Housing For Need Not Greed: Mostly my posts here look at old work, either from a few years ago or my work on London back in the 1980s and 90s. But I’m still goining out at taking pctures if not quite as often as I once did. So this post is about one of the two events I photographed last weekend.
Aysen Dennis – Fight4Aylesbury
Last Saturday, 8th July 2023 was National Housing Action Day, and a march from the Elephant to the Aylesbury Estate was one of 16 across the country on National Housing Day. Others were taking place in Lambeth, Islington, Kensington, Cardiff, Glasgow, Abbey Wood, Wandsworth, Harlow, Merton, Ealing, Cornwall, Folkestone, Devon, Birmingham, and Hastings.
Tanya Murat – Southwark Defend Council Housing
The Southwark protest demanded Southwark Council stop demolishing council homes and refurbish and repopulate estates to house people and end the huge carbon footprint of demolish and rebuild. They demanded housing for need not corporate greed, refurbishment not demolition, filling of empty homes and an end to the leasehold system.
Marchers at the Elephant on their way to the Aylesbury Estate
Demolition and rebuilding of housing produces huge amounts of CO2, and whenever possible should be avoided now we are aware of the real dangers of global warming. Instead existing buildings should be insulated, retrofitted and refurbished and properly maintained.
Southwark Council’s estates have for well over 20 years been deliberately run down and demonised with some being demolished and replaced. Around 1000 council homes on the Aylesbury Estate have already been demolished buy around 1,700 are still occupied but currently scheduled for demolition.
Marchers on Walworth Road on their way to the Aylesbury Estate.
These homes were well built for the time to higher standards than their replacement and could easily and relatively cheaply be brought up to modern levels of services and insulation with at least another 50 years of life. The estate was carefully designed with open spaces, natural daylight and a range of properties, many with some private outdoor space. The planned replacements are at higher density, less spacious and unlikely to last as long – and only include a small proportion at social rents. Current tenants are more secure and the properties are far more affordable.
People on the street watch and video the march
Many of those whose homes have already been demolished here and on the neighbouring Heygate estate have been forced to move outside the area, some far from London as they can no longer afford to live here.
Bubbles and Marchers on Walworth Road on their way to the Aylesbury Estate.
Although the developers have profited greatly from their work with Southwark Council here and in other estates, and some officers and councillors involved have personally landed well-paying corporate jobs and enjoyed lavish corporate hospitality, the schemes have largely been financial disasters for the council and council tax payers.
Fight4Aylesbury was formed in 199 as Aylesbury Tenants and Residents First, and has been fighting Southwark Council’s plans to demolish the estate since then. While these schemes – part of New Labour’s regeneration initiative – have always been destructive of local communities and disastrous for many of those whose homes have been demolished, we now see that they are also environmentally unsupportable.
You can watch a video on YouTube of Aysen Dennis, Fight4Aylesbury and Tanya Murat, Southwark Defend Council Housing talking about the protest, and FIght4Aylesbury recently released a newsletter, The Future of the Aylesbury with more details on the estate and their proposals. A few more of my pictures from the event are in the album Housing For Need Not Greed – National Action Day, London, UK and are available for editorial use on Alamy.
Last Friday I went to the first day of the Fight4Aylesbury exhibition which continues until 23 April 2023. It’s an unusual exhibition and one that is worth visiting if you can get to south London before it ends,
The exibition celebrates the struggle by residents on the Aylesbury Estate in Southwark to stay in their homes since the estate was first threatened in 1999 and takes over the flat of one of those still remaining, Aysen who writes:
Welcome to my home.
I am opening the doors to my flat for a collective clelbration of 20+ years of housing struggles to defend our council homes against social cleansing and gentrification. Our fight is ongoing.
Since 1999 the council has subjected us with privitisation, “re-generation” and now demolition. We, Aylesbury residents, other council tenant all over the country, and our supporters, have been resisting and are still resisting and defending our homes.
My home tells the story of this struggle.
Aysen
You are invited to Aysen’s council flat on Aylesbury Estate to celebrate 20+ years of housing struggles for housing justice and against gentrification, social cleansing and demolition of social housing. The flat has been transformed into a living exhibition with flyers, posters, video, audio and installations on housing struggles.The exhibition is in this block, Wendover
The Aylesbury estate, designed by Hans Peter “Felix” Trenton was one of the largest areas of council housing in Europe, built from 1963 to 1977 with 2,700 dwellings for around 10,000 residents in an area containing some earlier social housing a short distance south of the Elephant and Castle between East Street market and Burgess Park.
There are a number of large blocks of various heights, from 4 to 14 floors, all well designed and built to the high standards of the era, with rather larger rooms and more solid walls than current buildings. The estate also had a central boiler to supply heat more economically to the flats.
Southwark neglected the estate in the 1980s and 1990s, failing to carry out necessary maintenance and the estate and the estate environment became in poor conditions. The heating system in particular suffered. Southwark began to use this and the neighbouring Heygate Estate as ‘sink estates’, deliberately moving in families with various social problems and people with mental health issues. It was because the estate had become unpopular that Aysen, who had to leave Turkey after the 1980 coup, was able to get a flat here with her sister in 1993.
The estate came to get a reputation as “one of the most notorious estates in the United Kingdom“, reinforced by it becoming a popular area for TV crews filming “murder scenes, gun and drug storylines and gang-related crimes in soaps and gritty dramas.” In particular from 2004-15 Channel 4 used it in an “ident” for which they had added “washing lines, shopping trolley, rubbish bags and satellite dishes” to create what was described as “a desolate concrete dystopia.”
Its poor reputation led Tony Blair to hold his first speech to the press as Prime Minister in 1997 on the estate, promising that the government would care for the poorest in society. It was a promise that he and later prime ministers have spectacularly failed to keep.
Southwark Council’s response to the estate’s decay they had overseen was to try and wash their hands of it by trying to transfer it to a private housing association to be redeveloped. But a campaign by residents in 2001 led to this being soundly rejected – not surprisingly they voted against demolition, displacement, rising rents and smaller flat sizes.
Undeterred, Southwark decided to go ahead with the redevelopment themselves, producing new plans for demolition in 2005. This time they didn’t bother to ballot the residents.
Solidarity collage which includes some of my images
The plans were for a 20 year phased demolition, with rebuilding of modern blocks by a housing association. The generous public space of the estate would be reduced and the housing density almost doubled. The first phase was completed in 2013 and Phase 2 is currently underway. All four phases are due for completion around 2032, and the 12 storey Wendover block in which the exhibition is being held has already been largely emptied of residents and is expected to be demolished around the end of this year.
Residents have continued their fight to stop the redevelopment, with protests and in January 2015 housing activists and squatters occupied flats in one of the emptied blocks. Moving from block to block they were finally evicted 18 days later. The squatters occupied another building and again were evicted. Southwark spent £140,000 on a fence, completely destroyed all bathrooms, toilets, pipes and kitchens in empty properties and spent £705,000 on security guards to prevent further occupation.
Other protests took place, including one in which part of the fence was torn down, and various protests at council meetings. Aylesbury residents also joined with housing activists in Southwark and across London at various other protests. But although these brought the Aylesbury campaign and the scandals over housing to national attention, the demolition continues.
Part of the scandal has been the “well-oiled revolving door” between the council – councillors and officers – and developers. The toilet in the exhibition flat is devoted to Southwark Council, and in particular for its Leader for more than a decade Peter John, who stepped down in 2020. He described his years as a “decade of Delivery“; community; anti-gentrification collective Southwark Notes call it “a Wild West gold rush for developers.” A 2013 report showed that “20 percent of Southwark’s 63 councillors work as lobbyists” for developers in the planning industry.
Similar estates built with the same system elsewhere have been successfully refurbished at relatively low cost to bring insulation and other aspects up to current standards. These buildings will probably last into the next century and their demolition is expensive and incredibly wasteful of both the huge amount of energy that was embedded in them and and energy require to demolish and rebuild.
There is more to the exhibition – and you can see some hints of it in the pictures. After visiting the show I walked up four floors to the top of Wendover for the view. The windows were rather dirty and most fixed shut but I did find a few places where they were open slightly to let me take photographs of the views across London.
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.
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.
The previous post on this walk I made on Sunday 29th January 1989 was Laundry, Timber and Glengall Road. My walk ended on the site of Peckham Arch at Canal Head, but the arch was only built five years later. Despite local opposition Southwark Council seems now determined to demolish this local landmark.
Houses, Peckham Hill St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-34
These houses are at 10-16 Peckham Hill St. 10 and 12 appear to be lived in although 12 seems to be in poor condition, while 14-16 are derelict with broken windows and corrugated iron over the ground floor door and window of 14. Now the all look rather tidier and expensive. I think all these houses probably date from around 1840 or a little later. A terrace of smaller houses at 34-40 a little further south is listed and looks to me roughly of similar date. These are larger and grander houses, with two boasting substantial porches. The one at right I suspect has at sometime been rebuilt – perhaps after war damage and looks as if this was done in a plainer style.
Love One Another, flats, Commercial Way, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-35
Plain flats with small balconies – large enough to perhaps put out a clothes horse or stand watching the street and enjoying a cigarette or a cup of tea. But the boarded up window at lower left and in one of those above the graffitied ‘LOVE ONE ANOTHER’ suggested to that this block was being emptied out for demolition. I wondered too what message had been painted over on the balcony – probably something short and crude.
Commercial Way is quite a long road, but my contact sheet gives a 100m grid reference which places these flats close to Cator St, and these flats, probably dating from the 1950s, have been replaced by more recent buildings.
Shops, Peckham High St, Peckham, Southwark, 1989 89-1i-24
I walked down the path following the former canal to Peckham High St, where you can still recognise the building that was Julian Jewellers, now a mobile phone shop, which also spills over into what was in 1989 Candyland. “SWEETER THAN THE REST – SPECIALISTS IN CUT PRICE CIGARETTES – 80 PECKHAM HIGH STREET” with two large cigarette adverts. Stiletto Expresso looks very closed in my picture – did it once sell shoes or coffee?The building in its place bears a slight resemblance but is now around twice the height.
The building at extreme right, mostly out of frame is also there, and until recently recognisable, but recently everything above the ground floor has been covered by an advertisement. The ground floor is now Mumasi Market.
The building on the left edge was demolished when the Peckham Arch was created in 1994., and I was standing where it now is to take this picture. The arch is now again under threat after an earlier proposal in 2016 for its replacement by a block of flats was defeated by determined local opposition. But Southwark Council still appear determined to remove it, despite it having become a landmark feature of Peckham, now much loved by residents and a great space for community activities.
The council make clear why they want to remove the arch, basically so they can build more flats in “a significantly larger development on site” with “more commercial and/or community space on the ground floor“. They do make a few other minor points, such as the current inconvenient cycle route, which could easily be remedied with the arch still in position. They claim that 80% of local residents in 2016 did not want to see the arch retained, which seems at odds with the views expressed by residents to the local press.
Whenever I’ve been in Peckham on a Saturday afternoon there has been something happening under the arch (and it’s particularly useful when it be raining.) Here’s one example:
Wikipedia states “The Arch was constructed in 1994 and was designed by architects Troughton McAslan as monument to and as instigator of regeneration in a borough which had suffered from years of decline.” It’s article goes on to quote various criticisms of the 2016 plan to demolish the arch. Although it has proved itself an ‘Asset of Community Value’, Southwark Council turned down the application by local residents to have it listed as such as they wanted to demolish it, though it seems impossible to read the reason they gave on the spreadsheet on the council site.
My walk on Sunday 29th January 1989 ended here on Peckham High Street, a convenient place to catch a 36 bus back to Vauxhall for my train home. The first post on this walk I made on Sunday 29th January 1989 was Windows, A Doorway, Horse Trough and Winnie Mandela
Guardians Offices, London Borough of Southwark, Peckham Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1g-55
I walked down St Giles Road to the Peckham Road, turning east along it. At the end of the block on the corner of Havill Street is the former Guardians Offices built in an vaguely Art Nouveau style in 1904 for the Poor Law Guardians who ran the workhouse of which it was part. The sundial has the text ‘Do Today’s Work Today‘. The building is Grade II listed.
Under the 1929 Local Government Act the LCC took over the workhouse and infirmary buildings on the site and the same act abolished the Board of Guardians system in 1930. Many workhouses were redesignated as Public Assistance Institutions but Camberwell’s became St James’s Hospital and these offices became the Divisional Health Offices. Southwark Council inherited the building in 1966 but closed its offices here when it moved to Tooley Street in 2009. The building was bought in 2010 by homelessness charity Thames Reach who use it as an Employment Academy. There is also a cafe and tea room on the Havill Street side as well as a Montessori Nursery on the site.
Guardians Offices, London Borough of Southwark, Peckham Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1g-45
A wider view of the building, still then in use by Southwark Council.
Camberwell Town Hall, Peckham Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1g-56
On the east corner of Havill Street is the former Camberwell Town Hall designed in a Classical style by Culpin and Bowers and opened in 1934. It became the town hall for the London Borough of Southwark when this was created in 1965 and was still this when I took my picture. They sold it to a developer in 2009 when the council moved to Tooley St and it was converted into student accommodation for Goldsmiths College.
South House, 30-32 Peckham Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1g-41
This row of houses are Grade II listed and were built as separate houses ca 1790. Like the council offices across the road they were also in use as council offices until around 2010 with the house and have also been converted into student accommodation, with a total of 125 bedrooms in the three blocks including also listed Central and East Houses on the north side of Peckham Road and South House.. Joined to them the east end of the block (out of picutre at left) is still the Southwark Register Office.
Southwark Register Office is also Grade II listed and was built around 1790. At some unknown date it was liked to No 32 at right at second floor level, with the curious rooftop extension you see here. Presumably the tall archway in the middle had some purpose, and was possibly at one time without the lower wall and arch. Perhaps giraffes were kept in the gardens behind? Suggestions are welcome in the comments here or on Flickr.
The London Institute, Camberwell College of Arts, Peckham Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1g-23
John Passmore Edwards gave money for the erection of the South London Gallery and the College, architect Maurice Bingham Adams, in memory of Lord Leighton. The gallery opened in 1891 and the Technical Institute in 1898. It became one of England’s leading art schools particularly after WW2. The Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts became a part of the London Institute formed by ILEA in 1986 and in 1989 it became Camberwell College of Arts becoming a part of the University of the Arts London in 2004.
South London Gallery, The Passmore Edwards South London Art Gallery, Peckham Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-1g-25
The Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts became one of England’s leading art schools particularly after WW2. It became a part of the London Institute formed by ILEA in 1986 and in 1989 it became Camberwell College of Arts becoming a part of the University of the Arts London in 2004.
My next post will start with a couple more pictures of Camberwell College of Arts before taking a walk up Havill Road.
On Saturday 3rd Novemeber I got to London earlier than anticipate and had time for a little walk before photographing the first protest I had come to cover, over the cuts to public libraries. Later I went to photograph another protest about the plans to demolish many London council estates under so-called ‘regeneration’ plans which involve demolition and rebuilding by developers with little social housing.
Euston to Kings Cross Coal Drops – Sat 3 Nov 2018
Problems on my railway journeys into London are rather common, often involving considerable delays. Last weekend a replacement bus for part of the way meant that my usually slow journey scheduled to take 35 minutes to travel 20 miles instead took an hour and a half. But on Saturday 23rd November 2018, there was something of a miracle. When I arrived at the station a train which should have arrived half an hour earlier was just pulling in and an announcement told me it would be running non-stop to Waterloo.
Where possible I like to arrive at events perhaps 10 or 15 minutes before the advertised start time make sure I don’t miss anything. Travelling across London is often a little unpredictable, with odd holdups so I usually allow plenty of time. I’d arrived at my station a few minutes early, and with the non-stop service got me to Waterloo around 25 minutes before I expected. The normal timetable schedule gives a 5 or 10 minutes slack to make it less likely that train operating company has to pay fines for late running, and without stops the journey is significantly faster. Together with an Underground train that came as I walked onto the platform I arrived at Euston with around three quarters of an hour to spare.
This gave me time for a walk to the newly opened retail development in the former King’s Cross coal drops. I’d photographed the disused coal drops many years earlier, taking pictures of the demolished bridges across the Regents Canal and the still standing drops on the north side where coal brought from the North in railway goods waggons was transferred into carts for delivery across London. At first the waggons were lifted and tipped, later waggons had opening doors in their bottoms to dischage directly in the waiting carts and lorries.
My walk also took me through Somers Town, which has some of inner London’s more interesting social housing and past the new Francis Crick Institute before reaching the canal and a new walkway to Coal Drops Yard and Granary Square, and gave some views of the gasholders relocated across the canal from Kings Cross, some of which are now filled with flats. I made my way back with just enough time to visit the toilets in St Pancras Station before going to the meeting point for the Library protest at the rear of the British Library in Midland Road.
Save Our Libraries march – British Library, Sat 3 Nov 2018
The march and rally against cuts in library services, which are a vital part of our cultural services, especially for working class schoolchildren and young people was organised by Unison and supported by PCS and Unite, but they seem to have done very little publicity and the numbers were far fewer than expected.
Unfortunately the march clashed with another event I wanted to cover and I had to leave a few minutes before it was due to start. Perhaps more joined the protest for the rally at the end of the march outside Parliament.
No Demolitions Without Permission – City Hall, London. Sat 3 Nov 2018
‘Axe the Housing Act’ had called a protest to demand an end to the demolition of council estates unless these were approved by a ballot of all residents, and for public land to be used to build more council homes rather than being turned over to developers to make huge profits from high-priced flats.
Most of those who came were from London council estates under threat of demolition by Labour London councils and speaker after speaker from estate after estate got up and spoke about the lies, evasions and often illegal activities of London Labour councils bent on demolishing their council estates.
Green Party co-leader and London Assembly’s Housing Committee chair Sian Berry
Instead of looking after their working class populations Labour councils are time and time again forcing through demolition of council estates, enabling developers to make huge profits by building flats for sale largely at market rent, with a small proportion of high rent ‘affordable’ homes and a miserably small number of homes at social rent, promoting schemes which cut by thousands the number of council homes.
Tanya Murat, Chair of Southwark Defend Council Housing
Although a new policy was about to come in to insist their should be residents ballots, London Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan had responded to this by fast-tracking 34 demolition schemes by Labour councils before it was implemented. He allowed some schemes to go forward without a ballot, and had failed to insist that all residents were allowed to take part in such ballots.
Former Lambeth Council leader and veteran Labour politician Ted Knight
Among the groups taking part in the rally were Class War and the Revolutionary Communist Group, both very much involved in campaigns across the capital on housing, and among the most effective at raising the issues involved in London’s housing. For some reason the rally organisers would not allow representatives of either of these to speak at the event, which led to a loud confrontation when Labour supporter Ted Knight came to speak. More below on this.
At the end of the rally people marched around City Hall with their banners.
Class War protest Labour Housing record – City Hall, Sat 3 Nov 2018
Whitechapel anarchist Martin Wright
Although Class War supporters were one of the larger groups taking part in the ‘No Demolitions Without Permission’ rally at City Hall they and others were denied any opportunity to speak as a part of the official rally.
Class War have been the most active group in supporting and raising the profile of campaigns in London against estate demolition mainly by London Labour councils who are responsible for the great bulk of estate sell-offs and demolition involving over 160 council estates – social cleansing on a massive scale. Among those protesting at the rally with Class War was Leigh Miller, recently illegally evicted from Gallions Point Marina under orders from the Labour Mayor of London.
Leigh Miller, recently illegally evicted from Gallions Point Marina and Lisa McKenzie hold the banner high
It was no surprise that when a prominent Labour politician got up to speak, Class War erupted, shouting him down to make clear that it was Labour who was responsible for estate demolitions. It was perhaps unfair on Ted Knight, a former Lambeth Labour leader who together with other councillors defied Thatcher and was surcharged and banned from holding public office for 5 years.
Ted Knight (right) and Martin Wright (left) shout at each other
Knight has supported Central Hill Estate residents in their fight against Lambeth Council’s plans for demolition, singing from much the same hymn sheet as Class War on housing issues. As Lambeth council’s leader he was clear that “Nothing is too good for the working classes” and estates such as Central Hill reflect this. And there was a little of old scores in the verbal attack on him by Whitechapel anarchist Martin Wright.
Finally at the end of the rally, Leigh Miller did get a chance to speak.
As a number of those estate residents allowed to speak at the rally pointed out, homes will only be saved if people become more militant and engage in the kind of direct actions which Class War advocates – and not by rallies like today’s outside a closed City Hall.
Class War stood to one side at the end of the rally when most of the rest taking part marched around the empty offices, they were calling for a rather different revolution.
Post-war Pritchard House (left) has been demolished but the house at 66 Wansey St in the right half of the picture is still there. Everything to its left has now gone with only the steps of No 68 remaining for a small new block of two social housing flats.
The street now continues through where Pritchard House was to Brandon Street and it is now part of the Larcom Street Conservation Area. No 66 probably dates from around 1860 and it and other houses on the street are probably part of the earliest development of the area.
Wansey St, Southwark, 1989 89-1a-15
66 Wansey St comes at the end of a long terrace – longer when built as there is a gap between 46 and 54 with a post-war infill block almost certainly following war damage. The house is the grandest of those surviving and the only one with a carriage entrance. The street then ended here, with Gurney St at right angles.
The area suffered heavily in the Blitz, with houses in the area being damaged or destroyed, including one of the greatest disasters of the bombing. Bombs hit nearby 6 Gurney St, close to the New Kent Road, damaging it and other houses on the last night of the Blitz, 10/11 May 1941, but it was only over a year later than a huge unexploded bomb that had been buried deep under the rubble, totally destroying 6 Gurney St and the two houses on each side and severely damaging many others in the surrounding area. 18 people were killed and 62 severely injures. This house on Wansey St was at the limit of broken glazing, over 200 yards away.
Kingshill, Brandon St, Southwark, 1989 89-1a-16
This block was a part of the Heygate Estate, neglected and demonised by Southwark Council and eventually demolished to allow for development of the area largely as private housing mainly sold to overseas investors.
St Johns Institute, Larcom St, Walworth, Southwark, 1989
Built around 1900 thanks to the efforts of the then vicar of nearby St John’s Church, the Rev. A W Jephson, this remains in use as a community centre. There is now a block of flats to its left.
The Heygate Estate, one of the better planned council estates of its era was by designed by Tim Tinker and completed in 1974. Southwark Council saw an opportunity to profit from redeveloping the area and began a process of demonising the estate, which had been allowed to deteriorate. What had been social housing for around 3000 people provided only 82 socially rented homes in the new development, much of which was sold to overseas investors.
They ended up making a loss as having spent around £65 million on emptying it and scheming for its redevelopment against a strong campaign by residents they sold it to Lendlease for £50 million. However some councillors and officers are said to have done rather well out of it personally.
Another view of the Heygate from the outside. Like many developments of its time a central boiler provided heating efficiently to all or many of the properties, though often inadequate maintenance meant such systems broke down.
I’m unsure of the purpose of this large open area or of the strange markings on it.
The overhead walkway from which I took this picture was a part of the Heygate Estate and demolished with it. Morris Court, the Peabody flats it shows are still there on the corner with Larcom St. The Peabody Walworth Estate was built around 1915 replacing slum housing and modernised in the 1980s. There are a number of blocks around a large central courtyard along Rodney Road, Content St and Wadding St.
This is taken from another walkway on the estate. As a non-resident I found these rather easy to get lost on as they were not shown on my mpas, but although the estate had a bad reputation I never experienced any problems, and it was certainly pleasant to be away from cars which were often a hazard when taking pictures. But it would have possibly seemed more threatening late at night rather than on a Sunday morning.
Another picture from one of the walkways around this corner of the Heygate Estate, which perhaps shows some of my confusion. It also shows a few of the many trees which had been planted in the area, which had just about come to maturity when the estate was demolished.
Pepys Rd, New Cross, Lewisham, 1988 88-12d-64_2400
Pepys Road and Nunhead Cemetery
Pepys Road is a part of the large Telegraph Hill conservation area designated a couple of years after I made this picture. It is a late Victorian planned residential estate in what was then known as Hatcham and mostly consists of rather similar houses built by two local builders on a fairly steep hillside owned by the Haberdashers’ Company between 1870 and 1899. I don’t think there is any particular connection between Samuel Pepys and Pepys Road, but certainly he was frequently in the area both for his work as Secretary to the Admiralty very much involved in Deptford’s Royal Dockyard and visiting John Evelyn at Sayes Court. The semaphore telegraph at the top of the hill which gives the area its name arrived later in 1795.
These two houses, Silverdale and Thornhill are on the west side of the street at 62 and 64, and are part of a long succession of more or less identical properties on both sides of the street. But these were the only pair with an ice-cream van outside when I made this picture.
Probably because of its uniformity I took few pictures on my long walk up the hill on Pepys Rd, just a couple of pictures at the top of the hill of Hatcham College, one of which (not digitised) includes the statue of Robert Aske, one of only five listed buildings in the conservation area, the others all being telephone kiosks!
I was on my way to Nunhead Cemetery, one of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ great cemeteries set up around the then outskirts of London as its population was growing rapidly and the small parish cemeteries in the city were becoming dangerously overcrowded.
Anglican Chapel and monuments, Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12d-16
Parliament passed an act promoting the establishment of private cemeteries outside central London in 1832 and in the following decade seven were established – in date order Kensal Green, West Norwood, Highgate (West), Abney Park, Brompton, Nunhead and Tower Hamlets.
Allen tomb, Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead, Southwark, 1988 88-12d-22
Nunhead, originally known as All Saints’ Cemetery, was established by the London Cemetery Company in 1840 and is one of the least well known of the seven though it is the second largest at 52 acres.
Financial difficulties caused its closure in 1969 and it was bought for £1 by Southwark Borough in 1975. In 1981 the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery was formed and together with the council began the restoration of the cemetery which was reopened to the public in 2001.
I think my pictures were taken on a Sunday afternoon tour led by the Friends. The include some of the more notable monuments in the cemetery which you can find out much more about on the Friends web site and they offer regular guided tours, but you can wander freely on your own as the cemetery is open to the public daily and you can find a useful map on the web.
The Wikipedia entry on Nunhead Cemetery lists a number of notable people whose graves are in the cemetery, but few were familiar names to me. One who very much made an impact on London was Sir George Thomas Livesey (1834 – 1908), engineer, industrialist and philanthropist and chairman of the South Metropolitan Gas Company. Another was Thomas Tilling, who gave London its first double-decker buses and was for many years England’s major bus operator. Allegedly ‘Tom Tilling’ became Cockney rhyming slang for a shilling coin, though I never heard it used.
The Brockley footpath runs along the southwest edge of Nunhead Cemetery and I was able to leave the cemetery and walk down it back towards Nunhead. You can exit the cemetery on Limesford Road and walk along this to the path.
This post looks at the end of my walk south of the river on Sunday 13th November 1988 – the previous post was Flats, A Square, Bread & Funerals – Walworth – and finishes with a few pictures taken at night in the City of London.
Southwark Council built the Aylesbury Estate between 1963 and 1977. It was one of the larger if not the largest public housing developments in Europe, with around 2,700 homes. Wendover, designed by the boroughs architects, was completed in 1970. I think it’s two blocks contains around 471 flats as well as a learning centre and tenants hall.
Like many council estates it was poorly maintained over the years and parts of the estate were deliberately used by the council to house people and families with various social problems, something exacerbated by the Conservatives plans, particularly under Thatcher, to get rid of social housing, resulting in it increasingly becoming housing for the most deprived members of society.
The estate has a central boiler for heating and hot water, which has increasingly suffered from failures which residents say the council is very slow to take action over. The flats also have fallen behind more modern standards of insulation etc, and are in need of some refurbishment, though the council drastically overstated the costs of this when making their case for demolition.
I’ve in recent years been inside quite a few flats on the estate, often lovingly maintained and decorated by their residents who have been fighting a long battle against council plans to redevelop the area.
Although the council carried out a long PR campaign against this and the neighbouring Heygate Estate – including Tony Blair making his first speech as Prime Minister here and launching the party’s programme of regeneration of housing estates.
Its relatively open and fairly traffic-free nature along with convenient location made the estate a favourite for “grim backdrops to murder scenes, gun and drug storylines and gang-related crimes in soaps and gritty dramas” until pressure from local residents forced Southwark Council to ban filming in the area.
Channel4 took footage from the estate to use in their channel ident, adding to it, according to Ben Campkin of UCL quoted in Wikipedia, “washing lines, shopping trolley, rubbish bags and satellite dishes” to show it as “a desolate concrete dystopia [which] provides visual confirmation of tabloid journalists’ descriptions of a ‘ghost town’ estate.“
Residents wanted refurbishment rather than demolition – which will lead to many of them moving much further away from the centre of London. But councillors salivated at the thought of profits and handouts from the developers and never seriously considered anything other than demolition and replacement. Their decision lead to a series of occupations by housing activists of properties due for demolition. The complete destruction of the estate seems likely to take around another ten years with the final phase beginning next year. You can read much more about what has happened – and the duplicity of Southwark Council on the Southwark Notes site.
I walked on through both the Aylesbury and Heygate estates, both estates with a bad reputation for crime, but where I never suffered an uneasy moment despite having around £10,000 of equipment in my camera bag. I didn’t stop to take many pictures after those of Wendover, probably because I was getting tired. I did took a few frames on the New Kent Road and then walked on past the Elephant.
This entrance on Lambeth Road was one I’d photographed previously and probably I made a slight detour to do so again. I’d made an earlier picture using the tiny Minox that lived in my jacket pocket and it was severely underexposed. I had to send the camera for servicing. It was distributed by Leica, who told me it couldn’t be repaired, but offered me a replacement at considerably below the shop price. I had it in my pocket on 13th November taking my first test film, and took it out and made another exposure with it which was fine – and very similar to this, made on an Olympus SLR. Both are online on Flickr.
Frank Love, Lambeth Rd, Newington, Southwark, 1988 88-11e-63
The previous image was the trade entrance at No 47 for Frank Love at New XL House, No 45 Lambeth Rd. Its signs read PLUMBERS BRASSFOUNDRY COPPER TUBES AND FITTINGS but I think the works had closed when I made this image. You can view an earlier image of the whole frontage by Bedford Lemere & Co in the Lambeth borough archive, and see some of their advents on Grace’s Guide. I think these were the last pictures taken on my walk which ended at Waterloo Station.
Dagwoods, St Alphage Highwalk, City, 198888-11e-41
Dagwoods offered Quality Sandwiches to city workers in their lunch hour but the area was pretty empty at night, although there are still a few lights in the offices. The large area of pavement emphasises that emptiness.
I think I was probably coming back from an event at the Museum of London and had decided to take a little walk with my camera, though from some of the other pictures it seems clear I had come without a tripod.
Night, Bassishaw Highwalk, City, 1988 88-11e-42
Another deserted area of highwalk, and the sharpness and depth of field suggests I was able to steady myself well to produce this handheld – it will have been taken at a pretty slow shutter speed. This section of highwalk and the office building at right is still there though looking rather different.
Too much of the older London remained for the planners’ dreams of the separation of pedestrians from traffic to ever really be feasible except in a few small areas of the city – and there are very few escalators or lifts where the elderly and disabled can access them.
Night, Bassishaw Highwalk, City, 1988 88-11e-45
One of my favourite modern buildings in London, and one I’ve photographed several times in daylight. I suspect it was this building that really prompted me to make this short walk at night. After the four frames (only one digitised) I made here I did wander around an make a dozen or so more exposures, but nothing which really caught my interest when I was deciding which to put on-line.
65 Basinghall St is Grade II listed as “Former exhibition hall, magistrates court and offices, now converted to offices, 1966-69, by Richard Gilbert Scott of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, Son and Partner” and was built in 1966-9. There is a long essay in the listing text. But perhaps sufficient to say its roof is one of the finest uses of concrete at least in the UK.
