Sheds, Turnpike Lane, Saris & Shops: You can read the previous post on my walk which began on Sunday 12th November 1989 at Salvation, Statuettes, a Sexy Model, Spendel & More where it starts halfway down the page. It had begun in Walthamstow where I made about a dozen images before catching the tube and returning to Turnpike Lane where I had ended my walk the week before.
On my way to Walthamstow Central I took this picture on Hoe Street on the corner of Gaywood Road where sheds like these were still being sold by Carr Portable Buildings Ltd until around 2008 and a couple of years later by Garden Design Services, though the site gradually became empty and was looking derelict by 2014. Two floors of flats above a ground floor shop built in 2018 now occupy the site.
I liked the horizontal divide with its upper level of sheds and plant containers which seemed to be a new ground level above the lower sheds.
Turnpike Lane Station, Turnpike Lane, Haringey 1989 89-11c-36
On reaching Turnpike Lane I spent some time wandering around the station and bus station area. admiring the 1930s architecture designed by Charles Holden.
The station opened in 1932 and was the first Underground station in Tottenham. Previously the line had ended at Finsbury Park with further extension north having been vetoed by what had become the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). But the LNER lacked the funds to introduce better services on their lines and a campaign by residents of North London together with the Underground in the 1920s eventually led to the extension to Cockfosters being approved by parliament in 1930.
At Turnpike Lane Station the development also included a tram terminus – later used as a bus station and a number of shops. I think it is probably the largest of Holden’s many fine station projects on the line.
One of the many shops in the area around Turnpike Lane station which caught my attention particularly for the stylized ‘hair’ and eyes of the three mannequins iin the shop window. I covered the window glass with my hands and arms to prevent reflections but the chimneys of the street opposite intrude slightly at top centre and there is a strip of light at far right. I quite like the effect.
Shop window, High Rd, Wood Green, Haringey, 1989 89-11c-34
This was a strange shop display and one which I still cannot quite understand, with at least one ghostly pillar as well as those more obvious ones, with the foreground brightly lit one having a dim but otherwise identical repeat to its left. It’s hard to tell from my image what the goods on display are, some looking like buttons and others like earrings and jewellery. wit at extreme right perhaps some clothing.
Scales SuperMarket, West Green Rd, West Green, Haringey 1989 89-11c-22
A rather more down-market shop on West Green Lane a little to the south in Duckett’s Green – one of the other names considered when Turnpike Lane station was in planning.
I particularly liked the hand=drawn partly 3D lettering of the shop sign. Clearly this shop has been visited by supporters of Newcastle United – probably lost on their way to or from White Hart Lane.
There are still many small shops along West Green Road, but I think this particular one has gone. I didn’t walk far down West Green Road before returning to Turnpike Lane where this short walk ended as I had a meeting to attend.
Salvation, Statuettes, a Sexy Model, Spendel & More: Continuing my walk on Sunday 5th November 1989 from Green Lanes where the previous post, Stroud Green to Grand Parade had ended I walked some way down West Green Road before taking my next picture.
Salvation Army, 2, Terront Rd, West Green, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-16
The Salvation Army building is still there on Terront Road though I think no longer in use by them. I was clearly attracted both by this building and by the car on a trailer to its left, rather dramatically marked with large Xs.
I wondered if this car might be connected with the clearance of the Harringay stadium site, about a kilometre away. Stock car racing and Banger racing were among the events held at Harringay Stadium from the 1950s on. The stadium had opened as Britain’s third greyhound racing stadium in 1927, adding speedway the following year. The stadium finally closed in 1987 and was acquired by Haringey council and some years later demolished for housing and a Sainsbury’s superstore.
It was only the 5th November so the Salvation Army were perhaps getting in rather early with advertising a Christmas Bazaar to be held on 18th Novemeber.
Shop window, West Green Rd, West Green, Haringey, 1989 89-11c-62
And perhaps this pair of Greek statuettes were the ideal Christmas Gift for someone, though I think it would have to be someone you didn’t like. But as you can tell from the price label they were quite small, and at £2.49 definitely a gift.
I decided not to make a great effort to correct the overall flare which renders their upper regions rather diffuse when making this digital copy from the original negative.
Shop window, Green Lanes, Haringey, 1989 89-11c-64
My walk was coming to an end and I walked back towards Turnpike Lane station finding another shop window which caught my interest on Green Lanes. There was something unusually real about this heavily made-up mannequin, wig, pose, and clothing, a sexual energy whose spell was only really broken by the clearly visible joint on her lower left arm and a rather porcelain quality to the highlights. I think this was probably in the window of a shop selling wedding dresses.
I took a number of pictures of this shopfront, which was I think part of the extensive station and bus station development. Most were in colour apart from this and a slightly tighter cropped black and white image. At least one of the colour images – also on Flickr – shows the the entire shopfront dominated at the top by the large word ‘HAIRDRESSER‘. In very small type at the top of the window it states ‘GENTS SALOON’ and scattered on the surface at the base of the windows in front of the shutters are boxes containing tubes of related products including Ingram shaving cream.
The window at left of the entrance contains two rather unhealthy looking pot plans and behind them is a poster for the pantomime Aladdin starring Michael Barrymore and Frank Bruno.
My walk on 5th November ended at Turnpike Lane, where I caught the Piccadilly Line to make my way towards home. But a week later I was back in the same area, returning first to Walthamstow – an easy journey on the Victoria Line before returning to Turnpike Road. I think I had gone back to Walthamstow to retake some colour images, hoping to find better light.
I’d photographed a large angel on my previous walk in the cemetery and this time I took a picture of a rather smaller one, but my main interest was in the shadows cast on a couple of the stones, one of my head and shoulders as I made the picture along with the fence and to the right a clear cross on a rather less clear fence shadow. I think I was probably standing outside the cemetery fence looking in.
The Shandar Take Away Restaurant at 65 on the corner of Queen’s Road and Lansdowne Road had a colourful mural along its Lansdowne Road side, and most of the pictures I took of it were in colour, but I stood a little further away on Queen’s Road to make this picture including a van with an open rear door parked on the pavement in front of a shop on the opposite corner.
Shandar is a name used by a number of Indian restaurants, a Hindi word implying excellence or high quality, which could be translated as ‘Splendid’ or ‘Grand’.
More from my walk on 12th November in a later post.
Car Park, Angel, Works, Off-Sales, Co-op & Carnival Hats: I started my walk on Sunday 5th November 1989 at Walthamstow Central Station, and walked west down Selbourne Road.
Car Park, Selbourne Rd, Vernon Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11b-15
This is Sainsbury’s multistory Car Park on the corner of Selbourne Rd and Vernon Rd and there is a very solid looking rectangular box brick building under the curves of the incline up to the parking space, with anther rectangle, the back of the sign and a very small circle of a car tyre at the extreme right.
I think I walked into Walthamstow cemetery to photograph the chapel there which I’ve not digitised but I also photographed several memorials including this one which I think attracted me because of the feathers on the wing and roses.
There is still a Lennox Trading Estate here, and I think the same gates, although the writing on it is smaller and more regular but otherwise everything looks much the same.
Lennox Road is a short street and its southern side has no buildings but simply the fence of Thomas Gamuel Park, which was re-designed in the 1990s. So the consecutive numbering 82-83 made some sense. The area to the west of the trading estate and the park has been comprehensively redeveloped with low rise housing around Lennox Road.
Thomas Gamuel “was a rich London grocer living in Walthamstow who bequeathed six acres of land known then as Honeybone Field and Markhouse Common, to six trustees, so that rent and profits from this land would be paid to the poor of the parish.”
Chelmsford Road runs down the east side of Thomas Gamuel Park and this former off-license on the corner looked as if it had recently closed with a notice on its side ‘SHOP / YARD & GARAGE STORE TO LET NO PREMIUM’.
The sign and the lamp at the corner suggested to me it had once been a pub rather than just an off-licence though the building seemed too small, but I can find no evidence for this. Both these and the shop front have now gone and the property is now residential including a first floor flat.
Former Co-op, Hoe St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11d-42
I walked down Collingwood Road into St Barnabas Road where I photographed the Safford Hall and the church (not digitised) and then made my way north to Queens Road to cross the railway line and get to Hoe Street, where I made this image.
The beehive was a common cooperative symbol and appears several times on this building along with its date, 1915. For many years it was all the London Co-operative Society store but now only a small section at the northern end is a part of the Co-op, Wathamstow Funeralcare. The London Co-operative Society was formed in 1920 by the merger of the Stratford Co-operative Society and the Edmonton Co-operative Society and I think this was built for the Stratford society.
A few yards north along Hoe Street I took a couple of pictures of the business on the corner with Albert Road
I loved the detailing here with a rather glum looking face holding up a column beside the door. Unfortunately I can’t read the first word of the name of the company here from the angle I photographed this or the next frame, just DISTRIBUTORS LTD. But it did seem a slightly unusual trade to be WHOLESALERS OF CARNIVAL HATS & NOVELTIES.
This property is now entirely residential a has a new fence on top of a low wall around it with a small garden area.
House, 62a, Stroud Green Road, Finsbury Park, Haringey 1989 89-11d-45
At this point I went to Walthamstow Central Station and took the Victoria Line to Finsbury Park. I can’t now remember why I decided to move to a different area but perhaps I simply thought the park at Finsbury Park would be a pleasant place eat my sandwich lunch. I left the station by the Wells terrace entrance and walked along to Stroud Green Road.
As well as the slightly unusual doorway, it seemed to be almost barricaded by the plants growing in front to the door, but the stairs on the outside suggested an alternative entry.
Schools, Warner Estate, Baptists & Art Deco: My motivation for this return to Walthamstow was I think to photograph the building whose pictures end this post. On a previous visit I had – for the only time I can remember – lost a cassette of exposed film. I’d realised this later in the same morning and had gone back on my tracks to search for it to where I changed films, but without success. And there had been one building I had photographed that I was keen to have pictures of as Art Deco was one of my particular themes at the time, working for a never published book, London Moderne. But I’d decided to walk around some other areas again before going to take those pictures.
Markhouse Road Schools it tells us on the building were ‘REBUILT 1907’. Walthamstow was forced by the government Education ministry to set up a school board 1880, before which there were“5 Anglican schools, 5 run by Protestant nonconformists, and 3, including an orphanage and an industrial school, by Roman Catholics.” The school boards provided elementary education for 5-13 year olds. Mark House Road board school opened in 1891 with infants, boys and girls departments.
Unfortunately the schools burnt down a few days before Christmas in 1906 and were almost completely destroyed. Walthamstow Urban Distric Council who had been running elementary schools in the area since 1903 rebuilt them and they reopened in 1908.
The school became a secondary modern school in 1946 and closed in 1966, though the building remained in use for various educational purposes for some years until it was finally demolished a few years after I made this picture.
Nat West, Bank, 10, St James St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-66
The rather fine entrance to the NatWest bank in St James St; the building on the north of the corner with Leucha Road, is still there, one of the two blocks built by the Warner Estate featured in the previous post on this walk, but the doorway, now for a food store, is sadly bereft of dragons and decoration.
Leucha Road, one many streets built as part of the Warner Estate in Walthamstow got its name from one of the family, Leucha Diana Maude who was the daughter of Clementina and Cornwallis Viscount Hawarden Earl de Montalt, a Conservative politician with an Irish peerage. Clementina was a noted amateur photographer and had ten children, eight of whom survived infancy, so there was no shortage of names for streets around here.
This was one of the earliest to be developed on the Warner Estate in 1895 and the buildings on it are two storey maisonettes, called “half houses” by the Warners.
Leucha Road was acquired by Waltham Forest Council in the late 1960’s and they repainted the doors which had been green like all other Warner properties in what the Conservation Area statement describes as “a pale and inappropriate “Council-house” blue“. The Warner Estate sold off 2400 of their properties to Circle 33 Housing Trust (now part of Circle Housing Group) in 2000 and of these 600 still had outside toilets.
Shops, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9e-52
Another picture of some of the Warner estate shops in the High Street with at the left a rather strange ‘streamline’ feature which I think must have belonged to a building to the left demolished in some road-widening scheme.
A curiously barn-like structure dated 1932, Walthamstow (Blackhorse Rd) Baptist Church. This building replaced a ‘tin tabernacle’ in which the congregation had been meeting since 1898. The church is still a “friendly multi-cultural church in Walthamstow.”
Not dated but also obviously from the 1930s was this building for Hammond & Champnesss Ltd on Blackhorse Lane.
Hammond & Champnesss Ltd was established as in 1905 by cousins Ernest Hammond and Harold Champness to make hydraulic water-powered lifts. They were joined by Ernest’s brother Leonard and for some time the company was Hammond Brothers and Champness Ltd.
Hydraulic lifts are raised and lowered by a piston inside a long cylinder with fluid pumped in to move the piston which is connected either directly or by ropes and pulleys to the lift cabin. They can be used in buildings up to five of six stories high.
Hammond Brothers and Champness Ltd went bust in 1932 and the company was taken over by E Pollard & Co. Ltd who renamed it to Hammond & Champnesss Ltd but kept it operating as a separate company. This was taken over by US company Dover Corporation in 1971 but they continued to make lift components in Walthamstow until that company was taken over by Thyssen in 1999.
The building became Kings Family Network. It was refurbished in 2014 and is now Creative Works Co-Working office space.
This wasn’t the end of my walk that day, but after taking three pictures of this building I made my way to Blackhorse Road station and took the train to Crouch Hill.
Shops, Warner, Marx, English & A Lighthouse from my walk on Sunday 24th September 1989.
Shop Window, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-36
I wasn’t quite sure what I thought about this window display with at right a dress with pictures with rear views of three mice as PRODUCER, DIRECTOR and EDITOR sitting in their directors chairs holding megaphone, script and clapper-board for TAKE 1.
To the left is a mannequin in some kind of underwear and holding another item of lingerie, with other items draped over what looks like a deckchair without its canvase. Behind the two is the larger face of a woman photographed in similar underwear.
I’m not sure how I would describe the faces and hair styles of the two mannequins; perhaps “imperious”?
La Three Shoes, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-23
I’m unsure if ‘finial’ is the correct architectural term for these decorative features at the division between the shop fronts on the substantial block on the north side of the High Street between Pretoria Avenue and Carisbrooke Rd, I think at 19-35.
This block was developed by The Warner Estate Co. Ltd, registered in 1891 and responsible for much of the development of the area between the 1880s and the First World War, and it probably dates from the early 1890s.
Quite what the significance of the dragon, the flower and the grotesque devilish face are I leave to you. But I took four photographs of this, and another between 27 and 29 in the row.
Clock, Apollo, 4, St James St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-25
I tuned south down St James’s Street where on the right are two more blocks of Warner properties with more of the dragons and flowers but without the grinning gargoyles between the shops. Between the first and second floor buildings are mouldings with winged cherubs holding an ornate a bowl of fruit, surrounded by swirls of oak leaves. There is a flower at each bottom corner and in the centre, below the bowl what could be a mushroom or toadstool.
Shops, 2-10, St James St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-11
Apollo Dry Cleaners are still I think in the shop at 4 St James St and you can see them in this picture of the row of shops. The clock which was above the Opticians at Number 6 has now gone, although I think two strips of wood which held it are still in place.
These shops – and those on the High Street in the top picture are not even locally listed but they are in the Walthamstow St James Conservation area, with these Warner properties on St James St marked for possible future local listing. There are also desciptions of these and the High Street properties.
Alfred English, Funeral Directors, St James St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-14
Funeral Directors Alfred English are still at 70 St James St, but the extension at he side of their large detached house is no longer a shop window and the large sign on the wall to its left and reflected in the window has also gone.
Alfred English have been funeral directors in Walthamstow since 1896, for many years as a family owned firm. It has become a part of Dignity Group which includes 795 Funeral Directors across the UK.
I was rather disappointed to find that Marx House had no connection with Karl, but was named after Marx Gross its first occupier. But while that may be so, I think it may also have a connection with the street name, Markhouse Rd, which apparently derives from an early Marck Manor House. Mearc apparently meant boundary and the estate was on both sides of the boundary between Leyton and Walthamstow.
This was on Markhouse Common which was enclosed in the 1850s and development of this area then started with railways serving the area around. Until 2002 there was a pub at the junction of Markhouse Lane and Queen’s Road, which over the years had various names including the Commongate Hotel, JD’s, Couples and the Sportsman, but is now a hotel with its old name.
This local landmark was built in 1893 and was for many years a popular church in the area. Bullard King & Company, Limited had been founded in 1850 by Daniel King and Samuel Bullard with a fleet of sailing ships trading between London and Natal as The White Cross Line, and they moved to steam vessels in 1879, adding services to carry labourers from India to South Africa.
In 1889 Captain King donated the site on Markhouse Road and paid for the building, begun in 1892, making clear what he wanted to architect J. Williams Dunford. Apparently originally the church had a revolving light shining during services.
The light perhaps helped to attract worshippers and in 1903 it had congregations of over 1,500. The building was Grade II listed in 2007, and the listing text contains an unusually lengthy description including the following: “The lighthouse turret is distinctive, particularly given the church’s inland location, and is an uncommon feature of the design. Despite the obvious link between Christian imagery of Jesus as the Light of the World and the function of a lighthouse, there are no known examples of church designs which use a lighthouse architectural feature. “
The building is still in use as The Lighthouse Methodist Church though I imagine congregations are now considerably smaller.
Seven Sisters and Walthamstow High St: On Sunday 24th September 1989 I returned to north-east London to continue my walks, this time starting a little to the west on the Middlesex side of the River Lea at Seven Sisters in Haringey. The Lea (or Lee), London’s second largest river, has been a significant boundary at least since the Iron Age when it separated the Catuvellauni from the Trinovantes, later the Middle Saxons from the East Saxons, then England from the Danelaw and until 1965 Middlesex from Essex (though some of Middlesex by then was in the County of London.) It still separates Haringey on the west from Waltham Forest on the east.
House, 176, St Ann’s Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-44
I can’t remember now why I got off the Victoria Line at Seven Sisters and took a short walk from there on my way to Walthamstow, but possibly there was a temporary problem on the Victoria Line which terminated My train there. But I found this part-demolished house, once quite grand, at 176 St Ann’s Rd in South Tottenham.
The sign above the door is for N Nicolau who had manufactured dresses, jackets, skirts and slacks here, though I think the advertisement for vacancies for machinists, finishers and pressers was rather out of date. There were still plenty of clothing sweatshops in the area, and many were Greek or Cypriot run companies.
This house has been rebuilt in a rather plainer fashion, but there are still some other houses of a similar age on the street, largely developed in the later Victorian period. This is now in the St Ann’s conservation area around the church which was consecrated in 1861. The new building here is mentioned; “constructed of London stock brick … white rendered square bays and a slate roof and respects the character and appearance of this part of the Conservation Area.“
J Reid, Pianos, St Ann’s Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-45
I liked the PIANOS sign surrounded by keyboards, though the 13 octaves on both top and bottom seemed excessive – our Broadwood manages with only seven and a few extra keys.
J Reid Pianos was established in 1928 and are still in business at 184 St Ann’s Road. You can buy a Reid Sohn piano from them, though these are now made in Indonesia, and they sell other makers too, with the “largesst selection of quality pianos in London“. They have also restored many pianos from “Barraud, Bechstein, Bell, Bernstein, Bluthner, Bosendorfer, Boston, Brinsmead, Broadwood, Carl Schiller, Challen, Challen, D’Este, Erard, Fazioli, Fenner, Feurich, Gaveau, Gebruder, Grotrian, Hoffman, Ibach, Kawai, Kemble, Knake, Knight, Lipp, Matz, Pleyel, Pleyel, Reid-Sohn, Ronisch (Rönisch), Sames, Samick, Sauter, Schiedmayer, Schimmel, Seiler, Squire, Steck, Steinmayer, Steinway (Steinway & Sons), Steinweg, Thurma, Weber, Welmar, Yamaha.“
1858 Model Cottages, Avenue Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-46
Model cottages were an early form of social housing for the working class and began with the help of Prince Albert who was the President of Society for Improving the Conditions of the Labouring Classes. He was unable to persuade the commissioners of the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park to include the model cottages designed by the SICLC in the exhibition as they were felt to be too political but he had them built next door at Knightsbridge Barracks – and later they were rebuilt where they still are in Kennington Park.
Following this, many of the housing societies set up in the Victorian era to provide relatively cheap and decent homes for the working class built model cottages at various sites across London. Rents were set at levels those in manual work could afford but still gave a decent return to the company investors.
These Grade II listed Model Cottages are some of the earliest to be built and were perhaps a local initiative linked with the neighbouring St Ann’s School and church. They have been restored since I took this picture, and the doorway at left now has a rather austere woman’s head above it – perhaps a modern version of a Mercer Maiden?
The next picture, Car, House, Leaves, Bedford Rd, 148, West Green Rd, West Green, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-32, was one of those included with text in my book ‘1989‘.
High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-33
Finally I got back onto the Victoria Line to Walthamstow Central and walked to the High St, a very different scene on a Sunday Morning that the crowded market I had photographed recently on a Saturday afternoon.
Palmerston Rd, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-34
I liked the font used for BEAU.BAGGAGE as well as the STOP PRESS around the window advertising the end of season sale. There was also the three signs at the top right of the shop which somehow seemed joined together. Then there was the street furniture – the waiting man on the traffic lights, the telephone unbox at left and a lamp post with a ‘No Entry’ sign at right.
All very carefully positioned in my frame with probably a little help from the 35mm shift lens which enabled me to choose my position and then slide the lens and view a little to the right or left (and up or down) to position the frame edges where I wanted them. Most of the photographs I took were made with this lens.
High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-35
Another picture of shops on the High Street, showing post-war and probably late Victorian buildings. At left is the Cakemaker’s Centre, with its picture of a balance and I think the name EASY WEIGH and in the centre the entrance to The Walthamstow Working Men’s Club & Institute.
The club celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2012 and claims to be the oldest surviving working men’s club in the country. It was founded in 1862 by Lord Henry Solly (1813-1903), British Unitarian minister, social reformer, and instigator & founder of the Working Men’s Club movement, the Charity Organisation, and the Garden City Movement.
This was a temperance club, with the aim to educate working men and free them from alcoholism. It had a library, a games room and a discussion room. The club is limited to 50 members and in 2012 all were still men. They said nothing prevented women joining but none had applied. It is still a temperance club, though members might sometimes bring a can of beer in, and as it is affiliated to the CIU, members can go to many other clubs across the country (including I think a couple in Walthamstow) and buy a beer.
Unlike most other working mens clubs which rely on bar sales this club gets an income from several of the shops whose premises it owns – I think including some in my picture.
More from Walthamstow on this walk in a later post.
Die Stamping, GPO, Ancient House, Churchyard, Leaves & Market: I can’t now recall why I had only time for a relatively short walk in Walthamstow on Saturday 16th September 1989 but it was an interesting one. I think possibly I was unhappy with a picture I had take earlier and had returned to have another attempt.
Essex Die Stamping Co, Church Path, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9b-31
From Walthamstow Central Station I crossed Hoe St and walked down St Mary Road, which leads to Church Path, and the Essex Die Stamping Co Ltd who were also steel engravers was on this path. The company had moved out to Harlow when I made this picture and the property had already been sold. It is now residential.
At the end of Church Path is Vestry Road and the Vestry House Museum in a Grade II listed building built as the parish workhouse in 1730. Before opening as a local history museum in 1931 it had served as a police station, an armoury, a building merchant’s store, and a private home. Among its exhibits is “the Bremer Car, the first British motor car with an internal combustion engine, which was built by Frederick Bremer (1872–1941) in a workshop at the back of his family home in Connaught Road, Walthamstow.” The museum is currently being renovated and should reopen in 2026.
The short fluted column and capital outside the museum was one of the many which adorned the frontage of Sir Robert Smirke’s fine neo-classical General Post Office HQ in St Martin-le-Grand, built in 19826-9 and demolished in 1912. It was then bought by stone mason Frank Mortimer who presented it to Walthamstow Council. They put it in Lloyd Park, but moved it outside the museum in 1954.
House, 2, Church Lane, Orford Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest,1989 89-9b-25
The Ancient House at 2,4,6 and 8, Church Lane was Grade II listed in 1951, early on in the pioneer survey which followed the Town and Country Planning Acts of 1944 and 1947. The listing text indicates it began as a single fifteenth century hall house but has since been converted into separate dwellings with the hall also divided into normal height floors. It was extensively “restored in 1934 by Mr Robert Fuller under the supervision ofMr CJ Brewin, architect, as a memorial to W G Fuller, head of the Fuller’s firm of builders. “
Monument, St Mary’s Churchyard, Church End Path, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-51
An atmospheric view of the corner of St Mary’s Churchyard. Beyond the path (although not showing their best side) are the almshouses “ERECTED and ENDOWED FOR EVER By Mrs MARY SQUIRES Widow for the Use of Six Decayed Tradesmens Widow of this Parish and no other” in 1795. You can read more about them in an article by Karen Averby Story of Squires Almshouses built in 1795 in Walthamstow, East London.
Porch, 52-4, Church Hill, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-55
Although St Mary’s Church is well worth a visit I didn’t photograph it (or take a proper picture of the almshouses.) When I visited the National Building Record in Saville Row I often had to wait in the library where I could pull files for various areas off the shelves and look through the pictures they contained. Most were stuffed full of pictures of old churches, many taken by clergymen who apparently had time on their hands and were often keen amateur photographers. So I felt little need to photograph old churches.
Instead I took the footpath through the churchyard to Church Hill whre I found this porch across the entrance to two houses with delightful leaf ironwork.
Before catching the Underground from Walthamstow Central I had time for a short wander along Walthamstow Market which claims to be a mile long but isn’t, though at around a kilometre it is still the second longest outdoor market in Europe.
Walthamstow Market, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-43
The market began in 1885 and operates five days a week with around 500 market stalls as well as shops on both sides of the street. It is still worth a visit but I think has gone down considerably since 1989, though the four pictures I took on this occasion (three on-line) do not show it at its best.
You can browse a few more pictures I took on this walk on Flickr from any of those here, as well as many more of my pictures – over 30,000 from London.
Mecca, Statues, Bakers Ladders, Timber… Continuing my walk on Sunday September 3rd 1989 which had begun in Stratford, from which some images appeared in my web site and self-published book ‘1989’, ISBN: 978-1-909363-01-4, still available. The pictures here are in the order I took them. For those images which were in the book I’ll show the book pages here.
Back at the Bakers Arms after a little stroll on Leyton Flats I found this closed Mecca Leisure Bingo Hall on Hoe Street, its ground floor frontage covered with flyposting. Cinema Treasures says it opened as The Scala Cinema in 1913, was renamed the Plaza Cinema in 1931 and then closed, reopening in 1933. After its next name change in 1961 to The Cameo Cinema in 1961 it kept going for two years before becoming a Mecca Bingo Club. Left derelict for 18 years after this closed in 1986, it was taken over by a church in 2004, Grade II listed in 2006 and now looks much better. The listing text calls it the Former Empress Cinema and notes its still existing elaborate interior plasterwork.
The London Master Bakers’ Pension Society (now the Bakers’ Benevolent Society) was founded in 1832 and in 1854 decided to build almshouses. The foundation stone for the first was laid in 1857 and the first block of 18 were finished by 1861 and the rest by 1866, providing homes for elderly poor bakers and their widows.
In the late 1960s the site was purchased, probably as a part of a GLC road-widening scheme and the Bakers moved out to new villas in Epping. The almshouses were saved from further threats to demolish them by Grade II listing in 1971 and were purchased by Waltham Forest Council for use as 1-bed flats.
Rather to my surprise this corner of Russel Road and Lea Bridge Road still looks remarkably similar although the names have changed and the central buildings have been rebuilt, I think with a slightly wider pavement. But it still sells tyres and cars and there is still a shed on the corner, though no longer named the DUCK INN, and the buildings down Russell Road still look much the same.
This house was demolished to build a modern office for the Capworth Panel & Timber Co Ltd, which was dissolved in 2012. As well as the main house all of the sheds and buidings at right also went.
The house had obviously seen grander days, and I wonder it it had originally had a carriage entrance at left where the brickwork does not quite match and the window and door are clearly much more modern, perhaps having been added at the same time as the first floor windows were given a makeover probably in the 1930s or 50s.
I still had time to continue my wandering around the area and take a few more pictures and will post a final set from this walk shortly.
Fight the Height, Walthamstow: Sunday 1 June, 2008
In 1999 Waltham Forest council demolished a large site at the east end of Walthamstow High Street and on Hoe Street. An arcade of shops was built through the block between the two streets in the 1960s and the site was known as the Arcade site.
The area had been heavily bombed in the war and the post-war buildings on the site were of no particular architectural merit but they were home to many small local shops remembered fondly by local residents, as well as some council flats on the second and third floors above them. Waltham Forest council are blamed for failing to properly maintain the properties resulting in their deterioration.
When demolition took place in 1999, the council announced their intention to put the site to cultural use and benefit the community – a new leisure centre, library and arts centre together with social housing. But for some years this was an empty square with a path across. But developer St Modwen published its proposals for the site in 2008 they appeared to be dominated by commercial interest and to have little regard for local needs.
The Arcade site was at the east end of Walthamstow’s famous street market, claimed to be the longest in Europe which began in 1885 and attracts shoppers from across London and tourists from around the world. St Modwen’s plans included a large Primark supermarket which would threaten the future of the market and many of the shops along the high street.
Then there was the Vue multiplex cinema which would put an end to any chance of the restoration of the Grade II* listed 1930 high Art-Deco Moorish style former Walthamstow Granada a few yards away on Hoe Street.
In the 2008 plans was an 18 storey tower block, quite out of scale with the surrounding area, with its terraces of two storey housing and small scale developments. It was this that led those protesting to call their campaign ‘Fight The Height‘.
Flats in this tower block would be highly attractive to well-paid city workers, just a short walk from Walthamstow Central station with its 4 trains an hour to Liverpool Street in 17 minutes as well as a frequent Victoria Line service to the West End.
Considerable thought had gone into the protest to attract publicity for the campaign. There were three characters representing the tower block, Vue cinema and Primark who bravely stood in front of the hoardings with the large coloured computer generated images of the proposed development as the protesters pelted them with over-ripe tomatoes donated by market stall-holders. And it made the TV news.
There were also many large placards with adults and children carrying them, and local boy William Morris (1834-1896) born here in and celebrated in his childhood home now the William Morris Gallery in Lloyd Park) also put in an appearance. Morris in 1877 was one of the founders of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, often known by its nickname Anti-Scrape, a charity whose purpose remains ‘Heritage protection’.
And “local artists and non-artists” founded the Antiscrap campaign “against against the attacks on our culture by the local authority.” Originally formed to fight cuts in museum fnding, on their web site you can read more about the Arcade campaign and other campaigns about out-of-character local developments.
Protests like this one were probably important in leading St Modwen to revise their plans for the Arcade site.
Here is a post from Antiscrap on Thursday 22 November 2012:
The shocking news about the new Arcade site plans is that they’re not bad. No, really. Opinions differ as to whether it’s appropriate to build 120 new homes and a nine-screen cinema there at all. But the plans have been thoughtfully designed with good attention to detail and far less negative impact on central Walthamstow than previous plans.
But as a short visit to Walthamstow will show, some other campaigns in the area have met with rather less success, though the Granada has been saved and now hosts a theatre. There are now tower blocks clustered around various areas of the town – largely in easy walking distance from its stations – and the Ensign camera factory has been replaced by flats rather than rediscovered under its ugly 1980s cladding.
Bread & Roses, Morales & Russian anti-fascists: Three events I photographed on Saturday 19th January 2019.
Bread & Roses is again relevant now in January 2024, with the release of a new version of the song a few days ago by the ‘Orchestra of Cardboard‘, part of the amazing ‘Every street a POWER STATION campaign‘, a project of Walthamstow’s community interest company Optimistic Foundation CIC set up by artist and filmmaker Hilary Powell and filmmaker and musician Dan Edelstyn. The recording is a part of their fundraising campaign and your can read, see and hear more about it and their other campaigns which are already having an effect in the area on their crowdfunder page.
But back to January 2019, five years ago today.
Women’s Bread & Roses protest
Inspired by the Bread & Roses protests which revolutionised workers’ rights for women in 1912, Women’s March London marched from the BBC to a rally in Trafalgar Square against economic oppression, violence against women, gender pay gap, racism, fascism, institutional sexual harassment and hostile environment in the UK, and called for a government dedicated to equality and working for all of us rather than the few.
The London march was part of an international day with women marching in many countries around the world, particularly in cities across the USA.
At the start of the march was opposite the BBC on the steps of Langham Place a few of the women organising the event were being directed and filmed by a BBC film crew. Supposedly this was a documentary but it seemed to be more a scripted drama closely controlled by the director and with the women involved holding orange folders from which they read.
But there were a rather larger group of women (and just a few men with them) standing around outside the BBC building and largely ignoring the filming that was taking place. Many had made placards especially for the event, with some using words from the poem ‘Bread and Roses‘ written by James Oppenheim and published at the end of 1911. The phrase ‘Bread and Roses’ came from a speech the previous year by Helen Todd, speaking about the need for laws to regulate wages, working hours and conditions.
A few days later a strike was started by textile workers, largely immigrants, in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The strike was organised by the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World, led largely by women and they took up Oppenheims poem and sang it at their meetings and marches, as well as apparently marching with a banner ‘We want Bread, and Roses too!’ during their three-month strike.
Eventually, when the BBC had finished making their movie the women gathered for a march and I walked with them to Trafalgar Square.
Bolivians protest against Morales – Trafalgar Square
A small group of Bolivians had come to protest following a decision in December by the Electoral Commission that President Evo Morales could stand for a fourth term in office in the October 2019 elections which were starting with primaries at the end of January 2019. But I was not convinced that this was truly a protest about democracy rather than simply against his socialist policies.
Morales, Bolivia’s first president to come from the indigenous population was first elected in 2005. He supported the 2009 constitution which allowed only two consecutive terms in office but was able to stand for a third term as his first term had been before the limit was imposed. In 2016 tried to increase the limit to three terms by a referendum which was narrowly defeated. But after this the courts ruled that the limitation infringed the human rights of citizens, allowing him to stand for a further term.
Morales won the October 2019 but their were widespread protests alleging electoral fraud, although later investigations suggested he had indeed gained the 10% lead required for a first-round victory. But the protests grew and he was endangered by armed groups; eventually he resigned on 10th November 2019, fleeing to Mexico where he was granted political asylum. Allegations made against him of sedition and terrorism were later found to be politically motivated and in 2020 a Bolivian court found his rights had been violated and judicial procedures breached.
His successful policies which reduced poverty and illiteracy and combated the influence of the USA and multinational companies made him very unpopular among the middle class and particularly the groups accustomed to running the country. Many in the USA encouraged and financed the opposition to him as he was widely seen to have shown a successful alternative to the growth of international capitalism.
Solidarity with Russian anti-fascists – Whitechapel
Finally I went east to the Cable Street Mural where anarchists and anti-fascists were meeting l to oppose racism, xenophobia, fascism and the upsurge of far-right populism and to show solidarity with Russian anti-fascists who have been arrested, framed and tortured in a brutal wave of repression.
Russian and Ukranian comrades spoke at the rally. telling us of the persecution taking place. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested six in Penza in 2017, charging them with belonging to a non-existent organisation, ‘The Network’. Beatings and torture before their trial were used to make them give false confessions.
Two others were arrested in 2018 in St Petersburg and charged with belonging to the same fictional network and again tortured into making confessions and further similar arrests have followed. A total of 11 where then in prison for belonging to’The Network’, facing 5 to 25 years in jail.
The date for the protest was chosen as the anniversary of the brutal murder of two Russian anti-fascists, journalist Anastasia Baburova and lawyer Stanislav Markelov, by fascists in broad daylight on the streets of Moscow on January 19th 2009. Russian anarchists and anti-fascists hold events to remember them on this day every year.
There was then a march to a further rally in Altab Ali Park, named for the 24-year-old clothing worker murdered in a nearby street on 4 May 1978.
