Posts Tagged ‘Spitalfields’

Brick Lane and Tubby Isaacs

Friday, March 10th, 2023

Brick Lane and Tubby Isaacs is the third and final part of my walk which began with A Walk In the City – March 1989. The previous post was Shops, Soup Kitchen, Spitalfields 1989.

Posters, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4a-01
Posters, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4a-01

Hanging on the wall outside the Mosque on Brick Lane were a number of posters for sale showing various aspects of the Muslim World.

As is widely known, the mosque – which I’ve photographed on various occasions so didn’t bother on this walk – has a long a varied history since it was built in 1743 as La Neuve Eglise for the Huguenots who had come to the area as refugees from persecution by Catholics in France.

In 1809 is became a Methodist chapel for the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, changing ten years later to a more mainstream Methodist chapel.

In 1898 it became the Spitalfields Great Synagogue for the Machzike Hadath communty of Lithuanian heritage, one of several large synagogues in the area. Not far away in Aldgate was the Great Synagogue of London (destroyed in wartime bombing) as well as the Sandys Row Synagogue and there were others in the area. After over 70 years the Machzike Hadath moved in 1970 to Golders Green where most of the community now lived.

The building was bought and refurbished by Bangladishis, by then the main community in the area, and opened as a mosque for in 1976 as the London Jamme Masjid. Friday sermons are in Bengali, English and Arabic and the Grade II listed building can accomodate over 3,000 worshippers.

Horse & Cart, Brick Lane, Bacon St, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4a-02
Horse & Cart, Brick Lane, Bacon St, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989

I continued north up Brick Lane and was surprised to see this workmanlike horse-drawn cart crossing the street and going up Bacon Street, pulled by a rather resigned-looking small working horse.

I hadn’t seen something like this since I was in short trousers back in the early 1950s. There were still some breweries using horse-drawn drays, mainly for publicity but those were much grander affairs with huge Shire horses. This was a rather smaller and more crude heavy-duty construction, almost home-made compared to the highly finished examples my father worked on in his father’s workshop as a young man.

Probably you are more likely to see horse-drawn vehicles in London now than back in the 1980s, but these are either the grand carriages such as those used on occasions such as the Lord Mayor’s show or light traps in which a few mainly travellers occasionally come in from the countryside for a sporting Sunday ride around the capital.

Surplus Centre, Brick Lane, Bethnal Green Rd, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4a-61
Surplus Centre, Brick Lane, Bethnal Green Rd, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4a-61

The buildings on the corner of Brick Lane and Bethnal Green Road still look much the same, at least above the ground floor, where the shops are now rather less interesing than the Surplus Centre, dealing as it states in ‘Government Surplus Clothing & Camping Equipment, JEANS, Trousers, Combat & Donkey Jackets, Leather & Fur Lined Jackets, Motor Cycle Clothing, Anoraks, Shirts, Gloves, Tents & Everything For Camping’

Pool Room, Hanbury St, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4a-64
Pool Room, Hanbury St, Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4a-64

Although the small print helpfully informs me “126 Brick Lane & 45-B Hanbury St Prop Contessa-Restaurants Ltd‘ and gives telephone numbers its difficult to recognise this location now, though I think the two doorways are still present if no longer in use on a graffitt-covered brick wall which has lost its upper storey, just a few yards east of Brick Lane on Hanbury St.

The first Indian Restaurant in Brick Lane was The Clifton, a cafe which opened in 1959 by Musa Patel, a Pakistani migrant to the UK in 1957, named after the wealthy seaside suburb of Karachi where he had been born in 1936.

In 1974 he made it into Brick Lane’s first licensed restuarant, later renamed The Famous Clifton. It was the first restaurant on the street to use a tandoori oven, and the first to attract customers other than the local Bangladeshi clientele and thus begin the transformation of Brick Lane. It closed soon after Musa Patel’s death in 1996.

H Suskin, Textiles, Brick Lane area, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4a-65
H Suskin, Textiles, Brick Lane area, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4a-65

H Suskin Textiles Ltd had a workshop in Wilkes St and are said to have had a shop at 45 Wilkes St, since demolished. This is very clearly at Number 45 so I think this is probably it. They also had a shop at 79 Brick Lane.

At the top of the flyposted window shutters are political posters in Bengali and English asking for votes for Mohammad Huque and Syed Islam in the local elections. Below that are three adverts for Gurdas Maan Nite, an Indian musical event starring the famous Indian Punjabi singer, songwriter & actor, probably on film.

At bottom right are adverts for an expensive Dinner and Dance in August 1988 at the London Hilton, but the largest space is taken by posters ‘Hands Off Afghanistan‘ advertising New Worker public meetings in Manchester, London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Sheffield calling for support for the People’s Government left in charge when the Russians withdrew and for an end to UK support by MI6 and the SAS of the Mujahideen. The New Worker is the weekly newspaper of a 1977 splinter group, the New Communist Party of Britain, from the Communist Party of Great Britain which among other differences had been opposed to the 1966 renaming of the Daily Worker as the Morning Star.

Tubby Isaacs, Sea Food Stall, Goulston St, Whitechapel High St, Aldgate, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4a-66
Tubby Isaacs, Sea Food Stall, Goulston St, Whitechapel High St, Aldgate, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-4a-66

I walked on down Brick Lane and Osborne Street to Whitechapel High Street and then back towards the City. On my way I passed the corner with Goulston Street where until 2013 you could still see the world famous Tubby Isaacs sea food stall.

Isaacs was founded by Isaac Brenner in 1919, and when he emigrated to the USA in 1939 to avoid conscription it was taken over by Solomon Gritzman. He had a brother Barney who set up another stall opposite and the two were bitter rivals for many years – I think the ‘We Lead – Others Follow‘ was a reference to his brother. When Solly died in 1975 the business passed to his nephew Ted Simpson who had worked with him.

My picture shows his son Paul who had just taken over, having worked with his father since he was 14. In 2013 he decided it was time to close the stall as most of its customers had died. I don’t know where this gang of children came from but I don’t think they were about to buy anything back in 1989.

I made my way back to Bank for the train home, pausing only briefly for yet another picture of the recent Lloyd’s building, not digitised.


Shops, Soup Kitchen, Spitalfields 1989

Tuesday, March 7th, 2023

Continuing my posts about my London walk which began with A Walk In the City – March 1989. The previous post was Men At Work, Cherubs, Trees and More.

Intercity (East) Ltd, Clothing, Shop, City, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-3e-42
Intercity (East) Ltd, Clothing, Shop, City, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-3e-42

I was on my way to the East End, and I’m no longer sure where this shop was located, although my contact sheet has Cutler Street, it also has a question mark in front of this. I will have marked up the contact sheets while I still remembered my route (and had probably marked this on a map more or less after I got home) so I will have walked this way towards Leyden Street where I made the next picture. But all I can find on Google about Intercity (East) Ltd is not about clothing stores but trains.

Cutler Street begins on Houndsditch and I think both corners there have been demolished and rebuilt since 1989. It has two more corners where it turns 90 degrees to the right in front of Cutlers Gardens, again both now occupied by more recent buildings.

Cobb St, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-3e-43
6-10 Cobb St, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-3e-43

From Cutler Street I went up Harrow Place and crossed over Middlesex Street into Cobb Street, going out from the City of London into Tower Hamlets. Much of the area I went through has since been redeveloped but unfortunately I took no pictures.

Blue Bird, Childrens Wear, Cobb St, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989, 89c03-04-71

Blue Bird, a wholesale children’s clothing cash and carry was a shopfront I also photographed in colour on this same walk. This building remains, though was extensively renovated internally around 2020 and 6 at right, Dunmow Trading, is again apparently in the clothing trade, though perhaps the renewed shopfront is a nod to the past hiding some completely different activities.

Brune St, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-3e-22
Brune St, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-3e-22

This was a frontage I passed and photographed several times over the years, but never went inside. Founded in 1854 in Leman St, the Soup Kitchen for the Jewish Poor moved to Brune Street (then Butler St) in 1902 and eventually closed in 1992, its work being carried on by Jewish Care in Beaumont Grove, Stepney. I had assumed it was now longer operating when I took this picture in 1989.

Shopfront, Fournier St, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-3e-11
Shopfront, Fournier St, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-3e-11

Another shopfront I photographed on several occasions and in colour, and it was hard to decide which if any of the businesses were still in operation. Now the whole area has been tidied up and shops like these converted to slightly twee ‘period’ residential properties.

This early 18th century Grade II listed terrace house was sold in 1998 for £236,000, probably just before or after conversion, and in 2021 sold for £3.5million.

Christ Church, Fournier St, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-3e-13
Christ Church, Fournier St, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-3e-13

The fine row of houses on the south side leading up to Christ Church was still I think occupied and possibly in use by firms in the clothing trade, with M Lustig & Co, Manufacturers of Superior Mens Clothing, Dilal Fashions at No 10 and Gale Furs at 8. Though their days were clearly numbered and all are now high priced residential properties and maintained in considerably better condition. I think all of the street is Grade II listed.

Christ Church is one of Hawksmoor’s masterpieces, built 1723-9 and Grade I listed.

J Minksy, Fashion St, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-3e-16
J Minksy, Fashion St, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1989 89-3e-16

Established in 1902 and supplying textiles and trimmings to the fashion trade, in 1998 J Minsky sold its warehouse premises and began to focus on property investment, selling the textile business in 2005. This was 48 Fashion Street, which is a part of a listed building, but it is very difficult to recognise in this picture, which managed to avoid its more distinctive features, with just the slightest hint on its upper edge.

This walk will be concluded in a further post. The first post on this walk was A Walk In the City – March 1989.


Aldgate, Class War Rich Door, Poor Door

Saturday, July 30th, 2022

Aldgate, Class War Rich Door, Poor Door – On 30th July 2014 I went to London to cover another in the long series of protests by Class War over the ‘social apartheid’ of separate entrances to large blocks of flats for the wealthy and poor people who live in them. I went up early and walked around the area beforehand.

Class War – Rich Door, Poor Door – 1 Commercial St, Aldgate

Class War, including three of their candidates for the 2015 General Election the following year, protested at 1 Commercial St in Aldgate which has a separate ‘poor doors’ for the social housing flats they had to include to gain planning permission for the development.

The front entrance on Whitechapel High St (One Commercial St is the name of the block) has a hotel-like reception desk, and is staffed 24 hours. It leads to the lifts for the expensive flats, many owned by overseas investors. Like most such buildings, some of them are empty and seldom used, while others are short term holiday lets.

Flats like these are advertised to overseas investors particularly in the far East as providing a high return on capital. Buy a flat now and you will be able to sell it for much more in a few years as London housing prices continue to soar – some publicity suggested that people could get the equivalent of a 13% interest rate. It’s easier to sell if you keep the flats empty, though you can use them for the occasional visit to London, or even let them over the web for a few days or weeks as holiday lets to generate a little actual income.

As I commented:

The web site for One Commercial St (studios, apartments and penthouses specified to exceptional levels, with exclusive services for residents – or rather those residents allowed to use the rich door) suggests that the average rent in the area is £1,935 pcm and investors can expect a 32% increase in property value by the time Crossrail opens. It’s all a part of the madness that means London is being developed not for the people of London but for investors in China, the oil states and elsewhere.

The building owners claimed there was no internal connection between the part of the building with expensive privately owned flats and that occupied by social housing tenants, although that was simply a lie – and on a later occasion I was taken through by one of the private owners from her flat to the ‘poor door’ which she used when walking her dog.

The owners give the social housing in the block a different name and only allow the tenants to access their flats through a side door in what was when Class War began their protests a dark alley often full of dumped rubbish, smelling of urine. A card entry system let them into a long bare corridor with some mail boxes on one side, quite a contrast to the large foyer with a reception desk, concierge, comfortable seating and art works enjoyed by the rich.

The protests had by then resulted in some small improvements, the alley now having been cleaned and new lighting installed, though the card entry system was apparently often out of order. And the alley still had that nasty smell.

The protesters came with a banner featuring the radical US labour activist Lucy Parsons (1853-1942) with her quotation “We must devastate the avenues where the wealthy live” and posters – with their skull and crossbones – and the message “We have found new homes for the rich” with long rows of grave crosses stretching into the distance – which at one time police tried to arrest them for. They stuck posters on the windows on and around the ‘Rich Door’ using Class War election stickers with their promise of a 50% mansion tax. The building manager came out and pulled the posters off and screwed them up, but they held up others beside the door.

Most of the protest took place in front of the ‘Rich Door’, where they chanted calling for an end to the social apartheid and attempted to talk with the few people who left and entered the building. They held the door open to make their protest more easily heard inside, and there was a brief brief tug of war as security and a resident tried to close it. Eventually they let the door be closed, probably when they saw police arriving.

Police only arrived around 15 minutes after the protesters and they went directly inside the building to talk to the building manager and concierge. Then the police came out and argued with the protesters, trying to get them to move further from the doorway, but they insisted on their right to protest where they wanted on the pavement. Class War kept up the protest for around an hour before they decided it was time to leave – and come back for another protest there the following week. This was just one of a series of around 30 ‘Poor Doors’ protests, most of which I photographed – and published a ‘zine’ of the pictures, still available from Blurb.

Class War – Rich Door, Poor Door


Aldgate & Spitalfields

I was early for the protest at One Commercial St, and took a short walk around the area while I was waiting, going up Commercial St and then back down Toynbee St. I was astonished at the amount of new buildings since I was last here a few years back, and with a great deal of work currently going on. At night all the red lights on the tops of the cranes make London look like a Christmas tree.

It is of course a prime site just on the edge of the City of London, an easy walk to the city, and with plenty of buses, underground stations and both Liverpool St and London Bridge stations not far away. London City Airport is a short taxi ride too, or under half an hour by public transport, and Brick Lane’s curry houses just around the corner. Crossrail will cut journey times to Canary Wharf to 4 minutes when Whitechapel station opens in 2018.

In fact Crossrail only opened in 2022, four years behind schedule, but investors still did pretty well, and much more of the area has been demolished and replaced by investment flats. Our government still counts these as a part of our meagre housing programme although they make no contribution towards easing the housing crisis. We need strong laws to limit overseas ownership of property and financial encouragement to build homes for people, particularly homes at social rents.

Aldgate & Spitalfields


Pancakes, a Farm and More From London

Sunday, February 20th, 2022

Pancakes, a Farm and More From London 2007. Fifteen years ago on Tuesday 20th February 2007 I had a long but enjoyable day.


Worshipful Company of Poulters Pancake Race

It was Shrove Tuesday, and my working day began in Guildhall Yard at the centre of the City of London, where some of its older institutions were enjoying letting their hair down a little in the Worshipful Company of Poulters Pancake Race.

I wrote then: ” it was first run in 2005, but as befits the city it has a serious set of classes and rules, music from the Worshipful Company Of Musicians (1500), time-keeping by the Worshipful Company Of Clockmakers (1631) and a starting cannon for each of the many races provided and fired by the Worshipful Company Of Gunmakers (1637.)

The guilds are now largely charitable organisations and the event each year supports the current Lord Mayor’s charity, which in 2005 was Voluntary Service Overseas, VSO. But although it is just a bit of fun, it also strongly showed the competitive nature of the the City.


Great Spitalfields Pancake Race

There was a very different feel to the Great Spitalfields Pancake Race at Trumans Brewery in Spitalfields, organised by Alternative Arts where teams from local businesses were competing in fancy dress on Dray Walk. Rules there were minimal and the emphasis was on fun.

I arrived rather out of breath and very late, having run most of the way from the Guildhall, and was only just in time to see the final race and the prize-giving.


Spitalfields Urban Farm

I had nothing particular to photograph for the rest of the day and decided to accompany a friend who was looking after a couple of his neighbours children and take a look at the Spitalfields Urban Farm. A late friend of mine had helped to set up and running an urban farm in Vauxhall in 1977 a year earlier than the Spitalfields farm, but part of the same movement in those years.

The farm was set on land which had previously been a part of a goods yard for the railway coming from East Anglia into Liverpool St. I imagine the only animals then would have been coming to slaughter in London markets, but now they had a happier future, providing environmental education and a great deal of enjoyment to people of all ages in the local community.


Art, Architecture and a Hoody

I said good goodbye to my friend and the children he was with at the farm and went for a short walk around Spitalfields on my way to catch a bus on Norton Folgate, one of those great historical names that we still have in London.

Norton Folgate, on the north edge of the City of London used to be an “extra-parochial liberty”. According to Wikipedia there are several theories about the name. Norton probably came from Old English words north and tun, the latter meaning farmstead. But Folgate is more of a mystery; possibly it came from the name of a Lord of the Manor or alternatively from the Saxon ‘foldweg’ meaning highway, but I think its derivation is probably a mystery lost in time.

Before the Reformation the area was occupied by the Priory and Hospital of St Mary Spital, and when the priory closed down it became Crown property, and was not included in the neighbouring parishes. Being a liberty meant the King surprisingly didn’t claim an income from it. In 1900 it became a civil parish and in 1921 it was divided in two the west part going to the borough of Shoreditch and the east to the borough of Stepney. Both these were abolished in 1965 with the formation of the London Boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets. Finally in the 1990s parts of the area were transferred to the City of London, though my walk was streets of Tower Hamlets.


Another London

I was on my way to New Malden where I was meeting Paul Baldesare and a few other photographers in an Italian cafe before going on to give them a guided tour of our show (with Mike Seaborne), Another London, then taking place in Kingston Museum.

The website I think shows all of the photographs in the show by all three of us. My own contribution was on photographs of public events in London, concentrating on those “related to particular ethnic communities in the capital, while others are from very local events such as street parties and festivals.” It includes quite a few made with the show in mind in the London Borough of Kingston.


My photographs from 20th February 2007 are linked from the February 2007 page of My London Diary, but you will need to scroll down to find both the texts and links to the images, a problem with the site design which I improved the following year.


Pancakes

Sunday, February 21st, 2021

Pancake Race winners in Spitalfields, 2007

I’m not a pancake lover, and didn’t celebrate last Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday. For once there was not a pancake in sight in our household as I think I’ve finally made my views on the subject clear. It isn’t that I would refuse to eat them but more that I find their taste and texture mildly offensive and feel that whatever filling or topping is applied to them would go much better with something else such as potato or bread.

Guildhall Yard, 2012

That hasn’t stopped me going out to photograph some of the many “tossers” who take part in the many pancake races which have mushroomed in our cities in recent years. I think back when I was young, pancake races were confined to a few places around Milton Keynes. The tradition is said to have begun in Olney in 1445, but had died at the start of the Second World War and was revivied in 1948 by the Vicar of Olney the Reverend Canon Ronald Collins, going international when Liberal, a town in Kansas, USA, sent Olney a challenge to a timed race in 1950.

What had once been purely a local tradition was spread through film and TV coverage, but it was only relatively recently that we began to see pancake races in London. I’ve photographed them in half a dozen places, the most interesting of which, a highly competitive event between the City of London’s Livery Companies, takes place in Guildhall Yard, and was begun by the Worshipful Company of Poulters in 2004, though I only photographed it for the first time in 2007. All except the top picture on this post are from Tues 21 Feb 2012.

Back in 2007 I think I was one of very few photographers present, though a few of my friends came along too, at least in the following years, and by the time I last went in 2020 there was a whole crowd of photographers and things had become rather more organised and less interesting. There wasn’t a race this year, but even had things been normal I wouldn’t have bothered to go again.

Leadenhall Market, 2012

These races take place across lunchtime, and in some years there was another race by myself and my friends leaving the Guildhall before the final races to rush and cover one of the other events taking place, at Leadenhall Market (750 metres away) or Spitalfields, just outside the City, and 1.18km distant before these finished. Other pancake races take place south of the river in Southwark, though I’ve found them less interesting to photograph – and I’m not sure I’ve ever published any pictures.

I think all of the London pancake races are raising money for charities and are team events. The Guildhall race is an opportunity for many in City businesses of all ages to let their hair down a little, with separate classes for the Masters of the guilds and women as well as other team members, and a separate fancy dress class; they have clear rules about gloves hats and more which are strictly applied, as well as timekeepers and a starting cannon. The other races are rather less organised, with teams from local businesses or pubs some in fancy dressthough others in their normal work clothes and generally rather younger.

Pancakes in the City – Leadenhall Market
Pancakes in the City – Guildhall


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.


Spitalfields & Wapping 1987

Sunday, October 18th, 2020
Spitalfields 87-7m-12-positive_2400
Interior, Christ Church, Commercial St, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1987

I think I had gone to Liverpool St to see off some visitors from Germany who had been staying with us and we arrived at the station long before their train was due to leave for Harwich, so I took them to see Christ Chruch, which was then in the middle of building works. The air was rather dusty and the light a little dim, but the structure was still impressive, and we were greeted by one of the clergy who gave us a short conducted tour.

Interior, Christ Church, Commercial St,  Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 198787-7m-22-positive_2400

One of Nicholas Hawksmoor’s great pentagram of London churches much celebrated in the writings of Iain Sinclair, Peter Ackroyd and others it is a building I find more satisfying seen close too and at and angle as in this picture than in more prosaic and distant views.

Peach, Fashion, Commercial St,  Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets, 1987 87-7m-21-positive_2400

Close to the church in Commercial Rd was this builidng, housing Peach and several other fashoion and clothing firms as well as The Colour Assembly litho printers. But I didn’t have long to take pictures as our visitors had a train to catch and we made our way back to Liverpool Street.

St Katharine's Way, Wapping, Tower Hamlets, 1987 87-7n-23-positive_2400
St Katharine’s Way, Wapping, Tower Hamlets, 1987

Afterwards I walked down to St Katherine’s Way, where some of the old warehouse buildings were being gutted and turned into flats, while keeping the basic facades. Miller’s Wharf dates from 1865, but once beyond the front wall is mostly from 1989. A 2 bed flat with a river view is currently for sale at £1.6m should you be looking to move.

Tower Bridge, River Thames, Aldermans Stairs, Wapping, Tower Hamlets, 1987 87-7n-36-positive_2400
Tower Bridge, River Thames, Thames Path, Wapping, Tower Hamlets, 1987

Just a few yards east is a part of the Thames Path from which you can get similar views (though only at ground level) without the huge price tag. Somewhere around this time I went with a group walking along the north bank of the river with the person from Tower Hamlets responsible for footpaths and we found then a number of places where there was supposed to be public access to the river had their gates locked. More recently when I’ve walked along here I think I have been able to access most or all of them.

River Thames,  Rotherhithe, Wapping New Stairs,Wapping, Tower Hamlets, 1987 87-7n-31-positive_2400

I think this picture, which has police launches moored in the foreground is taken from Wapping New Stairs – which are of course very old.

Discovery Walk, Wapping Lane,  Wapping, Tower Hamlets, 1987  87-7n-53-positive_2400

Little remains of the old London Docks, with new housing covering much of the area, here alongside the ornamental canal which I think includes some sections of the old dock wall. I took two pictures from the road overlooking the canal, one concentrating on the south and the other the north side.

Ornamental canal, News International, Print Works, Wapping, Tower Hamlets, 1987 87-7n-55-positive_2400

The two pictures actually overlap and can be joined to make a narrow panorama, though I don’t think I particular intended this when I took them.

The right of the picture is dominated by the large Wapping printing works of News International, the site of a protests for over a year from 1986-7 by the print unions against Murdoch. The strike ended in what seemed an inevitable defeat for the unions who were trying to prevent the introduction of new technology, moving away from the hot metal of Fleet St which employed several thousand type setters to litho printing which allowed journalists to directly input there stories.

More pictures on page 6 of 1987 London Photos.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.


1986 Complete – Page 2

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2020
Varden St, Whitechapel, Tower Hamlets 86-5d-11_2400

Images in this post are embedded from Flickr where you can view them at a large size by clicking on the image. You will need to use your browser back button to return to this post. Or you can right-click and select ‘Open link in new tab’.

My album 1986 London Photographs is now complete on Flickr, and this is the second of a short series of posts pointing out a few of my favourite images from the year.

Fashion St, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets 86-4r-16_2400

Several things come out strongly to me as I look through these pictures, mostly taken around Brick Lane and other areas of Whitechapel. One of the major themes that has run through much of my photography is the writing on the wall, whether graffiti or signs and posters. Language is such an important aspect of our social interactions and its inclusion in these images makes them into a record of how people lived and thought.

Brick Lane, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets 86-5a-01_2400

In 1984 London was rapidly becoming the multicultural city we now know, though of course it had been so on a lesser scale for many years if not centuries. Spitalfields where some of these pictures were made had long been a home for new communities moving to London and there was still abundant evidence of its Jewish population as well as the Bangladeshis who had by then largely replaced them.

Commercial Rd, Whitechapel, Tower Hamlets 86-5c-64_2400

Housing, then as now, was an important issue in London in particular, and some of these pictures reflect this and other issues such as racism. Although I think some of these pictures are well-composed and even attractive compositionally, I’ve always considered the formal aspects – line, shape, tone, texture, form etc to be the means to communicate a message rather than an end in themselves. I aimed to make photography that had something to say and said it well rather than to produce well composed, attractive or even striking or popular images.

Limehouse, Tower Hamlets 86-5h-66_2400

There are another 95 pictures on the second page of the album, all with a location, taken from the usually rather incomplete information I recorded on the contact sheets. I’ve tried to check these before posting, but corrections and other comments are always welcome. I’m happy for these pictures – with suitable attribution – to be shared on social media, but they remain copyright and any commercial or editorial use requires a licence from me.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media.
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1986 Complete – Page 1

Saturday, April 11th, 2020

Images in this post are embedded from Flickr where you can view them at a large size by clicking on the image. You will need to use your browser back button to return to this post. Or you can right-click and select ‘Open link in new tab’.

Commercial St, Tower Hamlets 86-2d-51_2400

My album 1986 London Photographs is now complete on Flickr, and this is the first of a short series of posts pointing out a few of my favourite images from the year.

Of course the 1370 pictures in the album are not all I took that year, but perhaps about a quarter or a fifth. Quite a lot more than I would have selected or shown back in 1986, but the content has aged well, even if sometimes the actual physical negatives have deteriorated. Images that might have seemed a little mundane when I first saw them on the contact sheets have often gained considerably in interest as historical records.

There is a little redundancy in those 1370, and I’ve sometimes included several pictures of the same subject, where I’ve tried different ways to approach it. But the great majority of subjects were treated to only a single frame.

Crosby Row, Southwark 86-4f-11_2400

Many of those not included still have interest and value as historical records, but preparing them to go on line is tedious and time-consuming, particular as some need quite extensive digital retouching after the ‘scanning’ stage – mostly done by photographing the negatives with a Nikon D810 and Nikon 60mm macro lens. Some of my negatives were damaged by minute insects in search of gelatine, leaving their track as they chewed their way across them and depositing their frass and occasional body parts and complete restoration isn’t always possible.

Reuter, Royal Exchange, City 86-4l-66_2400

I’ve also been having problems in getting even lighting at the negative edges. This isn’t a problem with mounted slides, where the image is cropped, but I want the whole image, and possibly the problem is with light diffusing from the clear film edges. But it does mean every frame needs correction in Photoshop – rather like the little bit of edge-burning we used to do under the enlarger.

Courtenay Square, Kennington, Lambeth 86-4q-45_2400

I was working on a number of themes at the time and as well as recording buildings that interested me was particularly interest in sculptures, shopfronts, shop window displays and trees in the city. The first page of pictures on Flickr (100 images) includes work mainly from Southwark, the City of London and Spitalfields.

Brick Lane area, Spitalfields, Tower Hamlets 86-4p-55_2400

I took very few pictures of people at this time, partly because I was rather shy, but more that I had been affected by some feelings being strongly expressed by some at the time about privacy and arguments that it was wrong to photograph people without first seeking their permission. I was never convinced by these, but they were off-putting, and I was sometimes shouted at when taking pictures. Perhaps more importantly I wanted to direct attention to the things being photographed, and was aware that people almost always steal the frame.

There are another 95 pictures on the first page of the album, all with a location, taken from the usually rather incomplete information I recorded on the contact sheets. I’ve tried to check these before posting, but corrections and other comments are always welcome. I’m happy for these pictures – with suitable attribution – to be shared on social media, but they remain copyright and any commercial or editorial use requires a licence from me.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media.
And small donations via Paypal – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.


London 1986 on Flickr

Monday, March 23rd, 2020

I’ve just uploaded the first tranche of 112 of my black and white pictures from 1986 on to Flickr. These are some of the pictures I took in the first four months of the year.

In 1986 I made around 5500 exposures on black and white film, the great majority of them being photographs taken on the streets of London, concentrating on the fabric of the city – the buildings and shop fronts in particular. At the same time I was also taking colour film, with a greater focus on shops and window displays.

A few of those black and white exposures were taken outside London on holidays and visits to family and friends, and rather more on a project in the industrial areas beside the Thames in Kent from Dartford to Cliffe.

Most motifs were taken with a single frame, carefully thought out and executed much as if I was using a large format camera, rather than the 35mmm Olympus fitted with a shift lens which I used for most of these images. A few received a second exposure, perhaps to concentrate on detail or where I could see an alternative approach and even more rarely I became excited enough to take more.

The almost a thousand images which will eventually be in this album represent about a quarter or a third of this work – the images I now find more interesting. Some of the scans have minor technical problems that annoy me but are probably not apparent to most viewers. Most were made while I was learning to use a DSLR to photograph negatives.

Although I had been walking around London with a camera since 1973 it was really in 1986 that I made a serious start on photographing the city as a whole, much as I had previously concentrated on various areas of docklands. Photographically I was inspired by the work of Eugène Atget in Paris, recording the old city he saw disappearing, but also by the encyclopedic work of Pevsner and his co-workers in ‘The Buildings of England‘, the original series of which were published between 1951-74. These both inspired and infuriated me by their omissions and the sometimes crass judgements and in particular what seemed to be a disdain for the vernacular, the commercial and the industrial. I decided my own view would be more comprehensive and I would photograph any building I found significant or interesting as well as exemplars of the typical.

Later I would often go into the library at the National Building Record, then in Saville Row, and while waiting for my appointment pull one of their London files from the shelves and leaf through its contents. For most areas it was church after church after church, occasionally enlivened by some ancient house or stately home. Perhaps the odd old pub, but little else to reflect where the ordinary people of London lived, worked or shopped. A few of my images helped to widen their collection, much of the older work in which I was told was donated by Church of England clergy with time on their hands and the money to indulge in photography as a hobby.

I had of course set myself an impossible task, and I realised this from the start, but made it even more so by widening my view in later years to take in the whole of Greater London. I kept at work for almost 15 years, by which time I had covered most of those areas that particularly interested me. But it had also become clear to me that times had changed and in particular that technology was changing.

I had already made use of the web to put some of my work online – in my Buildings of London website first put online in 1996 (with later revisions but never brought up to date as I decided it was impossible to scale it up) and this continued with London’s Industrial Heritage in 1999. The images on these sites reflect the But by 2000 it was clear to me that the impact of digital photography would lead to the city becoming on-line as a whole in a new way that made the continuance of my project redundant.

Google brought this to fruition with the launch of Street View in 2007, though I think it only came to London in 2008. When you view an area on this now, you can probably see it as it was some time in the last year, but, if you are fortunate, can also go back to various other views taken as far back as 2008. But for those relatively few areas and buildings in my pictures you may be able to go back to 1986. Much of London has changed dramatically since then.

Richmond Ave, Islington 86-2d-42_2400

You can watch them here, but its better to go to Flickr and watch them at a larger size.


Photographers Walk

Monday, October 7th, 2019

There is something about walking with other photographers that inhibits the making of photographs. The best companion when you are taking pictures are your thoughts.

I often see invitations to walks led by other photographers or group photographic walks, and back when I was still starting in photography I used to go out with a group of other photographers and we would take pictures.

That was useful, partly because I got taken to places I would not otherwise have been, sunset at Stonehenge, the South Wales Valleys, the Isle of Portland, deserted coastline in Kent and Essex and more, but mainly because we would meet up later and rip each other’s pictures to pieces in no-holds barred critical sessions.

But we were pretty independent guys who would usually walk in different directions and not as a group. We travelled together but seldom worked together and I can’t recall the others getting in my way or I in theirs. We had different ways of working and different interests.

Of course there are times when you need companions. Places photographers wouldn’t get to or wouldn’t dare to go without a fixer. But that isn’t the kind of photography I do. There are no ‘no-go’ areas in London, though quite a lot I’d avoid at some times of night.

But the walk I went on with a few others at the end of August wasn’t like this, and although my companions were photographers it was more a social event. And to be honest, more of a pub crawl, though on this occasion we did manage to walk quite a long way before meeting our first Wetherspoons.

Even then, we only rushed to get there because the rain started. Which may be why I didn’t take any more pictures after that. But by the time we got there I had made a remarkable number of exposures for me on a photographers’ walk.

A few more pictures: City and Spitalfields walk