The Secret Life of Streets (BBC Two)

[Nick Armstrong]

Pullens Buildings:... it's somehow a really nice feeling to look at them and think of my family living there, coming and going and children playing in the street (yes, I know, that's soppy and sentimental) I tried to find a photo link to post but google only turns up flickr which don't allow copy and pasting, but anyone can find the photos. Edit: it seems some of The Kings Speech was filmed there.

These the ones, Anna? http://afroml.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09...buildings.html

[Anna]

These the ones, Anna? http://afroml.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09...buildings.html

Street name, second one down, Penton Place was were they were. Other branch of family lived round the corner, Peacock Street (not so much of that exists) but can be seen via google street. And to think, they may have been turned into some sort of Aylesbury Estate and become slums!!! Cannot find at mo but Charles Booth wrote about James Pullen (who, incidentally, erected them without planning permission)

[Nick Armstrong]

Street name, second one down, Penton Place was were they were. Other branch of family lived round the corner, Peacock Street (not so much of that exists) but can be seen via google street. And to think, they may have been turned into some sort of Aylesbury Estate and become slums!!! Cannot find at mo but Charles Booth wrote about James Pullen (who, incidentally, erected them without planning permission)

Wonderful.

The thing to strike me about that second photo is how that entrance with an immediate staircase to the right is exactly like the 'staircases' one sees in all the older Oxbridge colleges - obviously the standard tenement / communal living configuration for centuries...

I also love the photo of the old Clements & Co shopfront.

[Anna]

Wonderful.
The thing to strike me about that second photo is how that entrance with an immediate staircase to the right is exactly like the 'staircases' one sees in all the older Oxbridge colleges - obviously the standard tenement / communal living configuration for centuries...

Yes, of course, I forgot to mention. How foolish of me! All my ancestors were rusticated from Oxbridge, they fled to Southwark to seek refuge in the staircases which were full of memories and to become drapers and millinery assistants.......

[Nick Armstrong]

Yes, of course, I forgot to mention. How foolish of me! All my ancestors were rusticated from Oxbridge, they fled to Southwark to seek refuge in the staircases which were full of memories and to become drapers and millinery assistants.......

[JFLL]

Most people probably think of Deptford as being as much in the depths of inner London as it's name resonates. But just off the main A2 some early 17th century shops survive to this day which give an appearance of a country town in Essex, Kent or Sussex.

Not to mention one of the best churches in all London -- Thomas Archer's St Paul's. There's a good view from the train if you're travelling on the otherwise rather dismal Charing Cross-Dartford route.

[french frank]

Not to mention one of the best churches in all London -- Thomas Archer's St Paul's. There's a good view from the train if you're travelling on the otherwise rather dismal Charing Cross-Dartford route.

And I see what people mean by the olde worlde look of Deptford. Here's a photo of St Paul's I just popped out and took:

[Serial_Apologist]

And I see what people mean by the olde worlde look of Deptford. Here's a photo of St Paul's I just popped out and took:

Somehow I always knew you were from another age, french frank!

[Pegleg]

I've just caught up with the “Camberwell Grove program”, with its undercurrent of conservationist versus the rest. What was the greater irony? Was it the ex-Leader of Southwark council saying if only local communities had been more vocal, or the architect couple who seemed surprised that their Georgian/Regency home was “stuffed with people” in 1911, when members of their profession had a hand in creating the hideous monstrosity of the Aylesbury Estate, and others like it, elsewhere in Southwark?

How was it possible that the failings of that concrete prison that were blindingly obvious to the re-housed tenants at the outset were not seen by the planners? Just around forty years to become slums and condemned, and probably a hell of a place to live in half that time.

https://southwarknotes.wordpress.com/aylesbury-estate/

http://markblundell.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Heygate-Estate/G0000s2Of0iOjtTA/I00001dJlzLEjATk

Of course, the Aylesbury Estate is some miles north of Camberwell Grove in Walworth but it is close to the Pullens Buildings that Anna has talked of. It's a pity there not more Pullens and less pulling down, but I suspect the history of post-war housing development in Southwark is very muddy.

Anybody interested in that area, its housing and the “Pullens” story should find this well worth reading:

https://www.iliffeyard.co.uk/managed_assets/files/the_pullen__s_story.pdf

One of my uncles spent his early years in the Palatinate Buildings in the New Kent Road which were adjacent to Gurney Street. These had been built in 1875, ten years before Pullen erected any housing and were just across the Walworth Road from Amelia Street etc. This and surrounding streets were demolished in the late sixties to make way for what was to become another of Southwark's notorious housing estates, the “Heygate” development.

This series of before and after photos gives some weight to the demolition side of the “demolition v. preservation” argument that raged at the time.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46360829@N03/sets/72157623330009349/detail/

What happened to my uncle? By the time of the Great War his family had moved a few miles south to near the Loughborugh Road north of Brixton. He, and my Aunt, brought up three daughters in a “two up, and two down”. The “down” being a mouldy basement and the “up” rooms off a common stairwell with no front door, part of a three story Victorian tenement terrace. My Uncle, a postman all his working life, and Aunt were finally rehoused in their retirement and spent a few happier years in Sudbury, Suffolk in the early 1970's. Houses in their road today that have been returned to single occupancy, and with renovated interiors, sell for £600,000+ Something they could only have dreamed of.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks very much for your story, along with the links on the Pullen Estate. Most interesting. I hope Lateralthinking1 sees this.

[Anna]

Pegleg - you've come up trumps with your research! I've had a quick look, will read thoroughly later. The two branches of my family I mentioned living in Penton Place and Peacock Street (who had been living in the area before, all around Surrey Square up to East Street) were some of the first tenants but later moved, (to Plumstead!) ending direct family links to Southwark around 1911 and the last one dying there in Spanish flu epidemic.

I also hope Lat reads this, I know he said his Nan was rehoused in a high-rise, I sincerely hope it wasn't on the Aylebury Estate - looking at that photo of the Heygate - surely the original housing could never have been that bad, caused people so much misery?

[Pegleg]

Plumstead? Anna, the FOR3 world is getting smaller everyday. My wife's maternal grandparents came down from Morayshire after WW2 to be near relatives and lived in a small Victorian two-up two-down in Burridge Road Plumstead. Re-development was going on this part of SE London too. They were subject to a compulsory order. They were still working past their retirement and her grandfather died in this two week factory holiday break leaving his wife to be stuck in a high-rise.

looking at that photo of the Heygate - surely the original housing could never have been that bad, caused people so much misery?

I think in some cases the original housing around that area really was at rock bottom. The photo set contains this Southwark council document:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46360829@N03/4380033806/in/set-72157623330009349/lightbox/

If we can take it at face value, this page: https://southwarknotes.wordpress.com...ark-1900-1987/ shows there were successes in what you might call municipal socialism in Bermondsey and Southwark in the inter and post war years. But things seem to have gone badly wrong in what you might call the second phase of development in the 1960's, when as the article describes "the local metropolitan councils of Bermondsey, Southwark and Camberwell had been amalgamated to form the London Borough of Southwark. The London County Council had at the same time been re-jigged as the Greater London Council (GLC)."

[Lateralthinking1]

Thanks very much for your story, along with the links on the Pullen Estate. Most interesting. I hope Lateralthinking1 sees this.

I am going to read the latest posts next serial-apologist. I've just watched the programme on Camberwell Grove and want to get down a few thoughts while they are in my head. What a fantastic programme. I loved it. The Grove is just behind Denmark Hill station and close to Kings College Hospital. I know both well but as the Grove is tucked away, I was simply aware of it rather than very familiar with it. Dave the Anarchist was described as having moved there from a slum tenement a mile and a half a mile away off the Walworth Road. That places his original home firmly in my old stomping ground.

The reactions of Dave to the Aylesbury were moving. As a child I didn't have huge clarity when it was being constructed. But being of an ultra-sensitive disposition - not overly-anxious then but highly attuned to impressions - the "vibes" I picked up on were ones of acute panic and incomprehension. It was just like an invasion. I am sure that there were echoes there of the bombs that were dropped in the war. Somewhere in that kaleidoscope there were hints too of the space mission. Moon rockets were being placed at the end of the street. It felt authoritarian. The austere tower blocks could almost have been a checkpoint on the Berlin Wall. That thing Dave mentioned about not wanting to be put into a tiny compartment with many others in the clouds was not unusual. A teenage girl described it in the programme as a prison but it was almost like people felt they were being carted off to an asylum.

Dave was in no doubt that his earlier accommodation had been rough. That was not the case with many of the houses in his area and the fact that 70,000 properties were demolished in London between 1967 and 1976 is still breath taking. That many weren't lucky enough to live in homes that survived owes much to the fact that they were renting them but also that the houses were more ordinary than those in the Grove. They were smaller and not of the same merit historically, but nevertheless sound.

I started to regret that my Nan hadn't had the initiative to approach the Council as Dave had. She could have had a better life. But when I thought about it again, well, she was 80 in 1970 and he was in his 20s. I doubt that she would have coped with being in a part of an old property that was probably in a worse state of repair than the one she had been living in. Many Daves ended up in the tower blocks with the elderly. Through no fault of their own - they were, after all, young, energetic and often naturally wild - they quickly became a problem for older residents where everyone was just crammed in. Fortunately it could have been worse for my Nan, and my aunt and uncle who were moved with her, having lived on the second floor of her rented house. They were placed in one of four 13 storey blocks on Portland Street, very close to the Aylesbury but not officially at least on the estate itself.

I really enjoyed all of the stories in the programme and learnt quite a lot. It has always been difficult to square the regular atmosphere on the main thoroughfare in Camberwell - what we have always called Camb'ell Gate - with the artistic set. However, the excellent Booth poverty maps help to explain that back story and of course there has been an Art College in the area for many years. Wasn't it even attended by one of the Royals? All in all, a great hour of social history. I'm looking forward to the others.

[Anna]

Plumstead? Anna, the FOR3 world is getting smaller everyday. My wife's maternal grandparents came down from Morayshire after WW2 to be near relatives and lived in a small Victorian two-up two-down in Burridge Road Plumstead.

Pegleg Spooky! Mine were in Benares Road, Plumstead. I think, from a quick google at maps, that's a lot further out West than Burridge Rd and not far from Plumstead High Street where the family had - wait for it - a bicycle repair shop!! The street doesn't seem to have been redeveloped and has nice terraced housing. Thanks for additions to your post, will read those later. Also looking forward to Lat's further thoughts as his family have recent experience/memories of the area which mine don't.

[JFLL]

And I see what people mean by the olde worlde look of Deptford. Here's a photo of St Paul's I just popped out and took:

And for a clunking segue back to music:



[Photo from Caroline's Miscellany blog]

Didn't realize Andrew had a day job.