Posts Tagged ‘stables’

Bricklayers Arms, Page’s Walk and Birds of the World 1988

Sunday, August 7th, 2022

This is the first post about my walk in Bermondsey and other parts of south London on Novermber 13th 1988. My previous walk at the end of October ended with the post Around the Abbey in Bermondsey.

Rothsay St,  Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11d-41-Edit_2400
Rothsay St, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11d-41

Bricklayers Arms, Page’s Walk and Birds of the World 1988

Rothsay Street is not far from the Bricklayers Arms roundabout on the New Kent Road to where I think I probably got a bus from Waterloo to start my walk.

This long block of council housing is still there, part of the Meakin Estate managed since 1996 by the Leathermarket JMB which manages around 1500 homes in Borough and Bermondsey. The block was built in 1935 to high standards for the time by the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey.

The building at left on the corner with Alice St is also still there, but there is now no sign of a door at this corner. It was a public house, The Jolly Tanners, dating from before 1851, though renamed in 1985 as Uncles and later as Sherwoods, finally closing in 1997. A couple of storeys were added when it was converted into Tayet Towers

The Victoria, pub, Page's Walk,  Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11d-42-Edit_2400
The Victoria, pub, Page’s Walk, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11d-42

Not far away I photographed another pub on the other side of Tower Bridge Road on the corner of Page’s Walk. The Victoria is still there, still very much open and still looking much the same except for a paint job and a large climbing plant on its right corner. The pub was built in 1886 when workers from the Bricklayers’ Arms railway depot across the street probably supplied much of its custom.

CAMRA gave the pub a good write-up in 2008 and in 2017. Of course Truman, Hanbury, Buxton & Co no longer supply the beer – they stopped brewing in 1989 though various mergers had set them on a downhill path since 1971.

Willow Walk,  Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11d-46-Edit_2400
Willow Walk, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11d-46

You can see The Victoria pub at the right of this picture on Willow Walk, where in 1988 Balfour Beatty and Jones Lang Wooton were busy on Tower Bridge Business Park, “Business, production and warehouse units … available from August 1988”.

Bricklayers Arms began life as alternative terminus opened by the London and Croydon Railway and the South Eastern Railway in 1844 to London Bridge, but was soon converted to a goods station which closed in 1981. The sidings are now built over for housing but the former stables remain in place on Page’s Walk.

Grange Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11d-32-Edit_2400
Grange Rd, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11d-32

Birds of the World was at the read of a shop, possibly a pet shop which my contact sheet states was on Grange Road, and probably either on the corner of Pages Walk or Fendall Street. I liked the paintings of the birds and was amused by the shadow which put them on a tree.

Page's Walk, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11d-33-Edit_2400
Page’s Walk, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11d-33

Sapphire Laundry Ltd still own the buildings at 29-31 Page’s Walk and are still an active company, though they are their business is now registered with the classification ‘Buying and selling of own real estate.’ This building is next to a rather more substantial one, Sultra House.

Willow Walk,  Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11d-34-Edit_2400
Willow Walk, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11d-34

The “roadline” premises at the corner of Willow Walk and Page’s Walk were part of the former British Road Services Parcels Ltd which had been created as a nationalised road haulage industry in 1948. This was one of the first of Thatcher’s privatisations in 1982 when the company was sold to its employees changing from the National Freight Corporation to the National Freight Consortium. I think it probably went out of use after the Bricklayer’s Arms goods depot closed in 1981.

Willow Walk,  Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11d-35-Edit_2400
Willow Walk, Bermondsey, Southwark, 1988 88-11d-35

Another picture showing more of the Bricklayers Arms stables with their roofs with clerestory windows which were also a common feature on some early railway carriages, highly useful when coach lighting – if any – was provided by oil lamps, but not needed once carriages had electric lighting.

I will continue this walk from Sunday 13th November in a later post.


Finsbury 1988 (Part 2)

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021

Helmet Row, St Lukes, Islington, 1988 88-5n-41-positive_2400
Helmet Row, St Lukes, Islington, 1988 88-5n-41

From Whitecross St I wandered across Old St into Helmet Row to make this picture, before going back across the road.

Old St, St Lukes, Islington, 1988 88-5n-42-positive_2400
Old St, St Lukes, Islington, 1988 88-5n-42

Helmet Row is the street beside this building, at at right is the tall spire of St Luke Old St, a Grade I listed chruch designed by John James and Nicholas Hawksmoor, the latter thought to be responisble for the unusual obelisk spire. In 1988 the church was derelict and roofless. Opened in 1733 it became redundant and closed in 1959, remaining empty until taken over as a music centre operated by the London Symphony Orchestra in 2003.

Golden Lane, Baltic St, Finsbury, Islington, 1988 88-5n-43-positive_2400
Golden Lane, Baltic St, Finsbury, Islington, 1988 88-5n-43

I don’t think I went out of my way to photograph buildings with street signs on them, but it was very useful when they did have one – or even two like this on the corner of Golden Lane and Baltic St. Both buildings are still there, although only that at the right of my picture is still Mencap. That at left has gained the name LONDON HOUSE written rather large on both sides.

Stables, Whitbread, Garrett St, Finsbury, Islington, 1988 88-5n-44-positive_2400
Stables, Whitbread, Garrett St, Finsbury, Islington, 1988 88-5n-44

Whitbread’s huge stables, built in 1897 are a reminder of a past age, one that was soon to come to an end, when traffic in London was all horse-drawn, and large numbers of horses were needed to convey barrels of beer to thirsty Londoners. This stables was built to replace a smaller stables on Chiswell street and ramps at the rear enabled horses to be kept on its three floors. The top floor originally had windows like those below, but these were bricked up when it was later used by a gun club as a firing range. Some have now been unbricked.

These stables could house around a hundred horses to pull the brewery drays, a small fraction of the many thousands of horses on London’s streets every day – with a transport system of hansom cabs and horse buses needing around 50,000 to keep running and many more in harness behind various carts and wagons, along with a few saddle horses. And with Shire horses weighing around a ton a piece the stables had to be very sturdy and the pollution problem with each producing between 15 and 35 pounds of manure per day was huge, leading to the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894. No solution could then be found to the problem, and it was only the internal combustion engine that eventually came to the rescue – its pollution, though toxic was largely gaseous.

School Caretakers, house, Baltic St, Finsbury, Islington, 1988 88-5n-46-positive_2400
School Caretakers, house, Baltic St, Finsbury, Islington, 1988 88-5n-46

The School Caretakers House and entrance to the Cookery School are still there in Baltic Street, though the school, built for boys, girls and infants by the London School Board in th 1880s, is now the Golden Lane Annexe of the London College of Fashion, part of UAL, the University of the Arts London.

Crescent Row, Finsbury, Islington, 1988 88-5n-31-positive_2400
Crescent Row, Finsbury, Islington, 1988 88-5n-31

The corner of Crescent Row and Sycamore St still looks much the same. Plans to demolish the building on the left edge of the picture were approved in 2017, but it appeared to have been renovated a year or so later.

Dress forms, Old St, Finsbury, Islington,  88-5n-34-positive_2400
Dress forms, Old St, Finsbury, Islington, 88-5n-34

The view through a window in Old Street. I think this later became a café bar.

More from around Old St in a later post. Click on any of the images to view a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos from where you can browse the album.


Kensington 1987

Tuesday, March 9th, 2021

Kensington Square,  Kensington & Chelsea, 1987 87-10f-65-positive_2400
Kensington Square, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987

Kensington often seemed to me to be more a film set than a real place.

HyperHyper, Kensington High St,  Kensington & Chelsea, 1987 87-10f-55-positive_2400
HyperHyper, Kensington High St, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987

And it was certainly in places ‘HyperHyper’; this designer collective was launched in 1982 at 26-40 Kensington High St with stalls selling the latest and often looniest fashions from young designers. The caryatids were a hangover from the store’s previous incarnation as the Antiques Hypermarket. They are now long gone, and the site is now a rather down-market clothing store.

Viscount Hotel, Victoria Rd, Kensington,  Kensington & Chelsea, 1987 87-10f-02-positive_2400
Viscount Hotel, Victoria Rd, Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987

This building is still there, though under a different name and has lost its urns. Victoria Road is one of a number of streets that have at least once been named as the most expensive streets in the United Kingdom, though the hotel seems rather reasonably priced for the area.

Kensington Gardens,  Kensington & Chelsea, 1987 87-10e-56-positive_2400
Kensington Gardens, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987

Mainly I went to Kensington Gardens to sit and eat my sandwich lunch when I was in the area, but I did take the odd picture.

Kensington Palace Gardens, Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987 87-10e-01-positive_2400
Kensington Palace Gardens, Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987

And another, of the sunken garden, set out in 1908. In 2017 it was named the Princess Diana Memorial Garden, but this picture was taken around ten years before she was killed.

Man with model yacht, Round Pond, Kensington Gardens,  Kensington & Chelsea, 1987 87-10e-42-positive_2400
Man with model yacht, Round Pond, Kensington Gardens, Westminster, 1987

Parts of the gardens, including the Round Pond, are in the London Borough of Westminster. The Round Pond is not remotely round, closer to an oval, but more a rectangle with very rounded corners.

Kensington Rd, Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987 87-10e-23-positive_2400
Kensington Rd, Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987

This building with its magnificent winged lions is still there, and still a hotel, but with a different name, and a different entrance and railings.

De Vere Mews, Canning Place, Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987 87-10e-14-positive_2400
De Vere Cottages, Canning Place, Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987

As the out of focus area at right indicates, I took this picture of a private courtyard through a gate from the street. It was originally built as Laconia Mews in 1877-8, with rooms for coaches at ground level, a steeply curved ramp leading to stables on the first floor with living accomodation for the carriage drivers and grooms on the second floor. It was converted into cottages shortly after the First World War and most has been considerably rebuilt since then, and a ‘cottage’ here now sells for £2-3 million.

Kensington Church St, Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987 87-10d-62-positive_2400
Kensington Church St, Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987

This row of shops remains, although all the names are different. Then they were mainly antique dealers and galleries, now slightly more varied.


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.