegance of the Asylum buildings, though I liked its selection of lines and blocks, the trailers, the fence, barrier and posts and wires.
I can’t see any trace of this now and but I think it was probably on the east side of the street where there is now a large car park for Lidl.
Wales Close, Asylum Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-56
On the west side of Asylum Road was this dead end back street, not named on my map from the 1980s but was where Wales Close is now. The tall blocks in the background are on the Ledbury Estate on Commercial Way.
Streets such as this were very much a reminder of London as a city full of industry with many areas like this full of small manufacturing businesses of all trades, as well as larger companies and great industrial estates.
Livesey Museum, Old Kent Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-43
Asylum Road ends at the Old Kent Road and the Livesey Museum was at No 682, just a short walk towards central London. The Livesey Museum was commissioned by George Livesey, chairman of the South Metropolitan Gas Company, in 1890 as a library for workers of the local gasworks and later entrusted to the people of the old parish of Camberwell as a public library. It was damaged in wartime bombing but restored and opened as the the Livesey Museum for Children from 1974 to 2008.
Southwark Council wanted to sell the building off, but found that they were not the owners, as it was owned by a covenanted trust. It was squatted in 2010 but then became home to Treasure House, providing special education to vulnerable young adults in Southwark.
I kept walking along the Old Kent Road towards Bermondsey, taking a few pictures including of Christ Church next to the museum and the murals on the North Peckham Civic Centre by Polish artist, Adam Kossowski. Plans for the demolition of this building were approved by Southwark Council in 2019, preserving the mural, listed in 2017.
I haven’t digitised my black and white picture as I thought I had taken better images in colour, but if so I’ve yet to digitise those either. The former North Peckham Civic Centre was the Twentieth Century Society’s Building of the Month for November 2020, and has been described as ” by far the finest 20th Century building on the Old Kent Road.” and was once described by Southwark Council as a building of ‘Architectural or Historic Interest’. But that seems not to be enough to save it, although it was still standing a few months ago.
The doorway to Offices I photographed at 500 Old Kent Road, on the side of the building in Malt Street has since disappeared, along with the row of late Victorian terrace housing in my next frame which I think were also on Malt Street. 500 Old Kent Road is now a part of the address of Asda Old Kent Road Superstore at 464-504, and Malt Street is considerably wider to give easier vehicle access to the Asda car park.
Bird in Bush Park, Bird in Bush Rd, Naylor Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-45
This park was formed by wholesale housing clearances by Southwark Council in the 1970s. The triangular area between Bird in Bush Road, Naylor Road and Commercial Way which had around 35 houses built from around 1870 until the end of the century with back gardens was flattened, leaving only a couple of buildings on the northern corners of the area.
The houses in this picture are on the other side of Commercial Way and I was standing on or close to Naylor Road. I spent quite a long time taking dozen pictures of these semi-embedded tyres which made a BMX track, all fairly similar to this.
Flats, Meeting House Lane, Queen’s Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-11
I walked west from the park and down the route of the former Surrey Canal back to Peckham High Street, turning along this to the east to the junction with Meeting House Lane.
Southwark Council decided to demolish Wood Dene (part of the Acorn Estate) in 2000, later selling it off on the cheap for £7million to Notting Hill Housing Trust who redeveloped it as Peckham Place. It was demolished in 2007. When built Wood Dene was home to 323 families as council tenants. The replacement was only completed in 2019, has no real social housing with just 54 homes at so-called ‘affordable’ rent of up to 80% market rent.
As I was preparing to take this picture a woman walked across and I waited until she was in a suitable position to include in the picture. I think her presence emphasises the massive scale of the 1960’s block.
St John Chrysostom, Church, Meeting House Lane, Queen’s Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-14
Some way up Meeting House Lane on the corner of Springhall Street was the Anglican Church and Parish Centre of St John, Peckham, built in 1965 to replace the bombed St Jude and St Chrysostom, whose two parishes were amalgamated. The architect David Bush worked on a “truly theological and quite unique brief, following on from a weekend building conference at Sevenoaks” resulting in a building suitable for varied religious and secular use.
The building now lookks a little different, with the large brick side on Springhall Street now entirely covered by a colourful mural painted in 2017.
The Edwardian Baroque building here seems to go under several addresses in Asylum Rd, and although it now clearly calls itself 12b is Grade II listed as 12a Asylum Rd, a former annexe to offices of the almshouses, built 1913-1914, architect F.E Harford. Other sources refer to it as 10 Asylum Rd.
The Licensed Victuallers’ Benevolent Institution Asylum was founded in 1827 on a large site on what became Asylum Road, a short distance from the Old Kent Road (which its Grade II listing gives as its address.)
The asylum was simply housing for retired publicans and was not a ‘lunatic asylum’ though many of its elderly residents might have been a little fuddled from years of alcohol fumes and consumption. The earliest buildings date from 1827 and the architect was Henry Rose, but there were later additions in similar style in the 1840s, 1850s and finally in 1866. It became the largest almshouses in London with over 200 residents in 176 homes.
Most if not all of the buildings are Grade II listed. In 1959 the Licensed Victuallers moved to new almshouses in Denham, Bucks and in 1960 Camberwell Borough Council bought the property for council housing, apparently naming it Caroline Gardens after a former resident.
Leo Street School, Asylum Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3c-63
This 1900 building on Asylum Rd is at the back of the Leo Street School and opened in 1900, a year after the main school, architect T J Bailey. In my picture the board states it is part of ILEA’s Southwark College. It was converted to residential use in the 1990s.
G Costa & Co, Marlborough Works, Staffordshire St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-54
G Costa, importers and distributors of fine foods was founded in 1879 and incorporated in 1913. The company moved out of Peckham to another of its sites in Aylesford Kent in 1994, and was bought by Associated British Foods in 2003.
Among its products is the Blue Dragon range of sauces and ingredients for Chinese, Japanese and S E Asian meals. The factory site has since been developed as housing.
Although this building has been replaced by a new block, these is still a slight bend here at the south end of Staffordshire Street just before it ends on Peckham High St. There are still some posts along the side of the pavement, but no longer needed to protect pedestrians from lorries from the factory, but three hoops to lock a bike to outside the entrance to Gaumont House.
This block was the site of the first Gaumont Palace Theatre to be built in London in 1932, on the site of the 1898 Peckham Hippodrome Theatre on Peckham High St between Marmont Road and Staffordshire Street. Later it became simply The Gaumont and was damaged by bombing in 1941 and a V1 flying bomb in 1944, managing to re-open after both a few months later. Refurbished in 1948 it closed in 1961 and was converted into a Top Rank Bingo club with boxing matches once a week. It was sadly modernised in the 1970s, closed in 1998 and was demolished in 2002.
I was attracted by the odd pattern of rectangles, including one one the pavement in the foreground and others along the wall, with those each side of the leaning lamp post formed by shadows rather than the actual doorways and subtly subverting the impression of space in the picture.
Marmont Rd, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-56
I took two pictures on this street corner, the first on an impulse when a man walked in front of me as I was getting ready to take a picture, his shadow falling on the tiles of the doorway.
Marmont Rd, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-41
But this is the picture I had stopped to take, and rather more carefully composed. If you look carefully from this corner now you can see that the five windows in my picture have all been bricked up, with just a small window left at the top of the lowest one. The block of flats further down Marmont Road is still there though now rather hidden by trees.
At right the curve with lights is above the tiled entrance to the foyer of the Top Rank Bingo Club, built in1932 as the Gaumont Palace Theatre, though later modernised. The large foyer extended out into the street corner in a single storey curve from the massive brick block of the cinema.
There is still a curved corner at the right, but to a newer and rather anonymous building on the site, Gaumont House.
This terrace of splendid double-fronted Victorian houses, continued at the left by some slightly less grand without a first floor window over the central door is still there on Friary Road.
The road was developed in the 1840s as Lower Park Road, when Peckham Park, also known as Peckham New Town was a very desirable middle class suburb. Like many other London roads it was renamed in the 1930s and became Friary Road, named for the Friary on the corner of this road and Bird in Bush Road.
Our Lady of Sorrows, Catholic, Church, Bird in Bush Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-43
For some reason the church here is listed as the Church of Our Lady of Seven Dolours on the Old Kent Road, Southwark, London, SE15, a quarter of a mile away, although the listing does include the correct address of Bird in Bush Road where my picture was taken showing the side of the Grade II listed church.
This very large church was designed by the prominent Victorian church architect E W Pugin and built from 1859 to 1866, delayed by lack of funds, for the Capuchin Friars. They built a Friary next door (designed by James O’Byrne) on what is now Friary Road in the 1884s and served the church there until 2000 when the Friary buildings were handed to the archdiocese and are now home to a Vincentian community.
Houses in this row on Queen’s Rd were being renovated and turned into flats. Many of these properties were still in a fairly poor condition in 1989. Although these houses all seem of rather similar quality and are all I think “Early to mid C19”, number 52, just out of my picture on the left has been singled out for listing, despite it and others having had significant rebuilding in the 20th century.
It was only listed in 1998. Perhaps it was then under threat of demolition. Most of these houses were being converted into flats at the time I was photographing them.
There is still a Quantock Laundry, but in Weston-Super-Mare, where the name seems rather more appropriate.
Houses, King’s Grove, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-14
25 and 27 King’s Grove are part of a long terrace on the west side at the Queen’s Road end of the street. The face a rather grander row of joined semidetached villas on the opposite side of the road.
The view across Brimmington Park towards the three tower blocks of the Tustin Estate on the Old Kent Road. The park was created when a number of terraced houses and small factories were demolished in the 1970s. Perhaps the name was a reference to the rather grander Royal York Crescent in Clifton, Bristol.
Clifton Crescent was built in 1847-51. It was saved from demolition by Southwark Council by local campaigners in 1972-4, when the properties were in a poor condition after years of neglect. It was the fight to save this crescent that led after demolition had begun to the formation of the Peckham Society, a Civic Trust affiliated society which continues to argue the case for conserving what remains of Peckham and making new developments acceptable to residents. The society also had a more militant wing.
Clifton Crescent was an unusually large Victorian development for this area and unlike most other large crescents was built in red brick. Grade II listing in 1974 helped to ensure its survival and in 1977 the facade was restored and the houses converted to flats by the London Borough of Southwark.
My next pictures appear to be taken on Rye Lane, and I can no longer remember whether this was on the same walk or on another a week or two later. But since I was still in Peckham I will continue with them here.
On the west side close to the Peckham High Street end of Rye Lane. The shop has been recently refurbished, but the facade above remains much the same, though the long box which I assume once carried the name of a shop has long been removed.
What She Wants, Rye Lane, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-64
What She Wants at 26 Rye Lane later became Atlantic Clothing, was briefly Solo then around 2014 became FAS Hair & Cosmetics. The upper floor windows have long been bricked up and the first floor of the wall above the shop front graffitied, making the decoration on the frontage difficult to see.
The Halifax is still there at 22-4, its single storey shop, along with that of Vodaphone next door still hiding the considerably more elegant building above it. You can still see the upper floors from the opposite side of the road on the corner with Hanover Park.
Following an evangelical campaign at Peckham Wesleyan Church (Methodist) in 1887 a group of young men began to hold meetings and services in this deprived area of Peckham. They met in the open air, and in various other places including the disused Blue Anchor pub and a cottage in an row know as The Orchard close to here.
In 1893 they moved into Batchelors Hall, but in 1904 the Ragged School Union (later known as the Shaftesbury Society) bought a site in Blue Anchor Lane (now Mission Place) and built this building, which opened in 1906 and is still there, considerably restored.
The Peckham Settlement, Goldsmith Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3b-52
A couple of the lime trees here have gone, but building work in 2016 has transformed this short row into 44-50 Goldsmith Road, four separate houses, adding three new front doors with steps up to them, more imposing doorways and windows and a fence alongside the pavement – and a price tag around £900,000 each.
This building was a part of The Peckham Settlement, established in 1896 and led by the head mistress of Wycombe Abbey, a girls public school in Buckinghamshire, Miss Frances Dove to alleviate the social problems of the area. It was an innovative project, setting up the first children’s nursery in London and pioneering ‘meals on wheels’ and an unemployment insurance scheme and in 1987 the first government sponsored ‘job club’. It moved to this area in Goldsmith Rd in 1930. A financial crisis in 2012 meant it had to sell the buildings to pay its debts, with a surplus providing investment income to make grants for local charities and community groups.
Houses at 142-148 on Queen’s Road are Grade II listed, as well as 152-158 further east, toegther with 2-6 St Mary’s Road. I don’t think there is now a number 150, and these form a fairly continuous group of large early 19th century houses. My picture shows 146-148. I also photographed but have not digitised the pair of houses at 156-158, the latter also known as St Mary’s Court.
No 148 has the name EVAN COOK Ltd on its door, a private limited company dissolved in 2015 whose activities are listed as ‘Other transportation support activities‘ and offered Export Packaging, Removals and Storage. They appear to have owned a number of properties in south London. In my previous post I included a photograph of their large premises on Lugard Road, where the company name is remembered in Evan Cook Close. The company had begun by selling second-hand furniture around here in 1893.
I walked under the railway bridge at Queens Road station (the apostrophe in Queen’s seems optional in this area) and on the corner of the road was this pub opposite the station named for the London & Brighton Railway. Formed in 1837 in 1846 it merged with four other railway companies to become the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) and in 1923 this became part of the Southern Railway, until nationalisation.
But the South London line from London Bridge to a new Peckham station here only opened to passengers in 1867, after the merger. The road, formerly Peckham Lane, was renamed after Queen Victoria in 1866 and the station was soon renamed to Queen’s Road. I think the Peckham on its name came much later to avoid confusion with other London stations, Queen’s Road Battersea and Queen’s Road Walthamstow.
The pub was closed in 2008 but its sign – a different one from that in my picture – stands as a sad reminder on Queen’s Rd. The building remained standing until 2013 and was a popular squatted centre with parties and music gigs for some time with some interesting murals. It was replaced by a four storey block of flats, London & Brighton Appartments, with shops and parking on the ground level.
Ora Lighting, Kings Grove, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-45
The next turning to the east going north from Queen’s Road is King’s Grove. This small works has been converted into a taller block at 2c King’s Grove, Quay 2c. Designed by owners architect Ken Taylor and sculptor Julia Manheim on a site described as a former milk depot this now now houses design and sculpture studios and three flats. Built into the front wall is a large window used to display art works, the m2 Gallery, using what would otherwise have been a blank wall of a small room containing gas, water and electric meters etc. The building, completed around 2003 has featured in some Open House weeks.
The letters appear to be Eco Charp which meant nothing to me. I now find from Flickr that he was a teenage graffiti tagger from a local Greek/Cypriot family who were in various businesses including ice cream vans in the area and connected with the Peckham snooker hall at 267 Rye Lane which in the 1990s became the rave nightclub Lazerdrome. Apparently his family made clear to Eco Charp when he was about 18 that he had to grow up and stop his graffiti activities.
The house is the Grade II listed 2 Wood’s Road, which featured in one of my posts on earlier walks in the area, first built in the late 17th century but much altered in the 19th and recently renovated.
This disused print works was on Colmore Mews, a small street off Wood’s Road. just south of Queen’s Road. Two young boys were climbing up the side of the disused building. This was at the rear of the offices of the of the company at 62a Queen’s Road, Peckham. None of th buildings visible in the picture remain. The fence at left was around the playgorund at the rear of the school on Woods Rd, now John Donne Primary School.
As often happened, one of the boys asked me to take his picture, and I obliged. Behind him on both sides were some of the buildings on both sides of Colmore Mews, now replaced.
His friend then also wanted his picture taken and I took two more pictures of the two boys as they went back to climbing up the wall before continuing on my walk.
Back in 1989 it was still not unusual for children to play on the streets – just as I had with my friends as a working class child. I didn’t think they were likely to come to much harm.
Saturday 27th January 2007 was a rather unusual day for me. Of course one of the joys of working as a photographer is that most days are different, but perhaps this was more varied than most, though I only had three sets of pictures to put on line
No Sweat Protests Burberry Factory Closure – Regent St
I’ve never owned or worn any clothing made by Burberry, but they are very much a traditional British brand, producing and selling clothing that seems rooted in the British countryside and images of farming, hunting shooting and fishing. But I’ve always been a town or city dweller.
Until 2007 their clothing was proudly Made in Britain, and for years had come from a factory in Treorchy in the Rhonda where the factory had started in 1940 and employed large numbers of local skilled workers. The factory was set up when Alfred Pollikoff received funding in 1937 from Lord Nuffield to bring new industries to distressed areas of the country and began production in 1939 producing clothes for all kinds of workers and military uniforms for the Second World War.
The Pollikoff factory was bought by Great Universal Stores in 1948 and was taken over by Burberry, also a part of GUS, in 1989 when they changed its name, although many locally continued to refer to it as Pollikoff’s.
They became one of the largest employers in the Rhonda, at its peak employing around a thousand workers, though by 2006 increased mechanisation had reduced that to around 300. It was a great shock to the workers and the local economy when Burberry in September 2006 announced they were closing the factory at the end of March 2007 and moving production to China.
The Treorchy factory was efficient with high productivity and profitable. But UK labour costs meant that production was more expensive than overseas. According to the GMB union it cost around £11 to produce a polo shirt in Wales, but with cheap labour only around £4 in China. Burberry sold these shirts for around £60 in shops such as that on Regent St.
The Treorchy workers began an huge campaign to keep the factory open, gaining support from many in parliament and such unlikely figures as the owner of Harrods, along with stars including Sir Tom Jones, Michael Sheen, Ioan Gruffudd, Rhys Ifans, Charlotte Church and Ben Elton.
Local MP for Rhonnda, Chris Bryant (brown jacket) with Treorchy workers
A group of workers had come to London to pursue their fight and to demonstrate outside the Bond St and Regent St Burberry stores on January 27th. And a team from ‘No Sweat’, “an activist, campaigning organisation, fighting sweatshop bosses, in solidarity with workers, worldwide”, dressed as removal men arrived to support them, attempting to wrap the shops and workers in brown paper and ship them, second class, to China.
No Sweat’s protest was an amusing act of street theatre and one which helped an otherwise rather vanilla protest gain publicity in the media, always hard for protests to achieve unless they involve celebrities or violent illegal acts. Generally our media are very much on the side of the bosses (like the billionaires who own most of the papers) and the status quo, and the vast majority of protests are simply ignored by them, as “not news”.
Burberry workers destroy a Burberry polo shirt made in Treorchy
Burberry still makes some clothing in Britain (and elsewhere in Europe), and in 2015 enraged some who had fought to keep Treorchy open by announcing plans for an new factory in Leeds, though this was to replace two existing Yorkshire factories.
A number of small businesses were set up after the closure on the factory site, including the Treorchy Sewing Enterprise Ltd, set up by former Burberry employees.
West End Walk – Bond Street, Piccadilly, Leicester Square
I’ve never really thought that ‘street photography’ was a useful definition of an area of photography, and certainly never thought of myself as a street photographer, though the huge majority of my work has been made on the streets.
And while there are some ‘street photographers’ whose work I admire, there does seem to me to be a huge amount of totally vacuous and pointless work that is produced under this label. It too often seems to be an excuse for having nothing to say.
Fortnum and Mason’s clock from 1964 is surely the most hideous in London.
So while the little performance in the tree at the side of the National Gallery may be ‘street photography’ the rest of my pictures on this little walk are more concerned with architectural detail and illustrate the profligacy which was (and is still) enabled by our exploitation of the British Empire. They pictures on this walk also say something about taste and attitudes to women, both in previous eras and of course my own.
Holocaust Memorial Day – Soviet War Memorial & Peace Garden, Lambeth
I was unable to be at the wreath-laying ceremony to mark Holocaust Memorial Day at the Soviet War Memorial in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park as I was taking pictures on Regent St. But I did go there later in the day.
The memorial is dedicated to all of the 27 million Soviet civilians and military personnel who died for Allied victory in World War II and off course the Soviet Union played a vital role in the defeat of the Nazis, but the Russian record of persecution of the Jews both before and after the revolution is horrific. The Russian Orthodox Church for centuries led opposition to Jews who were not permitted to go ‘beyond the pale’ into Russia unless they converted. The first recorded pogrom was in Odessa (now in Ukraine) in 1821 and there were widespread pogroms in the Russian empire later in the century which led to many fleeing to Britain and the USA. Tens of thousands of Jews were massacred in the civil war following the 1917 revolution. Antisemitism continues to be rife in Russia after the Soviet era.
Close to the Soviet War Memorial is the Holocaust memorial tree, planted in 2002 by the then Mayor of Southwark where wreaths are also laid at this annual ceremony.
The park surrounds the Imperial War Museum, which houses a moving exhibition on the holocaust, but I didn’t visit it on this day. Instead I went past to the Tibetan Peace Garden in the park, opened in Summer 1999 by the Dalai Lama. It seemed an appropriate place to sit and reflect for a while, which I did, as well as taking some pictures.
You can read more about these events by scrolling down the January 2007 page where there are links to more pictures
It was March 1989 before I had time for another walk in London after my walk on 12th February. I was still then teaching full-time and and this kept me busy, and the weather wasn’t always good at the weekend. If it was forecast to pour with rain most of the day I stayed home, and there were some weekends too when the trains were not running and getting to London took too long to be worth doing. But I did manage two walks in march, the first a long wander around from Peckham to New Cross and the second in the City and Shoreditch.
From the metal shutters on these shops you can see that this walk was on a Sunday. I preferred working on Sundays, particularly for busy shopping centres such as Rye Lane as the streets would then be empty with few shops opening. This allowed me to concentrate on the buildings without the distraction of people in the picture or walking in front of my camera.
In the morning the sun was shining on the buildings on the west side of the street and you can see long shadows from the lights projecting in front of ‘Lipstick’. Film of course didn’t have EXIF data but I suspect that ardent meteorological detectives could tell be exactly the time and day from the shadows, but I think it was likely to have been around 10 am. Back then I often caught the first train to London on Sundays, which left a little after 8am, so could be in Peckham after catching a bus perhaps by 9.30. And I will have got off the bus quite close to here, before walking east along Peckham High Street and Queens Road.
My next stop to take a picture was in Lugard Road, where just a few yards to the south of Queens Road I found the premises of Evan Cook offering Export Packaging, Removals and Storage with some interesting girders above their wide gates and linking these to the factory building. I was puzzled by these and could not work out what purpose they served.
This works has since been demolished and replaced by flats, and there is now also Evan Cook Close. From my photograph I thought the business was called Evan Cooke with an ‘e’ and I can’t understand what the final character is. The company, first incorporated in 1903 was dissolved in 2015 but the works had gone long before.
I continued down Lugard Road, turning into Hollydale Road and making my way to Dundas Road where I found these pre-fabs, which I think are LCC temporary housing. In 1963-4 the LCC designed temporary housing together with the Timber Development Association as a temporary solution to the then acute housing problem.
Designed to last 15 years these homes came as two boxes which were craned onto piles of paving slabs and did not need dug foundations. The two boxes were than bolted together. The walls were asbestos covered with plastic and both roof and floor were made from plywood sheets sandwiching polystyrene insulation. They had a hall, living room, two bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom.
Some were still being lived in 50 years later, but these in Dundas Road have long been removed and replaced. I walked along Dundas Road to St Mary’s Road, pausing to take a picture of St Mary Magdalene Church which I have not digitised as I think I took a better picture of this now demolished building on another occasion.
R E Sassoon House, St Mary’s Rd, Belfort Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-65
This block of workers flats were commissioned in memory of amateur jockey Reginald Sassoon, whose mother was a friend of housing reformer Elizabeth Danby who was working with architect E Maxwell Fry and doctors Innes Hope Pearse and George Scott Williamson on the Peckham Experiment in the neighbouring Pioneer Health Centre. Fry was responsible for the building but collaborated with Denby over the interiors.
R E Sassoon House, St Mary’s Rd, Belfort Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-52
The flats, opened in in November 1934, were designed to provide an ultra-modern well equipped living space for families, with 3 three-room flats and one four-roomed flats on each of the five floors. The curtain wall to the plate glass staircase tower was decorated with a glass mural of a horse and rider by Hans Feibusch. The interior was considerably altered in the 1980s when it was taken over by Southwark Borough Council. Surprisingly this block by one of the UK’s most distinguished modernist architects only got its Grade II listing in 1998.
Pioneer Health Centre, St Mary’s Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-53
Doctors George Scott Williamson and Innes Hope Pearse ran the Pioneer Health Centre in Queens Rd, Peckham from 1926-9, signing up 950 local families at 1s (5p) a week and offering various exercise activities, games and workshops and regular medical checkups as well as other medical services. The positive results led them to open a larger purpose-built centre a short distance away in St Mary’s Rd, designed by Sir Owen Williams, Grade II* listed as ‘Southwark Adult Education Institute’.
Pioneer Health Centre, St Mary’s Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-3a-55
The centre was too comprehensive in its approach to fit in with the National Health Service and too expensive to keep going outside the NHS and it closed in 1950. When I took this picture it was a leisure and adult education centre for Southwark Borough Council, who sold it in the 1990s to be converted into luxury flats. But the Peckham Experiment remains a superb example of what a proper national health service could and should provide, with truly holistic approach to keeping the people fit and healthy.
I continued up St Mary’s Road to Queens Road, where the next post on this walk will begin.
I was almost at the end of my walk on 12th February 1989. The previous post on this, Almshouses, Relief Station, Flats and a Viaduct had ended on Copeland Road, and I walked down this turning into Bournemouth Road to take me to Rye Lane.
This brought me out opposite the imposing gateway of the Tower Cinema at 116 Rye Lane, designed by architect H. Courtenay Constantine and opened in 1914. In 1989 this was in a poor condition and had an ugly archway fronting the street at pavement level, which I’m pleased to see has now been removed. This wasn’t a part of the 1914 building and was perhaps from the ‘modernisation’ of its frontage in 1955, the year before the cinema closed in 1956. When built the tower had another tower on top and dominated Rye Lane. Although the frontage was narrow it lead to a large cinema behind. There have been various plans for the redevelopment of the site, but it was sold to the council and the building behind the gateway demolished for a car park, and remains in that use, with the tower empty and used to connect this to Rye Lane.
The window immediately above the archway, obscured in my picture now is a large eye, and the large window in the upper storey is filled by a colourful design with a tree, the sun and birds, while, as the video linked above shows, the car park is a home for a number of wild cats.
This short row of shops is still on the corner of Atwell Road and Rye Lane, though the shops have changed hands and the buildings look more run down and decidedly less attractive with new windows – the ‘Rising Sun’ has gone – and large ‘Chicken Cottage’ signs part cover and replace those of Just 4 U Continental Greengrocers. During the week the pedestrian area of Atwell Road now has various market stalls.
Back in 1989 the area was clearly a cosmopolitan one – as well as the continental (which?) greengrocers the next shop was a Oriental Supermarket (I think the name is Vietnamese) followed by Tuan Ladies Wear. The one business that remains is R Woodfall, Opticians, its sign at extreme right, still at 183, though more recently D Woodfall, proudly “serving Peckham since 1922.”
This was the last picture taken in Peckham on my walk, but I took a few more on the Blackfriars Road on my way home.
Sons of Temperance Friendly Society, Blackfriars Rd, Southwark, 1989 89-2f-11
So much time has passed that I’m not sure whether my visit to this part of Southwark was intentional or if I simply got on the wrong bus and decided after I realised that it would take me close enough to walk to Waterloo and I found a few things to photograph on my way. I think I saw this building from the top of the bus, rang the bell and jumped off to photograph it.
The Sons of Temperance Friendly Society building at 176, Blackfriars Road was to let in 1989 when I made this picture. Designed by A C Russell and built in 1909-10 it was only listed in 2013 after it had been sold. It was built on a grand scale in a deliberately similar style to some public houses and banks of the era and perhaps offered something of a similar experience but without the alcohol. Owned by the Sons of Temperance until 2011 it then became an architects offices.
The Sons of Temperance, according to Wikipedia “was and is a brotherhood of men who promoted the temperance movement and mutual support. The group was founded in 1842 in New York City” and it came to the UK in 1849 gaining a charter from the US parent organisation in 1855. From 1866 women were allowed to join as full members. As well as social activities it provided support for sick members and burial grants at a time when there was no welfare state. Like most similar organisations it had “secret rituals, signs, passwords, hand grips and regalia“, though these were modernised in 2000. “There were 135,742 UK members in 1926” but in 2012 it stopped providing life insurance and saving plans for its members and the UK society was dissolved in 2019.
On the opposite side of the street close to the junction with The Cut is this Grade II listed late 18th century house with a ground floor shop, in 1989 occupied by a builder and contractor, Gordon North. The decoration with herms and urns is probably 19th century, and a board above the doorway read ‘Established 1839‘.
According to British History Online, originally published in the Survey of London in 1950 “No. 74 was occupied by Charles Lines, coachbuilder, from 1814 to 1851 and by the terra cotta works of Mark Henry Blanchard & Co., from 1853–80. The figures on either side of the doorway were probably installed during this period. Since 1881 John Hoare & Son, builders, have been the occupiers.” So perhaps John Hoare had established his business on another site in 1839.
By the time I next photographed it, three years later, the builders name had gone. Later the sign above the entrance went and the site is now a restaurant.
This was the last time in February I was able to go on a walk taking photographs, but in March I returned to Peckham for another walk – which I will post about later.
Almshouses, Relief Station, Flats and a Viaduct is the next section of my walk in Peckham on Sunday 12th February 1989, The previous post on this walk was Consort Road Peckham.
My walk continued down Consort Road to these almshouses on the west side close to the south end of the road. Although the main block of these almhouses was built in 1834, there are four later blocks, probably from around the 1960s of which this is one. In 1961 the ten charities responsible for these almshouses and those nearby on Montpelior Road, also established by a bequest to the Girdlers Company began to amalgamate and rebuild, and by 1980 this had become their only site, where they still provide independent accommodation for 20 residents in 18 units with a Almshouse Manager employed by the company. There is now a single charity, known since 1997 as Beeston’s, Andrewes’ and Palyn’s Charity.
This picture is one of two blocks named Palyn House on the almshouse site, one of the four more or less identical blocks added to the orginal site.
Beeston’s Gift Alms Houses, Consort Rd, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-2f-55
These are the Beeston’s Gift Almshouses, built by the Girdlers’ Company in 1834 and Grade II listed. Past Master Cuthbert Beeston died in 1582 leaving seven houses near London Bridge run by charitable trusts, These were sold in 1834 to provide the funds to build these almshouses on Consort Road. They (together with the more recent buildings) still provide housing for around 20 poor persons, chosen by the charity from Freemen of the City of London, workers former workers “in trades akin to that of a Girdler (including workers in metals, leather, cloths and fabrics)” and those resident in the former administrative county of London.
The gates, railings and water pump to the almhouses are also Grade II listed.
The Relief Station was built in 1901 to provide for the poor in the area and later became Consort Road Clinic. Disused for some years it has been converted into eight self-contained dwellings, retaining the facade and complementing it with a new link building.
At the end of Consort Road I turned right into Nunhead Lane and walked down to Peckham Rye. These flats, Creed House and Goodwin House, seen from Peckham Rye are on the north side of Nunhead Crescent and are a part of the Nunhead estate built around 1956. Southwark Council commissioned a structural survey in 2021 on state of these blocks having consulted the previous year on the possibility of building an extra storey on top of these blocks and others in the estate.
I turned into Philip Walk, taking a photograph (not online) of the houses on its north side, solid late Victorian semis, the made my way through a recently built estate back to Consort Road where I made this picture of the splendid viaduct and bridge carrying the line to Nunhead over the street at the junction with Copeland Road. In the arches to the right were a number of businesses, with a part of the arch containing the Westminster Guild in my picture. They seem to have been brass founders and the arches further along are now Bronzewood Metalworks.
Copeland Road is best known for the Bussey building and Copeland Park, a few yards further west from this works, their entrance just out of picture, home to many years of the sporting goods factory owned by George Gibson Bussey. I can’t make out the name that was once above one of the buildings, though it clearly starts with SOUTH and I suspect the next word was LONDON.
These rather more humble premises, possibly from the inter-war period, are still there, now housing a barbers, a car wash and a catering company. The semi-detached pair of houses are also still presnet, but their higher end wall at extreme left is now simply a wall with the chimneys and nothing beyond.
My walk in Peckham was almost complete and I made my way back to Rye Lane, but there are just a few more pictures from the end and after taking a bus on my way home that will feature in a final post – and the following month I returned for another Peckham walk. The first post on this walk was Aged Pilgrims, Sceaux, Houses & Lettsom.
