Posts Tagged ‘Stepney’

Scott St Chapel and Beverley Rd

Wednesday, March 27th, 2024

Scott St Chapel and Beverley Rd: More pictures I made in Hull in August 1989 before and after a week with family and friends in Scotland.

Mason & Jackson, Printers, Scott St, Hull, 1989 89-8f-43
Mason & Jackson, Printers, Scott St, Hull, 1989 89-8f-43

This building was on the corner of Scott Street and Carr St, a short street that ended at the Cottingham Drain.

It was builtaround 1803/4 as a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, one of the first in Hull, and the first in the then fast growing area of Sculcoates and had seating for 531 worshippers. The plain brick was coated with stucco some time in the mid 19th century and the building is mentioned in the Hull pages of Pevsner. Later the population of Sculcoates fell as the area became more industrial and new Methodist churches opened elsewhere in Hull. By 1910 the chapel became a printing works, still in use by Mason and Jackson Ltd until 1997 – you can read more details and see pictures in Paul Gibson’s Hull & East Yorkshire History. Sadly efforts by Gibson and others to get this buidling listed were refused and it was bought and demolished to provide more lorry parking for Maizcor in 2001.

Mason & Jackson, Printers, Scott St, Hull, 1989 89-8f-43
Mason & Jackson, Printers, Scott St, Hull, 1989 89-8f-43

This had been the front entrance to the chapel on Scott Street.

Mason & Jackson, Printers, Carr St, Scott St, Hull, 1989 89-8f-45
Mason & Jackson, Printers, Carr St, Scott St, Hull, 1989

A view across Scott Street shows the Carr Street side of the building. Listing was denied on the that the building has been ‘too altered to qualify’, but I think this picture shows that the alterations were only superficial. Paul Gibson’s pictures show that many of the interior features remained. This wasn’t a great building, but a fine example of its type and one of the oldest remaining buildings in the Sculcoates area of Hull. As my picture shows it stood out from the other later buildings on the street some of which still survive.

Gatepost, Royal British Legion, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8f-31
Gatepost, Royal British Legion, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8f-31

There is an interesting block of 3 houses on Beverley Road immediately north of College Street, and it was that street name which gave me the clue tothe origin of this post, which dates from 1836 when Kingston College was built by Hull’s leading early Victorian architect Henry Francis Lockwood. The college was built just a little to the north and set back from the road and a few yards to the north two more pillars lake this do form a gateway to what is now Kingston Youth centre. The college didn’t last long closing in 1847 and its building was bought and turned into almshouses by Trinity House in 1851. At some time it became the Kingston Youth Centre and was badly mauled and had a sports centre added.

When the two houses at 46-48 were added inside the grounds of the college (then owned by Trinity House) in the 1860s I imagine this pillar was kept but its peer removed. This pillar is stuck rather oddly into the corner of the front yard of No 46, which is perhaps why it is in better shape than the two along the road.

The British Legion are no longer at Kingston Cottage at 44 Beverley Road, which is only locally listed. Also by Lockwood it was built as the Kingston College Lodge. As one of his earliest works it should be listed – at the moment it only has local listing. The college has been so much altered that it would be hard to make out a case for its retention in the lottery funded schemes to rejuvenate the area.

Bull Inn, Stepney School, Stepney Lane, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8f-34
Bull Inn, Stepney School, Stepney Lane, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8f-34

This grand Grade II listed Victorian style pub at 246 Beverley Road is not quite as old as it looks and was built in 1903 in red brick and terracotta designs of architects Freeman, Son & Gaskell to replace an earlier Bull Inn that had been on the site for around a hundred years. It closed around 2010, briefly reopened in 2011 and was converted to flats in 2017. I chose an angle for the picture which left the fine bull outlined on the shadow side of the more austere building on the opposite side of Stepney Lane, Stepney Board School.

Bull Inn, Stepney School, Stepney Lane, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8f-34
Bull Inn, Stepney School, Stepney Lane, Beverley Rd, Hull, 1989 89-8f-34

Stepney Board School, built in 1886, architect W Botterill is also Grade II listed. Its Queen Anne style lacks the exuberance of the pub which had to attract customers while the school had school attendance officers to keep its numbers up.

Reynoldson St, Hull, 1989 89-8m-26
Reynoldson St, Hull, 1989 89-8m-26

I think you were never far from a boat in Hull, but relatively few parked theirs outside the front door. I couldn’t remember exactly where I made this, but the next few frames I took were all on or just off Beverley Rd. Fortunately when I posted it on Hull: The good old days on Facebook, I got over 30 replies in the next hour telling me.

I kept only very brief notes while I was taking pictures feeling it a getting in the way of my creative processes. Often I’d done considerable research before going out to take pictures and had a good idea of what I would take photographs of, but there were always other things like this that caught my attention. Usually I could remember something about the when I’d developed the film and made the initial contact print, but not this time.

Still some more pictures from Hull before I returned to London.


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Page 3

Saturday, April 25th, 2020

I hope it will not disappoint anyone that this is only a post about the third page of my pictures from 1986 on Flickr! Though rather more than usual for me at that time do include people, I think all of them are fully dressed.

All of the pictures on this page are from the East End – Bethnal Green, Stepney, Globe Town, Mile End, Whitechapel, Old Ford, and I think a few in Hackney, though when walking the streets it isn’t always clear which area or even which borough you are in, though the street signs often tell you this. Nearly all of these pictures were taken in Tower Hamlets in June 1986.

104 Mile End Rd, Stepney, Tower Hamlets 104 Mile End Rd, Stepney, Tower Hamlets86-6b-52_2400

I stopped to talk to this man fairly early on a Sunday morning, when he was sitting quite happily on the steps of a house, which I think was empty and derelict, though it did have an empty milk bottle on it, as well as his larger bottle of what I think was cider. He had taken his shoes off and it was a pleasantly warm morning and we had a short chat before I asked if he minded if I took his picture. I think he was actually quite pleased to be photographed, and I was pleased to take his picture, though I would have photographed the house without him.

Sima Tandoori, Mile End Rd, Stepney, Tower Hamlets 86-6b-34_2400

I was photographing this shopfront too when these two young men came out from inside to be in the picture too – and they do improve it, adding a little asymmetry. I think I may have gone back a few weeks later and posted a copy of the picture through the door, as I often did when I’d photographed people, but I’m not sure. If not, perhaps they will see it now on Flickr.

Globe International Autos, Cephas St, Globe Town, Tower Hamlets 86-6e-63_2400

Another business I photographed on several occasions was ‘Globe International Autos!’, whose frontage had some extensive painting, and again I was asked to take their picture by two men working there. There are four pictures of the business on this page, two at times when it was closed.

Print workers march to Wapping, Mile End Rd, Stepney, Tower Hamlets 86-6b-63_2400

Back in the 1980s I wasn’t photographing protests, or at least only those which I was taking part in against racism, South African apartheid and nuclear weapons. I didn’t go to Wapping to photograph the year long “Wapping dispute” by print workers after Murdoch moved printing from Fleet St to a new factory there, ending ‘hot-metal’ printing and replacing it by new computer-based offset litho. Murdoch sacked around 6000 printers after the union refused to accept redundancy for 90% of the workers with flexible working, a no-strike clause, the adoption of new technology and the end of the closed shop.

Although Murdoch had been both devious and brutal, I’d known some in the print and something of the “Spanish Practices” that were apparently widespread in Fleet St. While as a trade unionist (and at the time a trade union rep) I supported the workers who had been extremely badly treated it was clear that change was inevitable.

Bishops Way, Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets 86-6g-66_2400

A rather more upbeat picture was I think of workers enjoying a lunch-break kick-about in an alley just off the Cambridge Heath Road in Bethnal Green.

"Woman and Fish", Frank Dobson, Cambridge Heath Road, Globe Town, Tower Hamlets 86-6e-43_2400

And the closest I came to a ‘Page 3’ picture were a couple of images of Frank Dobson’s “Woman and Fish” on the Cambridge Heath Road in Globe Town. The sculpture had been placed in Frank Dobson Square at the junction with Cephas St on the edge of the Cleveland Estate. Dobson (1886 – 1963) was born and worked extensively in London and the square to commemorate him was made by the London County Council the year he died, with the sculpture at its centre, one of several versions he made in 1951 (another rather uglier one is in Delapre Gardens, Northampton.)

Originally it was a fountain, with water emerging from the moth of the fish, but it was vandalised in 1977 and restored without water. It was restored again after various further vandalisations in 1979 and 1983 and had to be removed completely when restoration was impossible in 2002. A bronze replica by Antonio Lopez Reche in 2006 is now in Millwall Park, Isle of Dogs.

Unfortunately much of Dobson’s work remaining in his studio at the time of his death was destroyed by his widow because of its erotic content, but one of his finest works, London Pride is outside the National Theatre in London.

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.


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