Wetherspoons | >Re-PHOTO

BHS, Rolls-Royce, Pubs & Funerals, Hammersmith – 1990

BHS, Rolls-Royce, Pubs & Funerals, Hammersmith: The previous post from my walk on Sunday 7th January 1990 was Latymer, Cromwell, Britannia, Chapels, Shops & Bevan – 1990.

*Bridge Avenue, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1e-65*

Bridge Avenue used to run from King Street to Hammersmith Bridge Road close to Hammersmith Bridge, but was severed with the building of the Great West Road through Hammersmith in the 1960s, the section to the south of this now being Bridge View, though the two are still linked for cyclists and pedestrians by a crossing.

This derelict building was demolished and replaced by a block of offices which is now occupied as the sixth-form block of a Free School. You can faintly make out its former name above the doorway BRITISH HOME STORES. This had its main 1937 Deco frontage at 111-117 King Street, still visible above more recent shopfronts (see below.)

I also photographed the Grade II listed mid-nineteenth century terrace at 1-31 on the east side of Bridge Avenue but have not yet digitised this.

*Frank Dale & Stepsons, King St, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1e-66*

Frank Dale and Stepsons was an unusual business name and the shop, a high-end car showroom, seemed an unusual building for a high street here. The company, trading in Rolls-Royce and Bentley motor cars was set up by Frank Dale in 1946 in Paddington, moved to Holbein Place off Sloane Square in 1966, on to Fulham in 1972 and to these larger premises in Hammersmith in 1985. In 2000 they went further west to Harlequin Avenue off the Great West Road in Brentford and since 2020 has been based in Sandhurst on the borders of Berkshire, Hampshire, and Surrey. The company history is well illustrated on its web site.

This building at 120-124 King Street was on the site of a pub established in 1419 and later known as the Plough & Harrow Public House. The building dated from 1903 and the pub closed around 1960. The facade was retained when the site was rebuilt around 2002 and its ground floor resurrected the old pub name as a Wetherspoons. A pleasantly airy alternative to the William Morris a short walk away it was closed by the company in June 2025. The upper floors are a hotel.

*Wades, King St, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1e-51*

This is the 1937 Deco frontage of the former British Home Stores. When I made this picture it was Wades’ NATIONAL UPHOLSTERY CLEARANCE CENTRE, but was holding its Branch Closing Down Sale. Wade Upholstery are apparently “recognised as one of the finest British makers of sofas and chairs, with a history dating back to 1921, and is sold by the best furniture retailer’s around the world.”

*Amalgamated Plating Works, Railway arches, Cambridge Grove, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1e-54*

Two bridges carry the District and Piccadilly lines across Cambridge Grove and this entrance is on the west side of the road next to the northern of the two. Since 2020 this has been The Clay Garden, a ceramics studio running pottery classes, membership, private hire and masterclasses.

*The Cambridge Arms, pub, Cambridge Grove, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1e-55*

The Cambridge Arms was built in 1853 but following a major refurbishment in 1997 it was renamed The Stonemasons Arms and it mainly caters for young professional people and prides itself for “serving craft beer and sourdough pizzas daily.”

Behind it is St John the Evangelist, Glenthorne Road, by William Butterfield built 1857–9. Grade II* listed, it closed as a church in 2005 and is now used by Godolphin and Latymer School as a performing arts centre.

*The Cambridge Arms, pub, Cambridge Grove, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1e-41*

Another pictures of the Cambridge Arms. Formerly a Watney Combe Reid house it was revamped by Fuller’s. On its side are what I think are the arms of the Prince of Wales – the Duke of Cambridge is a hereditary title of nobility in the British royal family.

*Arthur Luckett, Funerals, Glenthorne Road, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1e-56*

Arthur Luckett was an undertaker with this shop at 59 Glenthorne Road, Hammersmith. Later it became a Unisex hairdressing salon who added an awning which rather spoils the frontage and more recently a property management company.

The modern offices at right were for Phillips Medical Systems and have since been replaced.

*Ashcroft Square, Leamore St, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1990, 90-1e-42*

Finally in Hammersmith I made this picture of Ashcroft Square in Leamore St, a 1973 housing estate on top of a shopping centre designed by Richard Seifert. The shops were only officially opened in 1979. The Kings Mall Shopping Centre is now owned by IKEA.

But this was not the end of my walk. I jumped on a bus to take me a mile or so to the west before the pictures in another post.

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Crouch Hill & Stroud Green – 1989

Crouch Hill & Stroud Green: My walk on Sunday 24th Sepember 1989 continued after I took a train from Blackhorse Road to Crouch Hill. Then the Gospel Oak to Barking line – apparently called by some the Goblin line was one of the least reliable in the country – perhaps it should have been called the Gremlin line. But for once a train came – and on a Sunday too!

The line is now part of the London Overground with a much improved service and in February this year was renamed the Suffragette line. It now also runs beyond Barking to Barking Riverside, though as yet there seems little reason to ever go there.

*Marion Gray, Antiques, 33 Crouch Hill, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9e-21*

Almost immediately out of the station was the fine house, on the end of a rather less grand terrace on the west side of Crouch Hill. The station was opened in 1867/8 as a part of the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway and this accelerated development in the area.

This house was sold in 2017 having long been converted into a ground floor nursery with three flats above. Last year it was covered in scaffolding, presumably for a major refurbishment.

*Crouch Hill, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9e-22*

These shops are on the east side of Crouch Hill, immediately north of Japan Crescent and south of the railway. They still look much the same although the shops have changed and become considerably less useful.

I was attracted by the decorated brickwork, obscured on the leftmost building by some unfortunate cladding, and the curved brick partitions between the houses about the shop fronts.

At extreme right is the pub sign for Marler’s bar, opened in 1983 in a former post office. It’s a pub which has gone through a whole pile of names apprently including Hopsmiths, Noble, Big Fat Sofa, Flag, Racecourse, Tap and Spile and Brave Sir Robin. Andrew Marler was a partner of Tim Martin of Wethersppons, but the history of their collaboration appears to be dulled by alcohol and variously recorded.

Fytos Fashion at 34, Crouch Hill, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9e-23 was one of the 20 images that was a part of my web site and book ‘1989’, ISBN: 978-1-909363-01-4, and above is the page from that.

*Alley, Crouch Hill, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9e-24*

I can tell you little more about EKASA ENTERPRISE WHOLESALE DISTRIBUTOR other than the list printed here – CONFECTIONERY TOBACCO STATIONERY DRINKS GREETING CARDS MEDICINE E.T.C.

They shared the alley, reached through a carriage entrance between shops at 17 Crouch Hill, with Albert E Chapman Ltd, whose sign including also Stretchwall U K Ltd was there until at least 2011.

*Bowler Products Ltd, 14-16, Crouch Hill, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9e-25*

I hoped that Bowler products Ltd made either cricket balls or hats but they were Importers and Wholesale Distributors of a whole range of goods listed on their shop front but neither of these.

*Old Style Delivery, Friern Manor Dairy Farm, Stroud Green Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9e-12*

According to the Hornsey Historical Society this Grade II listed building “with its seven sgraffito panels, was built specially for the Friern Manor Dairy Farm Company on the site at the rear of Hanley Road, where the company rented cowsheds and stables.” There had been a dairy here “from the middle of the 19th century, first by Davis & Co. and then by George Taylor” but this building dates from around 1889-95. The company began earlier and an inscription states ESTABLISHED AD. 1836 The artist of the seven panels and architect are unknown, though the bricks came from Tommy Lawrence of Bracknell.

The buildings were let in the 1920s to United Dairies who used them until 1968. After this they eventually in 1997 they were carefully restored to become The Old Diary pub. This closed in 2020 but was reopened in 2022.

Present Day Delivery, Friern Manor Dairy Farm, Stroud Green Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9e-26 — *Present Day Delivery, Friern Manor Dairy Farm, Stroud Green Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989*

I photographed all seven panels, and you can find some more pictures of them on Flickr, but here I’ll just share the two, one showing ‘Old Style Delivery‘ by two milkmaids with a yoke across their shoulders carrying pails, and this one, ‘Present Day Delivery‘ with the milkman driving a horse and cart carrying large churns.

Even as far back as I can remember in the immediate post-war years our milk was delivered using an electric milk float, at first I think a trailer with the milkman walking in front with a handle to control the power and steering and later with him sitting in a cab. But I do remember a visit to the outskirts of a small town in Germany back in the 1970s where the milk cart was horse-drawn and the milkman measured out the milk using litre or half-litre jugs into the containers brought out by the hausfraus.

We still now in our suburban area get our milk delivered in bottles by a milk operative in the middle of the night driving a now silent electric vehicle.

Our Pre-Chistmas City Walk – 2017

Our Pre-Chistmas City Walk – On Thursday 7th November 2017 I met up old friends, all photographers, for the early Christmas social event we’ve organised most years. It had proved difficult to find a date everyone could make and several of the group were missing and we were down to five of us.

It’s a sobering thought that six years on only three of the five are still in the land of the living, with first Alex and more recently John having died. I’ve several times written about John Benton-Harris on this site over the years and he also years ago contributed two guest posts, as well as featuring his surprise 70th birthday party in 2009.

I’d worked with John in recent years on producing a number of books, including a few for the Café Royal Books series, including his Saint Patrick’s People, though his major work, ‘Mad Hatters’ on the English sadly remains unpublished. And I’d gone with him taking pictures to St Patrick’s Day events in London and elsewhere. Although he had some health problems and was in his 80s, his death still came as a great shock to us all.

We met at St Paul’s Underground Station and our first visit was to the Guildhall Art Gallery, where we went “down into its depths where a few years ago the remains of the Roman Coliseum were discovered and are now rather well displayed, before looking at the City of London’s art collection on display. It’s a rather mixed bunch with some fine works ancient and modern along with some rather tedious municipal records of great occasions that would have looked fine in the Illustrated London News but don’t really cut it as vast canvasses on the gallery wall.” (Quotes her are from my article written here in December 2017)

Some years earlier in 2005 I had been to the opening of a show at the gallery featuring works by some of London’s best-known living painters curated by Mireille Gailinou for a now defunct organisation I was then the treasurer of, London Arts Café, ‘London Now – CITY OF HEAVEN CITY OF HELL’ and had given my opinion on the gallery’s collection to the then curator who was very shocked when I’d said I would quite happily burn one of the largest canvases. Fortunately that had not resulted in me being banned from the gallery!

That show is now long gone, as too is the London Arts Café, but its web site with more about this and other shows and events we organised remains currently on-line. And despite my opinions the Guildhall Art Gallery is still worth visiting both for the artworks and certainly for its Roman remains and entry is free.

From there we walked “on past the Bank of England we walked into Adams Court and walked around in a circle before driven by thirst to the Crosse Keys, where I failed to resist the temptation of a pint of Smokestack Lightnin’, a beer from the Dorking Brewery, named after my favourite Howling Wolf track – I still somewhere have the 45rpm record. It was the first time I’ve come across the idea of a ‘smoked’ beer, and while interesting I think it would be best drunk around a bonfire.”

John had left us when we went into the pub, saying there was still light to take photographs and he wanted to make the most of it, but he seemed seldom to enjoy coming with us into pubs. The Crosse Keys is one of many interesting buildings – old pubs, theatres, cinemas, banks etc – around the country that Wetherspoons have taken over and preserved and though their owner has terrible politics and the chain poor conditions of service they offer cheap and generally well-kept beer and plain good-value food. Obviously their staff should unionise and fight for better terms.

We didn’t stay long in the pub, just a quick pint on the balcony and a short visit to the toilets in the depths, before leaving. Alex said goodbye here, seeing a bus that would take him back home to Hackney rather than go west with us, and I led the remaining two “down to the river, where we turned upstream along the Thames path. The light was fading a little, but perhaps becoming more interesting, but when we left the river at Queenhithe it was time to make our way back to St Paul’s to catch a bus and get a table for our meal together before the city workers crowded in.”

All the pictures accompanying this post were made with a Fuji X-E1 and 18mm Fuji lens, an almost pocketable combination. The 18mm f2 is probably my favourite Fuji lens, though often I prefer the added flexibility of the slightly slower but still fairly compact 18-55mm zoom. Later I moved up to the X-E3, which has better auto-focus and a significantly larger sensor and is slightly smaller, but both are still very usable cameras, and the X-E1 is now available secondhand pretty cheaply. It’s still a great camera for street photography and as an introduction to the Fuji range.

A few more pictures at Photographers Walk.

West India – North Dock 1988

The Ledger Building, Hertsmere Rd, West India Docks, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-6c-52-positive_2400 — *The Ledger Building, Hertsmere Rd, West India Docks, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-6c-52*

The Offices of the West India Docks an Hertsmere Rd at the west corner of what was the Import Dock of the West India Docks and were Grade I listed in 1950 together with the adjoining warehouses. They were built in 1803 , architect George Gwilt and converted to hold the dock ledgers by John Rennie, who added the portico in 1827.

In 2000 it was converted into a Wetherspoon pub, the Ledger Office and can be visited during normal opening hours and displays some information about the history of the docks which can be read while drinking a cheap pint.

Warehouses, Hertsmere Rd, West India Docks, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-6c-53-positive_2400 — *Warehouses, Hertsmere Rd, West India Docks, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-6c-53*

These listed warehouses are now converted for various uses including the Museum of London Docklands which has both permanent and temporary displays on the history of the River Thames, the growth of Port of London and the docks historical link to the Atlantic slave trade, in which this building, a sugar warehouse, played an important role. Temporary exhibitions there have included some of my pictures including in the show ‘Estuary‘ celebrating the museum’s 10th anniversary in 2013

Warehouses, Hertsmere Rd, West India Docks, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-6c-55-positive_2400 — *Warehouses, Hertsmere Rd, West India Docks, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-6c-55*

The area has been opened up by the removal of the dockside sheds and is now a popular tourist venue, though it has lost most of its previous allure. But it’s still an interesting area, both for the old and the new buildings.

Crane, West India Quay, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-6c-44-positive_2400 — Crane, West India Quay, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-6c-44

Two dockside cranes remain on the side of the dock, close to West India Quay DLR station, perhaps left there to divert attention from a rather hideous hotel building to their north.

Bridge, West India Quay, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-6c-45-positive_2400

This picture taken I think from more or less underneath the DLR which goes across the North (Import) Dock gives some impression of the scale of the West India Docks , which I think when constructed in 1800-1806 were I think the largest enclosed high-security docks in the world – and a model for later docks elsewhere.

This dock now looks considerably smaller, with around half of its width taken up by a strange building on top of a new Crossrail station, looking to me rather like a woodlouse. Nothing in this picture remains except the listed dock wall at bottom left (and possibly the bollard on it.)

*Bridge, West India Quay, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-6c-46-positive_2400*

I think this bridge, built from what looks suspiciously like Meccano, was the Great Wharf Road Bridge, later replaced by what was intended as a more permanent structure as the Upper Bank Street Bridge. I can find no information about it on-line, but it appears to have a central lifting section with heavy counterweights in those four towers. That more permanent bridge was removed for the construction of the Crossrail station in 2012 and a new, much shorter bridge was built in five sections in Belgium by Hollandia and welded together in situ in, opening in 2020.

Docklands Light Railway, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-6c-32-positive_2400 — *Docklands Light Railway, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, 1988 88-6c-32*

It was time to leave Docklands for home, and together with my two young assistants we got on the DLR, sitting right at the front of the train. This view from the front window as the train had just left Poplar Station and about to cross Aspen Way shows dockland cranes at left and St Anne’s Limehouse at right. Then DLR trains were single two-carriage units like the Stratford service in this picture.

This is the final part of posts here about my pictures from my walk around the docks on the Isle of Dogs in June 1988.

Click on any of the pictures to see a larger version in my album 1988 London Photos, from where you can browse the album. The pictures there are largely ordered by my negative reference numbers, which do not in detail reflect the order in which the pictures were taken used in the posts here.