The Victoria | >Re-PHOTO

Highgate – Mirrors, Mansions & Luxury Cars: My next photographic walk in 1989 was on Sunday 19th November, and began At Highgate Station on the Northern Line, from where long escalators took me up to Archway Road.

*Mirrors, Archway Rd, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-66*

The picture is a double self-portrait with me appearing – if dimly – in two of the mirrors in a shop window with the message ‘IF YOU DO NOT SEE WHAT YOU REQUIRE IN THE WINDOW PLEASE ASK INSIDE. My Olympus OM4, held in my right hand (left in the mirrors) covers most of my face.

Mirrors have often featured in photographs and seem endemic in film, and in 1978 John Szakowski staged an exhibition of American photography since 1960 and a book, Mirrors and Windows exploring what he felt was the distinction between photographers whose work largely reflected their own subjective view and others who used photography as a window on the world. It is of course not a dichotomy and we all do both, though perhaps at different positions on the spectrum.

I wandered around a bit up and down Archway Road and can’t remember exactly where this shop was, but not far from the station. Eventually I turned south down Southwood Lane.

*Southwood Mansions, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-53*

Southwood Mansions is an imposing late Victorian mansion block build in 1897 and although its entrance (one of a pair) looked rather down-at-heel in 1989, the large flats here now sell for well over a million pounds. This is a very desirable location, close both to the Underground station and to Highgate village.

Car Sales, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-42 — *Car Showroom, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-42*

I went back to Archway Road and wandered a little around the area, taking few pictures. This rather grand car showroom had some rather expensive cars – I was told they are 930 and 964 Porsches and would be worth a fortune now and the first advert that came up on Google lists them at £64,995 to £449,995. I can’t find this showroom now and think it has probably been demolished.

*North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-45*

These houses are a part of a small estate on North Hill, Bramalea Close and Cross Crescent. They are among those featured on a walk along the street by the Highgate Society which states “Arguably no other road in London, Britain, Europe or, who knows, even the world compares with North Hill in terms of the diversity of its domestic architecture” though it gives rather little information about these. They were built between 1976 and 1982.

*BMW, Garage, The Victoria, Pub, 28, North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-46*

More expensive cars at Highgate dealer Hexagon, founded by Paul Michaels in 1963. The company is still in business but this site has been demolished and replaced by housing.

The pub building is still there but closed in 2017 and planning permission was granted for the site to be developed with extra residential building but retaining the pub. Some think the developers are waiting until the pub is in such a poor condition they will be able to demolish it and develop the entire site. But so far it does not seem to have been treated to the usual fire started by persons unknown.

House, 53, North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-31 — *Houses, 53, North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-31*

Thes building are not mentioned in the Highgate Society walk on North Hill, though I did photograph some of the others. I found it interesting for the porch and the balcony above at 51 and the 1930s style windows of 53 to the right (since replaced) and the unusual fenestration of 53 and 55, clearly a later addition to 51.

*Kingdom Hall, North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-35*

There is something very odd about these walls and steps that lead up to the door of the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses at 33 North Hill, and it seems perverse in the era of accessible entrances. It was certainly not the straight gate of Matthew 7 verse 14. The The steps from the pavement now seem to have been levelled out and there is now I think step-free access to a lower level of the building.

More to come from my walk in Highgate.

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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.

Tag: The Victoria

Highgate – Mirrors, Mansions & Luxury Cars – 1989

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

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