Thames Discovery Programme - Rotherhithe Ethical foreshore exploration (10th March 2018)

https://www.mola.org.uk/thames-discovery-programme-rotherhithe-ethical-foreshore-exploration 
At previous Rotherhithe investigations by the Thames Discovery programme a large number of nautical timbers were recorded; these are likely to represent the remains of ship breaking on the foreshore during the 18th century. Other structures of interest include access features associated with the Mayflower PH, bargebeds and widespread artefact scatters of Delftware kiln waste and animal bone representing localised waterfront activity. The twice daily tide will have revealed a wide range of different artefacts for the participants to discover on this foreshore exploration. Although, in order to protect the historic nature of the foreshore we request that you take only photographs and memories with you.

10.03.2018
Brunel Museum, Railway Ave, Rotherhithe, London, SE16 4LF

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Time: 11:00 GMT
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The Prince of Orange public house, Lower Road, Rotherhithe

The Prince of Orange in 2016

Located at the corner of 118 Lower Road and Orange Place (SE16 2UH), immediately opposite Hoath Place, is an attractive building of yellow stock and red brick that was once a pub, and has since been converted into apartments.

The pub was named for the heir to the Dutch throne, William, the Prince of Orange (6 December 1792 – 17 March 1849) who became King William II of the Netherlands in 1840.  Prior to inheriting the throne he had been a key player in the Napoleonic Wars, serving with the British Army from 1811 and becoming Aide de Camp to the Pince Regent in 1812, before being promoted to Major General in 1813, then to Lieutenant Colonel and then General.  He fought at the Battle of Waterloo on 18th June 1815, where he was wounded   He was affectionately known by the Duke of Wellington's staff as "Slender Billy."   Although it doesn't have much to do with this story, a nice little factoid is that the Prince of Orange once travelled by train from London Bridge to Greenwich through Bermondsey, on the viaduct designed by Colonel George Landmann, shortly before the London and Greenwich Railway opened in 1836. 

The Prince of Orange pub was opened in 1859 as a beer house, and the building is clearly Victorian.  Stuart Rankin (Walk C) says that Orange Place appears in Parish Registers in 1810, so it looks as though the pub might have been named for the street rather than the more usual practice of naming a road after a pub.  The same thing happened with Trinity Church in Rotherhithe's Downtown, where the church was named after Trinity Street, on which it was built in the mid 1800s.  The prince, however, was only 17 in 1810, so the matter remains unclear.  The pub gained its full licensed status in 1874.  Orange Place was marked on the 1868 Ordnance Survey map, and terminated where it met Southwark Park. Immediately to the east of the pub was a short, narrow road which is not provided with a name on the 1868 map, but was probably built at the same time as the pub for deliveries.  The road opposite, now Hoath Place, was Portland Place at that time, and both were flanked by terraced housing, as was Lower Road.  By 1894 the service road for the pub had been replaced by a narrow building on the other side of which a church was established (I haven't figured out which one but it is now no longer there), Portland Place was now Hothfield Place, and tram rails had been laid along Lower Road, with a tram service passing in front of the pub. 

Its landlord for some of the 1920s was Albert Matthew Mimms who remained until he died in 1933.  A photograph of the funeral taken by the funeral director shows the cortège outside the pub (see photograph to the left). 

The Prince of Orange in the 70s or early 80s

The photograph at the end of the post shows it as it was, probably in the 1970s (there's a Leyland Princess on the forecourt, which were produced from 1975-1981, and were not the most durable of vehicles!).  It was well known in the mid 1970s and 80s for being a popular live jazz venue, and amongst those who played there were (the links go to external sites) a teenage Jools Holland, the band Loose Tubes, who had their first gig at the Prince of Orange in 1984 (and whose 30th anniversary at Ronnie Scott's), Andy Graham, Chris Barber's Jazz and Blues Band, The Big Beer Band, and the short-lived but endearingly named Whip the Minister.  For reasons unknown, perhaps a change in musical preferences amongst the surrounding population, it ceased to be popular and although it revived briefly as a gay venue in the 90s, it eventually closed.

Fortunately, it was converted into apartments, in the late 1990s, its name changed to Prince of Orange Court, and the conversion was very sympathetic to the exterior architecture, which was restored, retains the Prince of Orange title that was built into it, and looks terrific.  The second floor was extended at the rear of the building to provide additional residential space, and this too was done very sympathetically, completely in keeping with the architecture of the reset of the building.

The Big Beer Band, playing at the pub before its
closure in the 90s.  Photograph from The Big Beer Band website

One of the apartment conversions

Campaign to save The Clipper pub

The Clipper is a 1930s building on Rotherhithe Street and until recently it was a really nice pub with a great atmosphere and some lovely people on both sides of the bar.  It was open all day, served excellent food, hosted events and darts matches and had some great live bands and themed parties at Halloween, Christmas, New Year's Eve and Burns Night.  And it was a great place to relax, a stone's throw from the Thames Path. The brewery bought out the landlord and since then two planning applications have been submitted, both intending to replace the pub with blocks of flats, removing yet another community resource in Rotherhithe.  Local residents have successfully defeated both planning applications and there is now a campaign to save the pub.  The Save The Clipper campaign has its own Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/savetheclipper/?fref=nf, where people have been adding their good memories about the pub going back many years.  They are hoping to add many more members to demonstrate our support for the survival of one of the few surviving pubs in Rotherhithe so please join up if you would like to see The Clipper saved.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/savetheclipper/?fref=nf

 

James Abbott McNeill Whistler in Rotherhithe: The Thames Set

"Rotherhithe." Etching and drypoint.
Composed at the Angel Inn 1860.
Victoria and Albert Museum CAI-139

This post is a departure from my usual focus on historic Rotherhithe buildings, ships that were built here up until the end of the 19th Century and very recent fluffy cygnets.  I have a real passion for modern art so it is a great pleasure to be able to post about a very brilliant 19th Century artist and the paintings he did of Rotherhithe and this part of the Thames.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was a superb American-born painter who, although probably best known for his wonderful oils, also produced remarkable etchings and drypoints.  The Whistler Etchings Project describes him as a "controversial figure in the Victorian art world . . . both an influential and outspoken artist, and a meticulous hard-working craftsman."  He learned to etch as a U.S. Navy cartographer but went to Paris in 1855 to train as an artist where he was heavily influenced by Gustav Courbet, other realist painters and newly imported Japanese print work as well as Charles Meryo's etchings of the less obviously scenic parts of Paris.  In 1859 he decided to move to London, where he experimented with new subjects and styles.  His hope was to attract patrons amongst the wealthy ship builders and merchants whose exotic cargoes came into the Port of London from the east.

Shortly after his arrival in London Whistler began a series of etchings and drypoints that captured life on the Thames. Whistler acquired accommodation in Wapping for two months so that he could get to know the river in person.  Between 1859 and 1861 he made sixteen etchings of Rotherhithe and from Rotherhithe towards Wapping, which became known as "The Thames Set."  These demonstrate his consummate skill as a draftsman and his ability to pick out the essentials of life using a minimalist approach.  Quite apart from their artistic merit, they are considered to be a singularly useful record of the Thames riverside in the process of transition.  Instead of focusing exclusively on pretty scenes, of which there were plenty along the Thames, Whistler was particularly interested in the working life of the river, showing the influence of Meryo's own interests but bringing to them his own rather more sparse, direct and less convoluted style.  His focus in these images combines a reductionist linearity with which he managed to convey an almost photographic type of realism.  People familiar with his more atmospheric, intense and Japanese-influenced later works may be surprised at the impact of some these compositions.

Whistler used etching and drypoint techniques used to create prints.  There's an excellent description on the Hunterian Museum's website at http://etchings.arts.gla.ac.uk/exhibition, and rather than attempt to paraphrase it, I've simply copied it here:

Whistler with his etching press
(Copyright the Hunterian Gallery)

A thin copper plate was heated, covered with a thin acid-resistant ground, and smoked to produce a shiny black surface. Whistler drew with steel etching needles, which scratched bright copper lines through the ground. Etching is an intaglio process (from the Italian intagliare, 'to incise.') The incised lines were etched with nitric acid diluted with water, which bit down into the exposed lines.

After washing the plate, Whistler checked for scratches and mistakes. Then he could heat the plate, hammer out mistakes, and start again, using 'stopping-out varnish' to protect satisfactory areas. He also worked in drypoint, drawing directly on the plate with a needle, which threw up a metal ridge or 'burr'. Additions and changes were made in etching or drypoint. Each change produced a new 'state' of the etching.

The plate was cleaned, warmed, and dabbed with brown or black printer's ink. Surface ink was wiped off, leaving ink in the etched lines or drypoint burr. The plate, placed on damped paper, was pulled under pressure through the printing press.

The printed image appeared in reverse as fine dark lines. An indent (the plate mark), shows where the plate pressed into the paper. The first prints from a plate are often called proofs; all prints are known as impressions. A set of etchings, limited in number, could be published as an edition, by artist or dealer.

When enough impressions had been pulled from a plate, it was cancelled by drypoint lines or acid, and some impressions printed to prove that it had been cancelled. In a very few cases the plate was later restored and reprinted by other printers. . . . 

The printed image appears as fine brown or black lines on the paper. A slight indent (the 'plate mark') appears round the edge, where the copper plate pressed into the paper. The scene appears in reverse on the paper. Since Whistler usually drew on site, from nature, his views are reversed. He had to write his signature back to front on the plate for it to be readable.

The first prints pulled from a plate are called proofs. Each print is known as an impression; and a defined number of impressions may be printed from any plate

Whistler developed new techniques to add texture and variation in his etchings and drypoints, eventually moving towards using drypoint alone, and found that different papers had an impact on the way in which his works appeared when printed.  As a collection both the etchings and the pure drypoints are remarkable. STYLE.  These were painted early in his career and are remarkable for their strength and energy. 

Little Wapping. From the Angel Inn. 1861.
Fitzwilliam Museum P283-1954

Whistler's first Thames etchings date from 1858 until 1871 and the Rotherhithe and Wapping etchings are notable for their focus on local subject matter - barges loaded with cargo, and lines of sailing shipped moored up along the river, local working men, busy riverside scenes, and wharf-side buildings. Unlike some of his more glamorous Thames oil paintings, these are all about the unadorned reality of the working river, and the monochrome textures of his brush strokes complement his subject matter beautifully.  Writers on the subject of the Thames Set have a habit of talking about the decrepit and decaying buildings that Whistler depicted, but I wonder if he saw them that way.  There's nothing dying about the world he captured - everything is full of life and immediacy.  Whistler captured moments in time, but he did so in a way that collectively endured as a visual narrative of life along the Pool of London.

One of Whistler's favourite spots for these remarkable Thames scenes was the Angel Inn at 101 Bermondsey Wall East, Rotherhithe, SE16 4NB (The Angel was covered in an earlier post).  To ensure that they had maximum impact he kept the etchings concealed until they were published in 1871 as A Series of Sixteen Etchings of Scenes on the Thames (which subsequently became known as The Thames Set).   They were a great financial success for Whistler.  Many of them were later displayed at an exhibition called simply The Works of James Whistler, Etchings and Drypoints in 1874.  The Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow has a project to explore Whister's etchings and has identified over 9000 impressions of them worldwide.  In the UK there are examples at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge and, of course, the Hunterian.  The Hunterian has a collection of both his prints and the original copper plates on which they were made. 

The picture at the top of the page is the most famous of the Thames Set.  It was originally composed in 1860 and shows the Thames from the vantage point of the balcony of the Angel.  Whistler used the same vantage point for his oil paintings Wapping and The Thames in Ice.  It is possible to pick out the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral through the rigging of the ship to the left of the composition. 

The Little Pool, 1871, Fitzwilliam Museum

Another etching and drypoint, printed on old Dutch laid paper, was The Little Pool, which also produced in 1861 (see right) and was used as an announcement card for Whistler's 1861 exhibition.  The men in top-hats are thought to show Whistler working in the company of the gallery's owner and it is thought to have been composed on a pier along the Bermondsey wall.   Between the barges and the rigged ships are rowing boats moving across the river.  The intense dark colour of the figures and the ships in the distance contrast with the lighter and less detailed barges and the lone figure in the foreground.  The sense of immediacy, a moment captured in time, is emphasised by the figures and the rowing boats, but there is a timelessness about the motionless ships and barges, a real sense of an unchanging world that was, however, an illusion.  Although Whistler rarely showed steam ships in his etchings and paintings, preferring to show a less industrialized world, steam ships were a fixture on the Thames at this time.  When Whistler was etching and painting, the world was changing and ships were changing dramatically at the same time.

The second etching from the top of the page, with the caption Little Wapping was done in 1861 and is again thought to have been done from the Angel, facing upriver. It is a rather more static scene than some of the other Thames examples and even though there are figures in rowing boats and lightermen are shifting the barge in the foreground, there is a sense of things at rest.  Note the ships moored down the centre of the river, dividing it effectively into two navigational channels.

Longshore Men 1859, possibly at The Angel Inn

To the left is the etching Longshore Men.  It may have shown a scene in the Angel Inn, because this was a favourite haunt of Whistler's but it could have been another pub in the Rotherhithe or Wapping area too.  Whistler was often not specific about the geographical details of his subject matter.  Longshore men were casual labourers who worked the river and its wharves.  They are often shown in his paintings of general activity on the river, but here they make up the subject matter.  Like all of Whistler's etchings they are a mixture of detail and impressionistic suggestion of shape provided by a few lines.  This is one of the best examples of how Whistler achieved ranges of tone and texture by the skilled build up of individual lines.  They way in which one of the characters looks straight out of the painting gives it an almost photographic sense of a moment caught in time.  In the background a woman and her child give the scene a rather more domestic air than might be expected in a Thames-side establishment.

Steven's Barge Builders, Rotherhithe, 1859

One of Whistler's more impressionistic etchings was Stevens' Boat Yard, done in 1859.  William Henry Stevens was a barge and small boat builder located at 40 Rotherhithe Street.  It is particularly nice to have a scene that shows a local business, and it gives a good idea of what the Thames at Rotherhithe would have looked like before the wooden elements were lost forever.  The scene shows three boys in the foreground next to a barge, various distinctive buildings along the Thames at the right, one of the multiple small boats that crossed the Thames all the time and, in the far distance, ships moored down the centre of the river.

The photograph below, from the superb book "On The River" (reviewed on this blog in an earlier post) shows a photograph of the Angel Public House.  It's not that much different from the scenes that Whistler was painting nearly a century earlier.

Both sides of the river are shown in "Wapping," one of the few of Whistler's
depictions of the Thames to show a steam boat. 1860-64, oil on canvas, 
© National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

The Thames in Ice 1860
The Freer Gallery, Washington DC.

Whistler Self-portrait, 1859
Etching and drypoint.
Victoria and Albert no.19799

Book: "On The River: Memories of a Working River"

Enormous thanks to Alfie Read for lending this book to me.  It was he who loaned me Between Bridgers, and has plenty of terrific stories of his own.  On The River was published in 1989, on the centenary of the Dockers' Tanner Strike of 1889.  It covers all of the docks and the main channel of the river.  Fascinatingly it began as a piece of Reminiscence Theatre that used the words of the contributors and the songs they remembered to assemble a touring show. 

It begins with  a short Preface by Pam Schweitzer, one of the book's editors, and an Introduction by Ron Todd, the then General Secreatary of the Transport and General Workers' Union.  These are followed by some reflection son the Dockers' tanner Strike by Jack Jones.  But this book is not about political, commercial or industrial history.  It is social history, because this is a book of stories by people who lived on the river, worked in the docks and lived the lives that the river provided for them.  There are a series of chapters, each divided into a whole series of short themes.

The chapters are:  A Child's Eye View of the River; A Sense of Community; Riverside Views; Up and Down the River; Hard Times on the River; Disasters on the River; Riverside Trades; Lightermen The Aristocracy of the River; Dockers and Stevedores; The Building of the Dock; Labour Organisation and Industrial Disputes.

There are some terrific photographs of the river and the docks throughout, but the stories are what makes this come to life.  I'll give just a couple of examples, local ones.

This was written by Bill Lindley in the chapter "A Child's Eye View of the River," under the theme "Swimmers and the River Police:"

I've swum across to Wapping from Rotherhithe when I was twelve. You'd do it with a couple of your mates for a dare.  We used to go from Platform Wharf.  You'd wait for high water.  Couldn't do it if it wasn't high water.  We used to have to do it when there was no what they call 'Four Beetles and a Log' around - that was the coppers.  They used to call them 'Four Beetles and a Log' because they used to be in these long black boats you know.  And you had to watch them because Wapping police station was over there.  They'd drag you out of the water and give you a walloping.

In the chapter "Disasters on the River," Flo Lindley wrote about The Blitz:

Three o'clock in the afternoon, Jerry lit up the place.  He set fire to Surrey Docks. Again at five o'clock.  And then he came back at seven.  Luckily one bridge remained open.  Otherwise we would have lost everybody there.  That night I had a carrier bag with a blanket and two children in my arms and my mother and father with me.  I was going to the pub, and the police said to me, 'Don't go.'  They turned me back and I said, 'Why?' And of course, being inquisitive I went, didn't I?  I went and had a look.  And he'd bombed it, the pub, and the church, and the shop.  The first daylight raid we had. 

In the chapter "Lightermen" Frances Amelia Edwards writes about an incident with a coal barge in the Surrey Docks in 1954:

My husband Harry was working on the coal barges.  What happened one day was that there were six coal barges they were working on.  They'd got five of these away, but they couldn't get the other one out as the tide was too high and they had to cut the rope because they couldn't get out to it.  They left it, and they went and had a drink and a rest, and when they came back, the whole barge had got fixed inn between the dock piers.  People came from all over the place to have a look at it.  They had to wait till high tide to release the barge again.  There was a court of enquiry and they nearly lost their jobs, but the company was very short-staffed so they kept them on.  that was in the Surrey Docks in 1954.

The amazing generosity of the people who contributed to this book has made it an absolute classic, if you are interested in local history as it was actually lived.  In case people reading this post are interested, those contributors who are listed as living in Rotherhithe and Surrey Docks are:  Harry Brown, Fed Coombs, Nell Coombs, Morry Foley, Bill Lindley, Flo Lindley, Jimmy Newcombe, Lil Newcombe, Bill Wardell but there are contributors from all over the area, including Deptford, Greenwich, Blackheath, Limehouse, the Isle of Docs, Charlton, Stepney, Woolwich, Canning Town, Silvertown, Poplar etc.

There's no table of contents or index, so it's a matter of enjoying it in the order in which it is delivered, rather than flipping to the pages that might interest you most.  That suits me just fine, as the stories are all so fascinating.  Although it's about the Port of London as a whole, there's enough about Rotherhithe to keep me going for a very long time, and my recent Downtown post is going to need a major update, as are several others!

It's a wonderful book, and I've just ordered a second-hand copy of it.  So sad when books like this go out of print but thank goodness for online sources of second-hand books.

On The River. Memories of a Working River.
Edited by Pam Schweitzer and Charles Wegner
An Age Exchange Publication
ISBN 0947860096

Update re planning application for The Clipper pub?

I am somewhat out of touch with what has happened with the planning application (14/AP/1407) for The Clipper pub on Rotherhithe Street, but I just checked Southwark Council's page for it and it is now marked as "withdrawn."  I know that there was a huge flood of objection to the planning application from residents in the immediate vicinity of the pub, so this must have influenced the decision.

It appears to have been replaced by a new application 14/AP/4337, again available on the Southwark Council website: "Demolition of existing building and the erection of replacement four storey building comprising commercial unit (Use Class A1 or A2) at ground floor and basement level and 6 flats on first, second and third floors, associated car parking and amenity area." 

If anyone has any further information do let me know.

St Helena's Tea Garden and Tavern, Corbett's Lane, Rotherhithe

The St Helena tea gardens and tavern in 1843

St Helena's tea garden and tavern shared a site to the south of Lower Road.  they are marked on the 1843 map to the right as a small pink block.  According to Edward Walford, writing in 1897 (in Old and New London. A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and Its Places - The Southern Suburbs, Volume VI), the tea gardens were opened in 1770 and closed in 1881 and, by the time he was writing, the site had been built over.  There is no indication of why the gardens and tavern were name St Helena.  They were established before Napoleon had been exiled to the island of the same name, and none of the saints of that names seem to be obvious candidates.

At one time the tea gardens and tavern sat on the rural edges of Rotherhithe and were, as a result, a major attraction.  In their heyday they were visited by such fashionable people as the Prince Regent (the future King George IV, 1762-1830) so it must have been quite a significant rural attraction.  Walford  says that a newspaper advert in May 1776 "announces that there are tea, coffee and rolls every day, with music and dancing in the evening."  There were also the gardens, which were supposed to be very pretty, including pleasure lawns, a number of ornamental ponds, trees, two Chinese pavilions and some statues.  It was surrounded by hay fields, unimaginable today.

However, as the docklands grew more successful and the area in which the gardens were located became less rural, it became more of an attraction for local people.  Walford emphasises that the tea gardens were "chiefly supported by the lower classes of the neighbourhood, the families of men who worked in the docks.  In the summer there were brass bands and dancing platforms, singing, tumbling and fireworks, for the selection of the merry souls of 'Redriff;' but the place never attained more than a local celebrity or affected to be a rival of Ranelagh or Vauxhall" (page 138) thereby putting it firmly in its place, just in case it had any remaining delusions of social grandeur.  According to another source, the Gardens also had sports displays, tight-rope walkers and similar circus-type events, and a remarkable-sounding centrifugal railway, about which I would love to know much more! 

The St Helena Tavern and Tea Gardens in 1839.
From the Ideal Homes website at http://bit.ly/1CHbGcq

According to Warwick Wroth (The London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century, 1896) in 1832 "the gardens occupied about five acres and a half, and in this year the performers advertised included Mr. G. R. Chapman 'from the Adelphi and Astley's' as organist and musical director, Mrs. Venning, 'from the Nobility's Concerts,' Miss Wood, 'the Infant Prodigy, only six years of age,' and Miss Taylor who performed 'many difficult airs on that delightful instrument, the Musical Glasses'."

Both the tavern and the tea gardens stood on Corbett's Lane, which no longer survives but ran parallel to today's Rotherhithe New Road.  It is now St Helena Road. The 1843 map at the top of the page shows its original location (shaded in pink and marked as the St Helena Tea Gardens) just south of today's one-way system, where Plough Way crosses Lower Road and begins to extend towards the Old Kent Road. 

The St Helena Tavern in 1870 by J.T. Wilson
© The Southwark Art Collection

The watercolour on the right shows St Helena's Tavern as it looked in 1870. It is significantly different from the 1839 version above, and suggests that the tavern may have been rebuilt or at least significantly modified at some point between the two dates. been rebuilt.  The painter of the 1870 watercolour , J.T. Wilson, was a water colour painter who specialized in landscapes and who was well respected.  He exhibited at a number of galleries, including the Royal Academy of Arts, and his interest in this as a subject matter is an indication of the reputation that the tavern and tea gardens had in the late 1800s.  Bizarrely, in this picture it looks as though it has a satellite dish on its roof!  I haven't found a photograph with good enough resolution to see what it actually represents - but my best guess is a clock.

The 1868 Ordnance Survey map of North Deptford shows the St Helena Tea Rooms as quite a substantial property surrounded by trees.  Further along Corbett's Lane, to the east, is the St Helena Tavern.  They are both shown on the scan of the 1868 map below, highlighted in pink (click image to expand). At the top of the map, to give an easy point of reference, Surrey Docks station is highlighted at the apex of today's one-way system in green.  Lower Road is the large diagonal road marked as Deptford Lower Road.  Both the tea rooms and the tavern are clearly shown lying to the south and west of dense areas of residential terraces and railway lines and it is obvious, looking at the map, that they would soon become subsumed into the advancing urbanization of the area.

The 1868 Ordnance Survey map of North Deptford

Wroth says that the concerts, dancing and other amusements continued until about 1869 but that at that time the gardens appear to have been closed for a while before passing, in 1874, into the hands of Messrs. W. H. and J. R. Carter "who erected an orchestra and a dancing platform, and provided music and fireworks for an admission of sixpence. The gardens had fallen into a neglected state, but the walks were once more well laid out, and the old chestnut trees, the elms and planes were still standing." 

Although it was almost inevitable that the tea rooms would become a casualty of urban expansion, many pubs were incorporated into new communities and survived quite happily.  However the St Helena Tavern was apparently closed in 1881 along with the tea rooms.  Both were presumably sold to developers. 

By 1889 the area in which the tea garden had been located was shown on Charles Booth's 1889 Descriptive map of London Poverty.  It is a densely residential area, full of rows of terraces, of which Corbett's Lane was one.  The area, on Booth's map, was a mixture of poor and mixed (some comfortable and some poor) housing, and the idea that this was once an admired and valued rural area seems so unlikely.

In the 1916 Ordnance Survey map of North Deptford, Corbett's Lane had undergone a name change and was now, appropriately, St Helena Road.  The scene was very different, a mass of residential streets, row upon row of them. Again I have highlighted Surrey Docks station to give a point of reference, and the area under pink is more or less where the St Helena tea gardens and tavern used to be located (click to expand the image).

The area in 1916, on the Ordnance Survey
map of North Deptford

The terraces were also demolished and replaced by blocks of flats.  I find this sad, as the few vestiges of the terraces that survive show that they were really attractive buildings. Today the area in which the tea rooms and tavern were located is one of Rotherhithe's most congested residential areas and it is now covered by the block of flats at 23 St Helena Road, part of the Silwood Estate (there is a photograph of the present building on the Geolocation website). 

The China Hall, Rotherhithe

China Hall, 1916

The China Hall is a pub on Lower Road, facing Southwark Park (141 Lower Road, London SE16 2XL). The site has a very lively history.

In 1719 a pub on the site was called the "Cock and Pye Ale House."  It later became the "Marsh Gate" and records show that in 1776 it was leased to Jonathan Oldfield, at which time it was called the "Green Man."  Oldfield was a trader, dealing in tea and china, a classic example of a late 18th century entrepreneur.  He built a theatre on land next to the pub, a wooden building that could hold 500 people and staged plays and hosted musical concerts; this was named the China Hall.  The prices for seats were 3s for boxes, 3s for the pits and 1s for the gallery. 

George Frederick Cooke

During 1778 George Frederick Cooke 1756-1812) acted there.  Cooke was a famous and influential actor, whose acting style had a great impact on the more famous Edmund Keane, but at the same time he was an alcoholic and notoriously unreliable.  His last role had been at Covent Garden, but his behaviour disrupted his career:  "He now frequently appeared behind the scenes in a state of complete inebriation, or rather insensibility, in despite of all his friends could say to dissuade him from it.  He was accordingly laid upon the shelf for the remainder of the season" (from Roach's New and Complete History of the Stage, 1796).  He sought work at smaller theatres, including the China Hall, which was a success, his name attracting good audiences.  He was probably a good match for the China Hall, which itself apparently caused some disruption and was the subject of several complaints due to the noise and the undignified behaviour of its customers.

Another actor, who also performed at the China Hall in the 1778 season and was in several performances with Cooke, was Edward Cape Everard, a dancer, actor and musician, whose autobiography Memoirs of an Unfortunate Son of Thespis was published in 1818.  According to the book Eagan to Garrett: Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800 (Highfill, Burnim and Langhans 1991), Everard performed in numerous plays at the China Hall including The Devil to Pay, The Busy Body, The Clandestine Marriage, Romeo and Juliet, Venice Preserv'd, High Life Below Stairs, The Earl of Essex, The Fashionable Lover, Cross Purposes, The Irish Widow and The London Merchant.  Other plays that were performed there, according to Edward Walford, were The Wonder, Love in a Village, Comical Courtship, and The Lying Valet.

The theatre burned down on 26th June in 1778 or 1779 (the various sources are in dispute) but according to Everard, a temporary wooden structure was erected in the gardens  in which The Merchant of Venice was performed only four days later on 30th June.  The temporary theatre, apparently little more than a large shed, remained in place for at least six weeks.  Oldfield was not deterred and re-opened again, but the new building was destroyed in a storm, after which Oldfied threw in the theatrical towel.  However, the China Hall re-opened in 1787 as a tavern.   Writing in 1872, Edward Walford  says that it had been "a picturesque building partly surrounded by an external gallery."

The China Hall faced land that was occupied by market gardens (today Southwark Park).  Across the park a that was called the Halfpenny Hatch (not to be confused with the Deptford path of the same name) led to the pub, starting in blue Anchor Road crossing Lower Road and, according to some accounts, extending to the Dog and Duck tavern, which was located near to the entrance of the docks.  The pathway was subject to a toll payment, but anyone drinking at the pub was refunded the toll fee.  Both the China Hall and Halfpenny Hatch path are still visible on the 1843 B.R. Davies map (picked out in green and red respectively).   Here, the Halfpenny Hatch extends to the Grand Surrey Canal at the bottom end of the Commercial Dock Company's land, leading into Deptford Road (now Salter Road).

The China Hall obviously suffered some other terminal indignity and for reasons unknown was rebuilt in the 1860s, albeit with the same sign that had adorned the previous building. 

The site of the theatre became a well known tea-gardens, with the during the Victorian period.  By the mid 1800s China Hall Road has been established, which later became Rotherhithe New Road.

Map of the Rotherhithe Estates in 1849
(from Codrington) showing China Hall Road,
now Rotherhithe New Road

A photograph of the pub in 1916 (at the top of this page) shows a brick-built building with a wide ground floor frontage with wide windows divided by pilasters. The first floor has four tall, slender arched windows. It was an end of terrace building, and to its left it was connected to other buildings looking out onto a narrow pavement and the street beyond, including a hairdresser and what appears to be a tiny newsagent advertising "ices."  The hairdresser, to the left of the China Hall, has the same style of windows and was probably built at around the same time, although it is shorter and narrower.

By 1920s the tea gardens that had originally belonged to the China Hall were absorbed into the Surrey Commercial Docks as part of a timber yard.  Tea gardens were a popular feature of late 19th and early 20th Century Bermondsey and Rotherhithe, but like the more famous Bermondsey Cherry Gardens, they all fell out of fashion.

Although the 1916 photograph clearly shows the China Hall as an end-of-terrace unpainted brick-built building, today the brick has been painted and is now invisible and the building, with an extension to the rear, is detached from its neighbours.   There used to be a road along the side of the pub, once known as Providence Row, shown in the photograph below as the stump where two cars are parked.  Just to the right of the picture is a narrow passage called China Hall Mews.  Providence Row is still shown on the 1868 and 1914 Ordnance Survey maps, terminated by a railway cutting, a siding of the East London Railway that ran along the end of the docks and under the Thames via the Thames Tunnel.

The China Hall today, by Chris Lordan
(under Creative Commons licence)

Planning Application for the Clipper Pub, Rotherhithe Street

Further to yesterday's post, thanks very much to Michelle for the planinng reference for the Clipper Pub:  14/AP/140.

As Michelle says, the cut-off date for making your comments on this application is 27th June 2014.  For full details, including documents, see the Southwark Council planning page for this application: http://bit.ly/1ueDtfb.  The planning officer for this application is David Cliff whose contact details are: 020 7525 4351 or planning.applications@southwark.gov.uk.

An artist's impression of what the new development will look like is shown above.  The short description on the Southwarm website is as follows: "Demolition of existing building and erection of new building comprising commercial unit (Use Classes A1 or A2) at ground floor and basement levels; and six residential dwellings on first, second and third floors, along with associated car parking and amenity area."  The developer is McCullochs. 

I cannot work out where the "associated car parking and amenity area" is to be located, as the only immediately visible land is the children's play area next to the Clipper, at the entrance to Russia Dock Woodland.   The Vehicle Parking section of the developer's application form shows that two car parking spaces are to be allocated, and that seven other spaces are to be allocated for "other" purposes but it is not stated what these "other" purposes are (that part of the form has been left blank).

Site plans and consultation details are on the Documents page (from which the image shown on this post is taken).

Update re The Clipper Pub, Rotherhithe Street

I have been asked many times about what is happening to The Clipper, the former pub on Rotherhithe Street near to the Hilton Hotel, one of the few 1930s buildings of this very distinctive type remaining on Rotherhithe.  

I heard today (with thanks to Charles) that there is now a small notice on the pub itself saying that the pub is to be knocked down and replaced with a four-storey modern building, which will include six apartments.  Only two carparking spaces have been allocated.

There is only a 21 day window to respond to the planning application and I can't find the planning application number on the Southwark Council website, so I'll try to go up there tomorrow and find out what's on the sign that has been attached to the pub.  I don't know when the sign was put up and therefore I have no idea how many days are left for people to respond.  

If you are local to the pub and have views about this, please go and have a look at the notice and respond either online or in writing to the planning application.

Update re planning application to demolish the Ship York

The Ship York. Photograph by Stephen Harris

There have been a lot of rumours circulating over the last few days about whether or not the Ship York has been sold to developers and whether or not its planning application has been accepted.  As usual with Southwark Council's planning pages I am completely confused about what has and hasn't been agreed re the Ship York at 375 Rotherhithe Street.  On the one hand there is a planning application number 13/AP/2407 (http://bit.ly/1bOJ74c), that, near the end of the page, says simply "Decision: Granted."  On the other hand, there is also a planning application number 13/AP/3839 (http://bit.ly/1pygj3X) that states "Decision: Application not yet decided."  I have no idea what all this means in planning terms, but I assume that the writing is on the wall for the pub!  If anyone has more experience at interpreting these various contradictory reports I would be most grateful for a little basic elucidation.

According to the original planning application back in 2010 the existing three-storey (plus basement) building will be replaced by a five-storey (plus basement) mixed-use development comprising of a public house at basement and ground floor level, and 8 x two-bedroom residential units above.  The application didn't go through in 2010 but the new application is presumably doing something to resolve objections in the original planning application - though I have no idea what.

The condition that the new development should have space for a public house at ground floor and basement area is presumably supposed to tackle the fact that the area is becoming short of pubs but doesn't address the matter of how many buildings of the 1930s/40s era remain on Rotherhithe. As The Clipper is almost certain to be demolished (it has been sold to developers) and most local people feel that it is only a matter of time before the Orange Bull (formerly The Fitchetts, before it later became The Aardvark) goes the same way, the only two pubs to surivive from the period will be The Ship, over the other side of Rotherhithe, and the former Three Compasses, which is now a pizza restaurant.  Southwark Council has gone apartment mad.    

The building is an attractive one, and is a really nice corner of 1930s Rotherhithe in an area that has suffered a lot of really third rate modern development.   It is a shame that its owners and Southwark Council are so ready to see it eliminated from the architectural diversity of the area.

The Ship York to be demolished for housing

The Ship York by Stephen Harris

More sad news for Rotherhithe pub-goers, with thanks to James Smith for bringing it to my attention.  A planning application to turn the The Ship York into housing has been posted on the Southwark Council website at: 

http://planningonline.southwark.gov.uk/AcolNetCGI.exe?ACTION=UNWRAP&RIPNAME=Root.PgeResultDetail&TheSystemkey=9552195.  

Thanks to the SE16.com team for letting me know that this is actually the resubmission of a lapsed planning proposal.  The current submission was entered on 11th November and the consultation period ended on the 3rd January, with no notification in the press.  

The application reads as follows:  "Demolition of the existing three-storey (plus basement) building and erection of a five-storey (plus basement) mixed-use development comprising of a public house at basement and ground floor level, and 8 x two-bedroom residential units above."

The building is not listed, but it's one of the few remaining 30s pubs on Rotherhithe, and is quite a nice example of the genre.  The site was home to a former pub with the same name. In his "Maritime Rotherhithe History Walks" book Stuart Rankin says that a pub with this name in Rotherhithe is first recorded as The York in 1809, and may have been named after HMS York launched by S and D Brent in 1807, although the “ship” was not added to the pub title until 1835.  

It will be a sad day when it goes.

Update re The Clipper pub

There has been a lot of interest in the future of The Clipper, on Rotherhithe Street.  A 1930s pub located opposite the Hilton Hotel, it was sold recently to developers by the brewery, Enterprise Inns.   Thanks to @brob11 (Twitter) for the information that the Propel Newsletter has an update on the plans for the building.  The Propel.info website describes itself as "a daily free-to-air newsletter for pubs, restaurants and food service operators."

Here's the relevant excerpt from today's newsletter.

Propel Newsletter  30th October 2013, edited by Paul Charity:

Developer buys Rotherhithe pub for just under £1m: The Clipper pub in Rotherhithe, South London less than 100 metres from the Thames has been bought buy a developer for just under £1m to turn into upmarket apartments. Panayiotis Themistocli of the agent AG and G said: “There was a lot of interest, with 14 offers – it lies opposite the Hilton Rotherhithe and has good transport links, including the Thames Clipper river boat. The Clipper was always going to appeal to developers.”

Julie, who managed The Clipper on behalf of the landlord Joe Springate, also landlord of the Moby Dick in Rotherhithe, is now working at the Moby Dick (and hosted an excellent Hallowe'en party there last weekend). I have been checking for a planning application for the site, but have not seen one yet.  I assume that the developers are currently pulling together the documentation to describe and support their plans for the site.

The Hilton Hotel opposite The Clipper has also been put up for sale, the sales brochure highlighting it's benefits for conversion into residential use, but although there are rumours that it is about to be sold to another hotel chain, nothing has been published and therefore remain unconfirmed.

Finally, rumours that the Scotch Derrick and basketball pitch site next to the Custom House block on Odessa Street are about to be replaced by a new housing project are similarly unconfirmed but seem plausible.

Rotherhithe heritage in trouble? A few examples

Yesterday was a good news day, with Ian's news that there's an exhibition of Whistler's Thames paintings at Dulwich, and that the City of Adelaide is residing for a few days at Greenwich on her way to Australia to be restored.   I was so pleased by both.  I'm sorry that today's post is less upbeat. 

A few weeks ago I created a new label, "Heritage in Trouble," to enable visitors to the site to find whatever I've posted about bits of local heritage that may be suffering due to neglect, development or other threats to their futures.

1821 Engine House brickwork in need of
re-pointing, St Marychurch Street

For those unfamiliar with the concept of labels on blogs, a label is a search device, where keywords (in this case at the bottom of the right hand column) will, when clicked on, display only the posts that correspond to the chosen topic. 

It is difficult to give a good job description for the "heritage in trouble" label as it is somewhat broad in its scope, but I thought that a few examples might help to define it, as well as highlighting some current local problems that need or may soon need addressing.

The list is below, but just to say - it is always worth keeping a weather eye on buildings and other structures of value that are near to you and, where necessary, reporting them to the council.  Threats can take the form of neglect (anything from flaking paintwork, colonization by vegetation and deterioration due to weathering, right up to intentional and sanctioned demolition by developers).

A recent loss is the Ebenezer Chapel and the adjacent building that housed the Dockland Settlement at Downtown.  The Russia Dock lock house was still standing when I first moved into the area 18 or so years ago, but was torn down to build a very dull apartment block. The deal porter shelter near the Dock Offices was supposed to be preserved for relocation when Canada Water tube station was built, but was magically lost.  The Lavender Pump House Museum of local history closed and I have no idea where the contents are now stored.  This is just a small sample of local losses, but when you add them up they begin to look rather concerning.  Once these pieces of the past are lost, they are lost for good.

If anyone has anything to add to the list, please let me know.  

Surrey Grand Canal Yard Office

1) The Grand Surrey Canal yard office on Rope Street

I have already posted about this on the blog, twice, and the windows and roof of the poor little building are still as dilapidated and unloved as they were then.  It is a tiny building, one of the few original structures left from time of the extension of Greenland Dock at the end of the 19th Century, and dates to 1902.  It is an electricity substation but according to Nicky Costin (Southwark Council's Road Network, Parking, Street Markets and Marina Business Manager), the electricity board don't know whether it is operational or not.  In my letter to Southwark Council I suggested that it should be restored because it looks like a perfect target for vandals at the moment, and there is graffiti on the back wall.  But although I received reassurances about my concerns and was told that I would be kept informed, I have heard nothing since.  It won't take a lot to take down down the wooden slats hiding the ugly brick filling of the former windows (at front and back of the building) and put something more suitable over them.   The roof is becoming colonized by moss, but this too would be easy to fix.  This is a lovely piece of heritage and someone at the Council needs to take responsibility for putting pressure on the relevant electricity board to use their vast financial resources to give it a much-needed makeover.

2) The Russia Dock Lock hydraulic machinery

The Friends of the Russia Dock Woodland first brought this to general attention.  The underpass that leads from the Moby Dick into the Russia Dock Woodland was once the lock that provided access from the Grand Surrey Canal into Greenland Dock.  If you look to the sides as you walk through it, you will see the lock features and depth measures engraved into the stone.  Up at road level, the original hydraulic machinery that operated the lock dates was preserved by the London Dockland Development Corporation, before they handed over responsibility to Southwark Council.  A fence and a locked gate were fitted many years ago.  Now, the gate's lock has been broken, the hydraulic equipment is horrendously overgrown, and there is rubbish everywhere.

3) The 1821 Engine House, St Marychurch Street
Although this is Grade II listed, and survives in the form of the original building's facade incorporated into a wall, some of the bricks of the 1821 Engine House have lost their pointing and will soon become very loose (the first photograph on this post).  There is also a tree branch overhanging it which makes it very difficult to see the details of the building, and this too needs to be addressed.  Trimming the branch will certainly not damage the tree itself.

4) The Greenland Dock tide house hydraulic machinery

Having seen the mess that the Russia Dock lock machinery was in, I went to have a look at the Greenland Dock tide house machinery.  A small temperate jungle is growing out of it - including buddleia trees, some of which have been trimmed down but none of which have been killed off to preserve the tide house machinery.  It is a real mess and needs to be sorted out before roots, branches and fallen leaves mess up the works entirely.  The hydraulics at Greenland Dock were in beautiful condition when the London Docklands Development Corporation handed it over to Southwark Council, and it has deteriorated progressively since then.  The rusting fence around it could do with a bit of paint to smarten it up because at the moment it looks such a mess.

5) Nelson Dock and Columbia Wharf
Now that the Hilton Hotel is up for sale, with the sales brochure positioning it as an ideal property for conversion into residential apartments, it will be necessary to keep an eye on any developers who purchase it.  In theory, the surviving Grade II listed features should be attractive to new residents and therefore not at risk, but not all developers see these things the same way.  The preserved Nelson Dock, the Bilbe patented slip, the Mills and Knight building (formerly the Bilbe slip's engine house) and Columbia Wharf itself are all valuable remnants of Rotherhithe's ship building past, and need to be preserved.  Fortunately the stunning Nelson House is now in private ownership, and the new owners have plans not merely to maintain the building but to improve its immediate environment.

6) The Clipper public house
The Clipper has recently been purchased by developers.  It might seem like an odd building to include under the term "heritage," but that is because 1930s architecture of this sort is never particularly attractive and therefore not always appreciated.  But it does have its own very real value as a building representative of a style and type that was widespread across London, which was particularly popular in the construction of pubs of the period.  The Clipper is not a thing of beauty but it is so typical of its period and, with its combination of typically 30s style brickwork, tiling and sash windows, it is the only building of its type along Rotherhithe Street.  A lot of local people have affection for it, and it will be a shame if it is sacrificed for yet more bland apartment blocks. 

7) The Scotch Derrick

It is no surprise that there are a lot of rumours locally about the fate of the piece of land at point where the northern part of Odessa Street bends abruptly to the left and, to the right, reconnects with the Thames Path.  This small corner of the area does have a slightly battered look, and the best thing about it is the wonderful Scotch Derrick that is preserved at the top of the basketball court at the edge of the river.  It is a terrific piece of heritage, about which I've written in the past, and a real Rotherhithe landmark.  At the moment there is an abandoned youth club hut and a basketball court, running up the side of the access to the former Downtown nightclub (currently occupied by squatters) and it is entirely probable that both developers and Southwark Council will feel that it would be ripe for development.  The Scotch Derrick should not be sacrificed during any of those plans. 

8) Greenland Dock
Prior to the London Olympics, temporary planning permission was applied for to establish a temporary marina over most of the area of Greenland Dock.  Although the permission applied for was for temporary facilities, the fittings required to achieve it would have been permanent.   The planning permission was contested on numerous grounds and was refused.  One of the biggest concerns at the time, which resulted in the establishment of a group of local residents who contested the project, was that this would be a thin end of the wedge, and that a temporary marina would segue into a permanent one covering the remaining area, eliminating one of the only areas of peaceful public open water available in south London. 

Greenland Dock lock gate, with foliage

9) The Greenland Lock Gates
The lock gates, with their walkways, are now degenerating fast.  The entire span of each bridge is now growing a small meadow these days, which doesn't bode well for its future structural integrity.  Roots eventually cause rot in wood, and they will eventually fall apart.  This needs to be addressed.

10) Bollards and capstans
Across Rotherhithe there are many of the original bollards and captstans from the late 1800s and early 1900s, many of which are getting heavily weathered.  They may not be at risk, but they are beginning to look tatty and need only a coat of paint to make them look very smart again.  What always worries me about buildings and features that begin to look neglected, even when they are structurally sound (like the yard office that started this post) they make everything around them look scruffy and unloved.

11) Lavender Pump House
Someone has brought it to my attention that the splendid Pump House building is not listed at the moment.  I couldn't believe that that was correct, but it does seem to be.  That makes the building, the remains of the Lavender pond and its surrounding land more vulnerable to development plans than it really ought to be.  It is a beautiful building with a unique history and it ought to be listed. 


I am making the assumption, I hope wisely, that the fact that 23 Paradise Street (William Gaitskell House) is up for sale, does not represent any threat to the building.  It is Grade II listed, and very fine indeed, the last of its sort in Rotherhithe.  I figure that if someone is willing to pay £2.5million (the asking price) for the property, they are probably going to look after their investment :-)


If you see any damage or deterioration in local buildings and other pieces of heritage it is always worth reporting them to Southwark Council because unless we report them they can't be fixed.

Anything to add? Please add a comment or email me.